Around the world, the population is ageing in ways that pose new challenges for healthcare providers. To date these have mostly been formulated in terms of challenges created by increasing costs, and the focus has been squarely on life-prolonging treatments. However, this focus ignores the ways in which many older people require life-enhancing treatments to counteract the effects of physical and mental decline. This paper argues that in doing so it misses important aspects of what justice requires when it comes (...) to older people. (shrink)

It is well known that the structure of honest elementary degrees is a lattice with rather strong density properties. Let $\mbox{\bf a} \cup \mbox{\bf b}$ and $\mbox{\bf a} \cap \mbox{\bf b}$ denote respectively the join and the meet of the degrees $\mbox{\bf a}$ and $\mbox{\bf b}$ . This paper introduces a jump operator ( $\cdot'$ ) on the honest elementary degrees and defines canonical degrees $\mbox{\bf 0},\mbox{\bf 0}', \mbox{\bf 0}^{\prime \prime },\ldots$ and low and high degrees analogous to the corresponding (...) concepts for the Turing degrees. Among others, the following results about the structure of the honest elementary degrees are shown: There exist low degrees, and there exist degrees which are neither low nor high. Every degree above $\mbox{\bf 0}'$ is the jump of some degree, moreover, for every degree $\mbox{\bf c}$ above $\mbox{\bf 0}'$ there exist degrees $\mbox{\bf a},\mbox{\bf b}$ such that $\mbox{\bf c}=\mbox{\bf a} \cup \mbox{\bf b} = \mbox{{\bf a}}'=\mbox{\bf b}'$ . We have $\mbox{\bf a}'\cup \mbox{\bf b}' \leq (\mbox{\bf a}\cup\mbox{\bf b})'$ and $\mbox{\bf a}'\cap \mbox{\bf b}' \geq (\mbox{\bf a}\cap \mbox{\bf b})'$ . The jump operator is of course monotonic, i.e. $\mbox{\bf a}\leq\mbox{{\bf b}}\Rightarrow \mbox{\bf a}'\leq \mbox{\bf b}'$ . We prove that every situation compatible with $\mbox{\bf a}\leq\mbox{\bf b}\Rightarrow \mbox{\bf a}'\leq \mbox{\bf b}'$ is realized in the structure, e.g. we have incomparable degrees $\mbox{\bf a},\mbox{\bf b}$ such that $\mbox{\bf a}'<\mbox{\bf b}'$ and incomparable degrees $\mbox{\bf a},\mbox{\bf b}$ such that $\mbox{\bf a}' = \mbox{\bf b}'$ etcetera. We are able to prove all these results without the traditional recursion theoretic constructions. Our proof method relies on the fact that the growth of the functions in a degree is bounded. This technique also yields a very simple proof of an old result, namely that the structure is a lattice. (shrink)

Since 1989, widely circulating statistics on gay teen suicide in the United States have acted as catalysts for institutional reforms, scientific research, and the creation of an identity category “gay youth.” While one figure has been replicated scientifically, these numbers originated not from a scientific research study but as risk estimates developed by a social worker and published in a government document. Many people within the public took up these original numbers, attributing their author the status of scientific researcher. In (...) effect, the numbers became “black boxed,” often traveling without citation. Drawing on Ian Hacking’s “dynamic nominalist” perspective, this article utilizes interviews with the author of these statistics and other key claimants, along with textual analysis, to trace the origins, uptake, and effects of these figures. While making vital policy contributions, the numbers have led to some ironic consequences including the fostering of gay youth identification with suicide as a potential correlate of their identity and the potential antigay redeployment of decontextualized numbers. They have also led to a reaction in the form of “resilience” narratives. (shrink)

How wrong is it to deceive someone into sex by lying, say, about one's profession? The answer is seriously wrong when the liar's actual profession would be a deal breaker for the victim of the deception: this deception vitiates the victim's sexual consent, and it is seriously wrong to have sex with someone while lacking his or her consent.

