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Justice Everywhere a blog about philosophy in public affairs

Moral values / Technology

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The diversity of values in virtual reality

In this post, Rami Ali (University of Arizona) discusses his recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on the range of values possible in the virtual world.

AI-generated image generated by Rami Ali’s prompt using OpenAI

Early in The Matrix Cypher confronts Neo with a question: “Why, oh why, didn’t I take that blue pill?” The confrontation is meaningful and significant. The red pill gave them their nonvirtual life outside the matrix. But is that life really more valuable than their blue pill-life inside the matrix? We’re invited to take a side and it’s tempting to do so. But neither choice is right. In The Values of the Virtual I argue that virtual items are not less or more valuable, nor of equal or sui generis value when compared to their nonvirtual counterparts. Or more aptly, they are all of these, depending on the virtual instance we have in mind. Taking sides short-changes the diversity of the virtual world and everything populating it, leaving us with less nuance than we need to understand and govern our virtual lives.

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Duties / Moral values

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A Social Ethics of Belief: Two Lessons from W. K. Clifford

Photo Credit of Sinking Boat to Pok Rie

The nineteenth century British philosopher, W. K. Clifford, is one of a small handful of individuals who titled an essay so effectively that it became the name of an entire philosophical literature: the ethics of belief.

It has been (correctly) observed that “Clifford’s essay is chiefly remembered for two things: a story and a principle.”

The story is that of the negligent shipowner who, by wishful thinking, convinces himself that an unsafe ship is seaworthy, and who thereby sends his passengers to their death when the ship sinks.

The principle is that “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.”

As a result, Clifford is often viewed one-dimensionally as an (unreasonable) evidentialist, most interested in defending a stringent epistemic position. I think this is unfortunate.

It is unfortunate because such a view of Clifford overlooks what are probably the most relevant aspects of his essay for a “misinformation age” like ours.

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Health

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How Should We Talk About the Pandemic?

In this post, Mark Bowker (Lund University) discusses their recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on our responsibility to be careful with scientific generalisations.

In a pandemic it is extremely important for the public to know how they can keep themselves and others safe. This requires effective communication to circulate information about scientific developments. In a recent article, I argue that even the most basic statements can be misleading, so we must think very carefully about the words they use. You may have heard, for example, that children do not transmit coronavirus, but this statement is not as simple as it may seem.

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General

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What is cultural decolonization?

In recent years, calls for cultural decolonisation have attracted renewed public attention. While there are many understandings of cultural decolonisation, I want to discuss one particular view (call it the agency approach) that draws on some ideas from the Martinican poet and anticolonial activist-thinker Aimé Césaire, and contrast it with a view (call it the authenticity approach) that many have found problematic.

On one understanding of cultural decolonisation, decolonisation is about recovering what is authentically non-Western, whether that consists of art, cultural practices, philosophical traditions, and/or knowledge. This authenticity approach to cultural decolonisation is often fraught with tension as efforts are spent on showing that something is indeed authentically non-Western—for example, showing that a musical tradition has somehow maintained its integrity as traditionally African, Chinese, etc.

Remembering Sunny Ade's feats as he clocks 74 | Premium Times Nigeria
Image: King Sunny Ade (Premium Times Nigeria)

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Technology

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Is it possible to trust Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

In this post, Pepijn Al (University of Western Ontario) discusses his recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on trust and responsibility in human relationships with AI and its developers.

Chances are high that you are using AI systems on a daily basis. Maybe you have watched a series that Netflix recommended to you. Or used Google Maps to navigate. Even the Editor I used for this blogpost is AI-powered. If you are like me, you might do this without knowing exactly how these systems work. So, could it be that we have started to trust the AI systems we use? As I argue in a recent article, I think this would be the wrong conclusion to, because trust has a specific function which is absent in human-AI interactions.

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Animals / General / Governance

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Factory farm abolition the moderate way

This guest post is written by Ben Sachs-Cobbe. Ben has recently published a book entitled Contractarianism, Role Obligations, and Political Morality exploring the connection between foundational questions in political philosophy and important issues in public policy, including the political and legal status of sentient animals.

Factory farms inflict suffering on the animals they produce. At a young age animals are torn away from their mothers and mutilated to prevent them hurting themselves and others; they’re then kept in squalid conditions with their movement and access to the outdoors restricted while they grow at a dangerously fast rate; before they’re finally killed by a machine after a mercifully brief life. Estimates of the number of farmed animals produced for food worldwide each year range from 50-70 billion (not including fish), with anything from two-thirds to 90% of those being factory farmed. This is misery on an almost incomprehensible scale. (more…)

Liberty / Moral values

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Does hate speech express hate?

In this post, Teresa Marques discusses her recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on whether hate is an essential component of hate speech.

Does hate speech express hate? Why would we call it hate speech if not? In my recent paper, I argue that hate speech is speech that is constitutively prejudicial because it is expressive of hatred (and not just because it may have harmful consequences). (more…)

Children / Duties / Education / General / Rights

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A puzzle of liberal childrearing: may neutral states allow parents to dominate children’s value-formation?

This is another post about childrearing and, like my previous ones, it is complaining about the status quo. This time I’m thinking about what we actively do to expose children to various ways of living and views about what makes for a good life (too little) and about how much we let parents screen such sources of influence out of children’s lives (too much.)

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Technology

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What, if any, harm can a self-driving car do?

In this post, Fiona Woollard discusses their recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on the kinds of constraints against harm relevant to self-driving cars.

We are preparing for a future when most cars do not need a human driver. You will be able to get into your ‘self-driving car’, tell it where you want to go, and relax as it takes you there without further human input. This will be great! But there are difficult questions about how self-driving cars should behave. One answer is that self-driving cars should do whatever minimises harm. But perhaps harm is not the only thing that matters morally: perhaps it matters whether an agent does harm or merely allows harm, whether harm is strictly intended or a mere side effect, or who is responsible for the situation where someone must be harmed.

I argue in a recent article that these distinctions do matter morally but that care is needed when applying them to self-driving cars. Self-driving cars are very different from human agents. These differences may affect how the distinctions apply. (more…)

General

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Welcome back: Launching our 2022/23 season!

Justice Everywhere returns this week for a new season. We continue in our aim to provide a public forum for the exchange of ideas about philosophy and public affairs.

We have lots of exciting content coming your way! This includes:

  • Weekly posts from our a wonderful team of house authors, offering analysis of a vast array of issues in moral and political philosophy, as well social policy and political economy every Monday.
  • Lots more from our special series on Teaching Philosophy and Beyond the Ivory Tower where we discuss pedagogy and working at/across the boundary between theory and practice.
  • The continuation of our collaboration with the Journal of Applied Philosophy, introducing readers to cutting-edge research being published on justice-related topics in applied and engaged philosophy.

So please follow us, read and share posts on social media (we’re on both Facebook and Twitter), and feel free to comment on posts using the comment box at the bottom of each post. If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to contribute a guest post on a topical subject in political philosophy (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.