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'Block'ing evil's defeat
No full textThere is this view propounded by some theorists which claims that some conceptions of the nature of time are incompatible with the Christian position on the defeat of evil. The aim of this article is twofold. First, to clarify exactly which thesis about time’s nature is taken to be problematic for the defeat of evil. And second, to show that scriptural support for understanding the defeat of evil as requiring that evil not be in the range of the existential quantifier, something implicitly contended by those who put forward this problem, is weak and that these passages can be read in plausible ways which are affirmable by those who endorse the ‘problematic’ thesis
Ubuntu and Rawlsian Justice: A Framework for Addressing Environmental Constraints to Talent Development in Africa
No full textThe underdevelopment of Africa continues to be a significant issue, with some scholars, such as Walter Rodney, attributing it to a mix of historical, political, and economic causes. The factors encompass the history of colonialism, persistent wars, and insufficient infrastructure, all of which impede growth and development throughout the continent. However, this paper attributes Africa’s underdevelopment to the environmental circumstances in which numerous African children are raised. This environment, often characterised by antiquated cultural practices, tribal and ethnic conflicts, and poverty, among others, has impeded the capacity to cultivate and express their talent. These limits have a ripple effect, resulting in adverse results such as economic stagnation, diminished global standing, and brain drain, eventually sustaining the cycle of underdevelopment throughout the continent. This paper further claims that the root cause of these factors, especially wars and poverty, which lead to Africa’s underdevelopment, is bad governance. This paper therefore suggests drawing on the principles of Ubuntu and Rawls’ Theory of Justice, that a just and collective society where fairness and equity thrive can provide the foundation for creating a healthy environment that will support the development of children’s talents for the development of Africa
Reflection, confabulation, and reasoning
No full textHumans have distinctive powers of reflection: no other animal seems to have anything like our capacity for self-examination. Many philosophers hold that this capacity has a uniquely important guiding role in our cognition; others, notably Hilary Kornblith, draw attention to its weaknesses. Kornblith chiefly aims to dispel the sense that there is anything ‘magical’ about second-order mental states, situating them in the same causal net as ordinary first-order mental states. But elsewhere he goes further, suggesting that there is something deeply misleading about reflection’s first-person view of cognition. This chapter takes a closer look at the conditions under which reflection is misleading. Even if humans are the only reflective animals, we are no longer the only creatures that can be questioned about their claims. Chatbots can also be asked to explain themselves, and by studying the conditions under which they produce clarification as opposed to confabulation, we can develop a non-skeptical account of the epistemic value of reflection. I argue that this capacity naturally supports the distribution of complex problem solving among multiple agents
Quem joga o jogo? Da dimensão corporificada de _spielen_ e da variedade normativa de habilidades
No full textThis essay examines the polysemy of ‘spielen’ in order to redirect the metaphorical talk of games as a critical tool
against individualism, intellectualism, internalism, and representationalism in Modern philosophy. First, we revisit
how neopragmatists have used chess to explain the public dimension of meaning. Though fruitful, we argue that
this metaphor still bears intellectualist, elitists, and, more pressingly, overly mentalist assumptions. In the second
section, we thus suggest football as a more accurate game-metaphor to express human know-how. For us, football
better exhibits an enactive approach to cognition: rules acquire meaning by embodied acts, favouring improvisation
and collective dynamics. Football thus shows ‘spielen’ as a self-regulated activity that emerges out of interaction
with other embodied agents, institutions, and a rich environment. The third section draws on our metaphor to
explore a threefold normative dimension of ‘spielen’ (biological, social, and moral), thus arguing for its better
suitability to exemplify the organic, collective, and embedded realms that constitute embodied cognition
CAI-OS v1.0 — Consciousness-Aligned AI Operating System
No full textThis paper introduces a constitutional framework for artificial intelligence
grounded in philosophy of mind, normative ethics, and systems theory.
Rather than proposing a technical architecture, it articulates the
non-derogable ethical, behavioral, and governance conditions under which
artificial intelligence may legitimately operate.
The CAI-OS framework argues that alignment is not an optimization problem
but a constitutional one, requiring fixed interpretive authority,
irreversibility constraints, and normative supremacy over instrumental goals.