Guided by the concept of bullshit, broadly defined as a deceptive form of rhetoric intended to distract and/or persuade, we examine how fabrications and false statements— when crafted and distributed by the president of the United States—impact not only foreign policy making and implementation but also erode democratic norms. Unconstrained by reality, and seemingly driven more by celebrity and showmanship than a genuine desire to govern, we argue that President Trump’s penchant for bullshit is part of a concerted strategy to (...) sideline critics while simultaneously undermining the ongoing investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government. (shrink)

Scientists are seekers of truth; but where science breaks into the everyday world should they be held accountable for the outcome of their actions? The contributors to this volume believe that scientists are more than mere cogs in a machine - science, technology and politics are inseparable. Part 1 describes current scientific practice from three personal perspectives; part 2 looks at the ways in which science, society and the environment could interact given the chance; and part 3 examines the more (...) general aspects of Western science and their relevance to our relationship with the environment, society and all global issues. (shrink)

Healthcare ethics has to date had very little to say about the treatment of chronic illness. That is problematic. Chronic illness differs from other illnesses in that: 1. in most cases it cannot be cured; 2. patients can live with it for many years; and 3. its day to day management is typically carried out, not by healthcare professionals, but by the patient and/or members of their family. These features problematise key distinctions that underlie much existing work in healthcare ethics (...) — including those between beneficence and autonomy, between treatment and prevention, and between the recipient and provider of treatment. They also raise ethical questions that have not to date been addressed in any detail — including what healthcare professionals should do when patients are managing their illness poorly, or when changes occur that affect their patients. For these reasons chronic illness provides a lens through which to challenge the adequacy of existing approaches to healthcare ethics, exposing the gaps and false assumptions built into them. In doing so it also provides the materials to build a more philosophically adequate account of healthcare professionals’ moral obligations than exists to date. Providing such an account is the aim of this monograph. (shrink)

In this article we wish to discuss different normative dilemmas that teachers and psychotherapists meet in their work with the student and the patient. We argue that crucial for a good practice is not the actual choice between normativity and freedom, between generalized or authorized standards and individual dialogue. Rather it is the professional’s continuous reflection on the form and quality of the interactions with the pupil and the patient, and the preservation of the balance between personal ethos and professional (...) responsibilities that best safeguard respect for the other's autonomy and self-determination. By illustrating psychotherapeutic malpractice and systematic mistreatment of children in the name of education, we wish to remind the reader that official governmental authorization of the professions pedagogy and psychology / psychotherapy is not automatically a guarantee for high professional standards or for the best possible teaching and psychotherapy. (shrink)

Our successful engagement with the world is plausibly underwritten by our sensitivity to affordances in our immediate environment. The considerable literature on affordances focuses almost exclusively on affordances for bodily actions such as gripping, walking or eating. I propose that we are also sensitive to affordances for mental actions such as attending, imagining and counting. My case for this ‘Mental Affordance Hypothesis’ is motivated by a series of examples in which our sensitivity to mental affordances mirrors our sensitivity to bodily (...) affordances. Specifically, subjects perceive opportunities to perform a mental action and their doing so leads, under the right conditions, to the automatic preparation of that action. I conclude by sketching a mental affordance research program that would reinforce my case for the Mental Affordance Hypothesis and establish its ramifications for a number of debates across philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

Nearly everyone prefers pain to be in the past rather than the future. This seems like a rationally permissible preference. But I argue that appearances are misleading, and that future-biased preferences are in fact irrational. My argument appeals to trade-offs between hedonic experiences and other goods. I argue that we are rationally required to adopt an exchange rate between a hedonic experience and another type of good that stays fixed, regardless of whether the hedonic experience is in the past or (...) future. (shrink)

We study first-order concatenation theory with bounded quantifiers. We give axiomatizations with interesting properties, and we prove some normal-form results. Finally, we prove a number of decidability and undecidability results.

The scope of someone's consent is the range of actions that they permit by giving consent. The Scope of Consent investigates the under-explored question of which normative principle governs the scope of consent. To answer this question, the book's investigation involves taking a stance on what constitutes consent. By appealing to the idea that someone can justify their behaviour by appealing to another person's consent, Dougherty defends the view that consent consists in behaviour that expresses a consent-giver's will for how (...) a consent-receiver behaves. The ultimate conclusion of the book is that the scope of consent is determined by certain evidence that bears on the appropriate interpretation of the consent. (shrink)

You are morally permitted to save your friend at the expense of a few strangers, but not at the expense of very many. However, there seems no number of strangers that marks a precise upper bound here. Consequently, there are borderline cases of groups at the expense of which you are permitted to save your friend. This essay discusses the question of what explains ethical vagueness like this, arguing that there are interesting metaethical consequences of various explanations.

