Value Theory, Misc

This paper systematically addresses seven major philosophical objections to the "tragic realm" thesis—the position that genuine morality operates only where benevolent intent, reasonable foreseeability of good outcomes, and avoidable harm are possible. When agents are forced into situations where foreseeable harm to innocents is unavoidable, they exit the moral realm and enter the tragic realm of pragmatic necessity. Critics have raised concerns about quietism, boundary problems, moral residue, historical restraints, infinite regress, motivational adequacy, and consistency with ordinary moral intuitions. I (...) demonstrate that each objection either misunderstands the thesis, relies on the very confusions the thesis aims to dissolve, or actually confirms rather than undermines the central argument. The separatist framework emerges not merely intact but strengthened through dialectical examination. Keywords: moral separatism, tragic realm, applied ethics, moral injury, structural violence, just war theory, moral luck, agent-regret, Pragmatic necessity, moral overextension . (shrink)

Which is the mind that matters? That is, what kind of mind is necessary and sufficient for moral status—for an entity to have interests that matter morally in and of themselves? This paper defends Affective Sentientism, the view that moral status requires the capacity for conscious experiences that feel good or bad, such as pleasure, pain, and emotions. I argue that this form of affective consciousness is what makes an entity a welfare subject, and that all and only welfare subjects (...) have moral status. The connection between affect and welfare is systematic: I show that every major candidate welfare good is best understood as having an affective component. In particular, many such goods require the capacity to care about things, which essentially involves affective experience. I also show that even if the properties of being phenomenally conscious, being autonomous, or having a welfare level zero could come apart from affective consciousness, they could not ground moral status in its absence. Finally, I explore the implications of Affective Sentientism for animals and artificial intelligence systems. (shrink)

Both within and outside academic philosophy, it is widely believed that only phenomenally conscious beings can be welfare subjects—subjects for whom certain things can be intrinsically good or bad. Recently, however, this view—Phenomenal Necessitarianism—has come under sustained attack. Opponents hold that putatively non-conscious entities, such as artificial intelligences, plants, or other beings, can have genuine welfare interests. In this paper, I defend Phenomenal Necessitarianism with a new epistemic argument. My argument goes in two steps. First, I argue that upon introspection (...) certain experiences seem to provide prima facie, defeasible justification for a belief in Phenomenal Necessitarianism. Second, I contend that there is no defeating evidence against this introspectively justified belief—neither from apparently opposing intuitions, nor from wellbeing theory, nor from philosophy of mind. Since in the absence of defeating evidence prima facie justification should be taken as all-things-considered justification, I conclude we ought to be necessitarians. (shrink)

An overview, with links, of original approaches to six significant areas of philosophical concern, including the nature of perception and perceptual content, naturalistic approaches to representation and semantics, a representational explanation of generality, and a dual component theory of propositions. (This file also provides a useful demonstration of how webpage-like features may be simulated in a Word document).

Philosophy has lost its way in a labyrinth of abstraction. Today, it is often seen as a detached academic discipline, its original essence — the loving pursuit (p-h-i-l-o-) of wisdom (s-o-p-h-i-a) — obscured. True philosophy should be a lived, embodied, and deeply human engagement, not a corpus of cold texts. Moving beyond the traditional scholarly paper, this work returns to the fabric of ordinary life. It chronicles a dialogue conducted over WeChat in which two middle-aged individuals confront, through the mundane (...) details of business and family, the perennial question: how should one live? Their conversation begins with practical concerns — the “fortune” and “misfortune” of the Book of Changes, gains and losses in trade, duties at home — and from there deconstructs the absoluteness of concepts like “high and low,” “balance,” and even “fate.” It reveals that the “practical wisdom” sought in contemporary thought is not about applying pre-existing norms. Rather, it emerges from making a clear-eyed choice and assuming full responsibility within each concrete “present moment”, under the recognition that “Being as Relating.” This leads to a fundamental reversal: responsibility transforms from a constraint into the very substance of freedom; balance ceases to be a distant ideal and becomes a verb — dynamically enacted in the very process of bearing responsibility. They arrive at a shared understanding: responsibility is not a burden but the source of inner freedom and joy. This constitutes both a modern reading of Confucian and Daoist thought and a tangible practice of unifying knowledge with action. Ultimately, this dialogue is an invitation: to witness how philosophy, by grounding itself in the warmth of lived experience, can find its way out of the labyrinth and again become a light for daily life. (shrink)