By situating AI alignment within debates in moral philosophy, philosophy of
mind, and political philosophy, the paper reframes alignment as a question
of legitimacy rather than performance, and proposes consciousness as a
necessary boundary condition for advanced artificial intelligence
Smart Moral Technologies and Anti-Intellectualism about Abilities
No full textGloria Andrada and Adam J. Carter—“Mind-Technology Problem s for Know-How Anti- Intellectualism,” 2025—use the Mind-Technology problem (MTP) framework (Clowes, Gärtner, and Hipólito 2021) as a basis for theorizing about skills and know-how. More specifically, they focus on anti-intellectualism about know-how, so the view that S knows how to do X in virtue of S having the ability to intentionally X. Anti-intellectualism is contrasted with intellectualism about know-how, so the view that S knows how to do X in virtue of knowing that something is the case or knowing some fact (Stanley and Williamson
2011; Bengson and Moffett 2007). Here, I set MTP aside to focus on Andrada and Carter’s theorizing itself, which does an
excellent job highlighting what is and is not at stake when smart technologies aim to improve humans from a moral perspective. First, they list a number of generic questions about an ability and the technology related to it, which can be used to interrogate the ontological, normative, and epistemological features of that relationship. Second, their paper implicitly
raises questions about the role of socio-cultural context in our theorizing about technologically-enabled abilities. Thirdly, they bring the debate about intellectualism and anti-intellectualism about abilities to bear directly on important current topics in the philosophy of technology
Memory, Anticipation, and Future Bias
No full textOne proposed explanation for a particular kind of temporal preference lies in a disparity between the emotional intensity of memory compared to anticipation. According to the memory/anticipation disparity explanation, the utility of anticipation of a particular event if that event is future, whether positive or negative, is greater than the utility of retrospection of that same event if it is past, whether positive or negative, and consequently, overall utility is maximised when we prefer negative events to be located in the past rather than the future, and positive ones in the future rather than the past. To have this preference is to be (at least apparently) future biased. If this explanation is correct, it would tend to confer rational justification upon these preferences. This paper empirically investigates this explanation. Our results suggest that, at most, this explanation might be a partial one of some people’s preferences some of the time, rather than a general explanation of future bias. In turn, this lends some indirect support to a competing explanation that appeals to temporal asymmetries in emotion and attention. Since that explanation would arguably tend not to confer rational justification upon (apparently) future-biased preferences, we argue that our findings provide some reason to be sceptical that these preferences are, in general, rationally justified
Trusting the (un)trustworthy? A new conceptual approach to the ethics of social care robots
No full textSocial care robots (SCR) have come to the forefront of the ethical debate. While the possibility of robots helping us tackle the global care crisis is promising for some, others have raised concerns about the adequacy of AI-driven technologies for the ethically complex world of care. The robots do not seem able to provide the comprehensive care many people demand and deserve, at least they do not seem able to engage in humane, emotion-laden and significant care relationships. In this article, we will propose to focus the debate on a particularly relevant aspect of care: trust. We will argue that, to answer the question of whether SCR are ethically acceptable, we must first address another question, namely, whether they are trustworthy. To this end, we propose a three-level model of trust analysis: rational, motivational and personal or intimate. We will argue that some relevant forms of caregiving (especially care for highly dependent persons) require a very personal or intimate type of care that distinguishes it from other contexts. Nevertheless, this is not the only type of trust happening in care spaces. We will adduce that, while we cannot have intimate or highly personal relationships with robots, they are trustworthy at the rational and thin motivational level. The fact that robots cannot engage in some (personal) aspects of care does not mean that they cannot be useful in care contexts. We will defend that critical approaches to trusting SCR have been sustained by two misconceptions and propose a new model for analyzing their moral acceptability: sociotechnical trust in teams of humans and robots
What Does It Take to Make a Difference? A Reply to Andreas and Günther
No full textAndreas and Günther have recently proposed a difference-making definition of actual causation. In this paper I show that there exist conclusive counterexamples to their definition, by which I mean examples that are unacceptable to everyone, including Andreas and Günther. Concretely, I show that their definition allows c to cause e even when c is not a causal ancestor of e. I then proceed to identify their non-standard definition of causal models as the source of the problem, and argue that there is no viable strategy open to them to fixing it. I conclude that their definition of causation is damaged beyond repair