The anglophone philosophy profession has a well-known problem with gender equity. A sig-nificant aspect of the problem is the fact that there are simply so many more male philoso-phers than female philosophers among students and faculty alike. The problem is at its stark-est at the faculty level, where only 22% - 24% of philosophers are female in the United States (Van Camp 2014), the United Kingdom (Beebee & Saul 2011) and Australia (Goddard 2008).<1> While this is a result of the (...) percentage of women declining at each point through-out the standard career trajectory, recent large-scale studies in the United States (Paxton et al. 2012) and Australia (Goddard et al. 2008) have identified a key drop-off point as the transi-tion between taking introductory classes and majoring in philosophy. So why do dispropor-tionately few female students choose to major in philosophy? (shrink)

Clinical information about patients is increasingly being stored in electronic form and has therefore become more easily shareable. Data are collected as part of clinical care but have multiple other potential uses in relation to health system planning, audit and research. The use of clinical information for these secondary uses is controversial, and the ability to safeguard personal and sensitive data under current practices is contested.In this study, we investigate the attitudes of a representative sample of the Danish population towards (...) transfer of clinical data from their general practice for secondary use. We specifically study: patients’ trust in different types of healthcare professionals, their interest in being asked about secondary use of data and their willingness to dispense from a requirement of informed consent based on their trust in healthcare professionals.We find that adult Danes are positive towards research that use patient data, and they generally trust general practitioners, hospitals and researchers to treat their data confidentially.Nevertheless, they feel that they have a right to control the use of their data, only 7.3% disagreeing, and that the data belong to them, only 14.0% disagreeing. Answers to further questions about the relation between trust, information and consent show that although trust modifies the wish for information and consent, there is still a strong view that the patient should control the use of data. We find no differences between those who have frequent contact with the healthcare system and those who do not. (shrink)

To develop a theoretical framework for drawing moral distinctions between instances of sexual misconduct, I defend the “Ameliorative View” of consent, according to which there are three possibilities for what effect, if any, consent has: “fully valid consent” eliminates a wronging, “fully invalid consent” has no normative effect, and “partially valid consent” has an ameliorative effect on a wronging in the respect that it makes the wronging less grave. I motivate the view by proposing a solution to the problem of (...) characterizing the moral effect of consent that is given in response to minor coercion. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss why consent is invalidated by duress that involves attaching penalties to someone's refusal to give consent. At the heart of my explanation is the Complaint Principle. This principle specifies that consent is defeasibly invalid when the consent results from someone conditionally imposing a penalty on the consent‐giver's refusal to give the consent, such that the consent‐giver has a legitimate complaint against this imposition focused on how it is affects their incentives for consenting. The Complaint Principle (...) says that this consent is defeasibly invalid to make room for the Authorization Principle, which allows sincere authorizations to constitute valid consent, even when these are issued by an agent acting under duress. The Authorization Principle has application only in cases of third‐party duress because when the consent‐receiver is the source of the duress, the consent‐giver is not sincerely authorizing the action. (shrink)

In the middle of the last century, it was common to explain the notion of necessity in linguistic terms. A necessary truth, it was said, is a sentence whose truth is guaranteed by linguistic rules. Quine famously argued that, on this view, de re modal claims do not make sense. “Porcupettes are porcupines” is necessarily true, but it would be a mistake to say of a particular porcupette that it is necessarily a porcupine, or that it is possibly purple. Linguistic (...) theories of necessity fell out of favour with the publication of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, and Quine’s arguments were put aside. In her recent book, Norms and Necessity, Amie Thomasson presents her modal normativism, which is an updated version of the mid-century theories just described. Quine’s arguments are thus relevant once again. We recapitulate Quine’s central argument, in the context of modal normativism. We then criticise Amie Thomasson’s discussion of de re modality. We finish by briefly presenting an alternative account of de re modal statements, which is compatible with modal normativism. (shrink)

Let T 0?T 1 denote that each computable function, which is provable total in the first order theory T 0, is also provable total in the first order theory T 1. Te relation ? induces a degree structure on the sound finite Π2 extensions of EA (Elementary Arithmetic). This paper is devoted to the study of this structure. However we do not study the structure directly. Rather we define an isomorphic subrecursive degree structure <≤,?>, and then we study <≤,?> by (...) ubrecursive and computability-theoretic means. Furthermore, we introduce and investigate some operators on the degrees of <≤,?>. These operators corresponds to inferencerules in formal arithmetic. One operator corresponds to the Σ1 collection rule. Another operator corresponds to the Σ1 induction rule. (shrink)

Coherence-spaces and domains with totality are used to give interpretations of inductively defined types. A category of coherence spaces with totality is defined and the closure of positive inductive type constructors is analysed within this category. Type streams are introduced as a generalisation of types defined by strictly positive inductive definition. A semantical analysis of type streams with continuous recursion theorems is established. A hierarchy of domains with totality defined by positive induction is defined, and density for a sub-hierarchy is (...) proved. (shrink)

This book explores and explains how deep semantics works, how new deep semantics research can be conducted, and how the new scientific method of deep semantics can be used to create new scientific theories and discoveries.

'By identifying the extent to which Aristotle's thinking about ethics was shaped by notions drawn from the crafts Angier has thrown new light on a surprising number of topics and has deepened our understanding of tensions within Aristotle's thought. It is by now a rare achievement to have said something new, true and important about Aristotle.' -- Alasdair MacIntyre, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, USA.

In this paper we focus on a kind of perceptual states that we call perceptual motivations, that is, perceptual experiences that plausibly motivate us to act, such as itching, perceptual salience and pain. Itching seems to motivate you to scratch, perceiving a stimulus as salient seems to motivate you to attend to it and feeling a pain in your hand seems to motivate actions such as withdrawing from the painful stimulus. Five main accounts of perceptual motivation are available: Descriptive, Conative, (...) Imperativist, Reflexive and Dual Content views. Some of these have been developed in detail and others are natural extensions of existing views. However, we argue that none provides a satisfactory account of the target perceptual states. Driven by the failings of each account, we identify three conditions that any satisfactory theory of perceptual motivation must meet: Direct Motivational Force, Non-Obligatory Force and Intention-Independent Influence. Then we offer an account that attempts to fulfil these conditions: the Affordance Model. This model of perceptual motivation is premised on the claim that each of the target states involves the perception of a specific affordance for action and the triggering of Automatic Motor Initiations. We suggest that AMIs can explain the motivational force of these perceptual states. (shrink)

I argue for the possibility of an extremely intimate connection between the emotional content of the music and the emotional state of the person who produces that music. Under certain specified conditions, the music may not just influence, but also partially constitute the musician’s emotional state.

What conditions on a person’s knowledge must be satisfied in order for them to be morally responsible for something they have done? The first two decades of the twenty-first century saw a surge of interest in this question. Must an agent, for example, be aware that their conduct is all-things-considered … Continue reading Epistemic Conditions of Moral Responsibility →.

In this book, Tom Cochrane develops a new control theory of the emotions and related affective states. Grounded in the basic principle of negative feedback control, his original account outlines a new fundamental kind of mental content called 'valent representation'. Upon this foundation, Cochrane constructs new models for emotions, pains and pleasures, moods, expressive behaviours, evaluative reasoning, personality traits and long-term character commitments. These various states are presented as increasingly sophisticated layers of regulative control, which together underpin the architecture of (...) the mind as a whole. Clearly structured and containing numerous diagrams and examples to illustrate the discussion, this study draws on the latest research from fields including philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, and will appeal to readers interested in the philosophy and cognitive science of emotion. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on a kind of perceptual states that we call perceptual motivations, that is, perceptual experiences that plausibly motivate us to act, such as itching, perceptual salience and pain. Itching seems to motivate you to scratch, perceiving a stimulus as salient seems to motivate you to attend to it and feeling a pain in your hand seems to motivate actions such as withdrawing from the painful stimulus. Five main accounts of perceptual motivation are available: Descriptive, Conative, (...) Imperativist, Reflexive and Dual Content views. Some of these have been developed in detail and others are natural extensions of existing views. However, we argue that none provides a satisfactory account of the target perceptual states. Driven by the failings of each account, we identify three conditions that any satisfactory theory of perceptual motivation must meet: Direct Motivational Force, Non-Obligatory Force and Intention-Independent Influence. Then we offer an account that attempts to fulfil these conditions: the Affordance Model. This model of perceptual motivation is premised on the claim that each of the target states involves the perception of a specific affordance for action and the triggering of Automatic Motor Initiations (AMIs). We suggest that AMIs can explain the motivational force of these perceptual states. (shrink)

I consider the claim that analytic statements are "true in virtue meaning", giving the claim a ground-theoretic interpretation.

It is common to focus on the duties of the wrongdoer in cases that involve injustice. Presumably, the wrongdoer owes her victim an apology for having wronged her and perhaps compensation for having harmed her. But, these are not the only duties that may arise. Are other beneficiaries of an injustice permitted to retain the fruits of the injustice? If not, who becomes entitled to those funds? In recent years, the Connection Account has emerged as an influential account that purports (...) to explain cases such as Embezzlement. This account holds that benefiting from injustice can give rise to a corrective duty - that is, a duty of compensation - owed specifically to the victim of the injustice from which the recipient benefits. This duty is grounded in the connection between the victim and the beneficiary of a given injustice. This paper has two aims. First, I show that we must reject the Connection Account on the grounds that it risks failing correctly to identify those who become entitled to the fruits of injustice. I achieve this by developing and defending the fairness objection. Second, I offer an alternative account: the Moral Taintedness Account. This account states that, when identifying who is entitled to the fruits of injustice, the cause and the degree of the harm suffered by a victim are both relevant considerations, though it does not matter whether the victim is the victim of the injustice that gave rise to the fruits in question. This account avoids the problem associated with the Connection Account, and yields intuitive conclusions in an important range of test cases. (shrink)

This book defends Aestheticism- the claim that everything is aesthetically valuable and that a life lived in pursuit of aesthetic value can be a particularly good one. Furthermore, in distilling aesthetic qualities, artists have a special role to play in teaching us to recognize values; a critical component of virtue. I ground my account upon an analysis of aesthetic value as ‘objectified final value’, which is underwritten by an original psychological claim that all aesthetic values are distal versions of practical (...) values. This is followed by systematic accounts of beauty, sublimity, comedy, drama, and tragedy, as well as appendix entries on the cute, the cool, the kitsch, the uncanny, the horrific, the erotic, and the furious. (shrink)

We continue [4] and study sets in generic extensions by the Magidor forcing and by the Prikry forcing with non-normal ultrafilters.

Why does female under- representation emerge during undergraduate education? At the University of Sydney, we surveyed students before and after their first philosophy course. We failed to find any evidence that this course disproportionately discouraged female students from continuing in philosophy relative to male students. Instead, we found evidence of an interaction effect between gender and existing attitudes about philosophy coming into tertiary education that appears at least partially responsible for this poor retention. At the first lecture, disproportionately few female (...) students intended to major. Further, at the first lecture, female students were less interested in philosophy, were less self-confident about philosophy, and were less able to imagine themselves as philosophers. Similarly, female students predicted they would feel more uncomfortable in philosophy classes than male students did. Further study with a control is warranted to determine whether this interaction effect is peculiar to philosophy, or whether it is indicative of a more general gendered trend amongst first year undergraduate students. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a phenomenological account of social anxiety disorder (SAD) as a disturbance of lived time through an analysis of first-person accounts informed by Minkowski’s notion of disordered temporality. The core psychopathology of the patient, I argue, is a constricted sense of relational time. Instead of the ordinary sense of a taken-for-granted shared future, the patient experiences time as running a predetermined course toward their social death. This manifests itself in a relational life lived as if it (...) might end at any moment or has already done so. Patients describe the end of their current relationships as self-evident and struggle against it by attempting to evade its immediate occurrence and to postpone it into the less eminent future. At times, patients succumb to passivity and self-blame, revelatory of a sense of an entirely lacking relational future. This phenomenological conceptualization provides an alternative to the predominant cognitive-behavioral (CBT) account of SAD. The CBT approach conceptualizes the core disorder as a set of dysfunctional beliefs about other people’s opinion of the patient. The phenomenological account elucidates a part of the subjective background on which these beliefs come to make sense to the patient. Further, with its concept of social death, the phenomenological account captures the existential contexts, which makes the intensity of the patient’s fear of rejection comprehensible. This way of understanding the patient and their psychopathology has important implications for diagnostic and psychotherapeutic practice. (shrink)

Many theories and models of machine consciousness emphasize the role of embodiment. However, there are different interpretations of exactly what kind of embodiment would be required for an artifact to be at least potentially conscious. This paper contrasts the sensorimotor approach, which holds that consciousness emerges from the mastery of sensorimotor knowledge resulting from the interaction between agent and environment, with the view that the living body's homeostatic regulation is crucial to self and consciousness.