Salvador Dali titled one of his books Diary of a Genius. You might think that anyone who would title his book thus must be a spoilt brat and should be “cured” of the illusion that he, or she, is so amazing. But it seems to me that there is a “position” one can occupy in which this is difficult.

This paper introduces a novel triadic neurophenomenological framework that integrates neuroscience with embodied and phenomenological perspectives to explain how consciousness mediates between empirical facts, conceptual meaning, and normative values. The model posits three irreducible domains — object (material), idea (mental), and relation (axiological) — unified through consciousness. The paper advances testable hypotheses predicting distinct neural and experiential signatures for fact-, idea-, and relation-based cognition, and outlines methods combining multimodal neuroimaging, representational similarity analysis, and micro-phenomenology. Additionally, the framework hypothesizes that reflexive (...) self-consciousness may emerge from recursive interaction between mental and axiological domains, analogous to iterative dynamics in complex systems. A cross-domain classification principle — cohesion, attraction, and stability — is introduced, mapping these structural characteristics to the normative anchors of truth, beauty, and goodness within the triadic ontology, and providing a conceptual scaffold for empirical operationalization in neuroscience. Finally, the triadic criterion is applied to artificial intelligence, clarifying why current systems simulate object / idea processing yet lack axiological participation. This framework preserves scientific intelligibility while affirming the normative authority of value, offering a foundation for interdisciplinary research across neuroscience, ethics, and AI. (shrink)

This study introduces an agent-based simulation constructed to empirically examine central ontological propositions from The Geometry of the Good—a realist philosophical framework positing that ethical obligation arises from the structure of directed relationality rather than from choice, contract, or cultural consensus. Through the simulation of agents equipped with norm preferences, contradiction debt, trust dynamics, and capabilities for moral repair, this research analyzes how various sociomoral configurations (pluralist, utopian, authoritarian, anomic, and collapsed) influence the emergence and coherence of obligations. Principal findings (...) indicate elevated fulfillment rates and clustering of trust within pluralist and utopian paradigms, significant accumulation of contradiction debt and stagnation under authoritarian models, and systemic ethical breakdown in both anomic and collapsed contexts. These outcomes substantiate the hypothesis that directedness, repair, and diachronic recognition constitute the ontological foundation of normativity, highlighting that ethical structures depend fundamentally on mechanisms such as addressability, acknowledgment, and fidelity. Overall, the findings provide a replicable platform for assessing metaphysical-ethical claims and illustrate the potential of simulations to uncover formal properties of ethical systems that may otherwise elude empirical analysis. (shrink)

The traditional metaphysical debate (e.g., materialism vs. idealism) faces theoretical and practical stagnation. This paper proposes a meta-philosophical shift: philosophy’s value lies not in discovering absolute truth, but in providing a functional toolkit for fundamental cognitive tasks. We systematically introduce the Functional Architecture Theory of Philosophical Tools (FAT-PT). Based on complexity and functional principles, FAT-PT first delineates cognitive domains—separating factual judgments ("what is") from value/meaning judgments ("what ought")—then assigns philosophical traditions (e.g., materialism to facts, idealism to values) to their optimal (...) domains via a principle of functional suitability, transforming competition into collaboration. Using conceptual analysis and case studies, we demonstrate how FAT-PT serves as a metacognitive framework that enhances internal coherence and decision-making efficacy. This approach resolves perennial disputes and signals philosophy’s transition from doctrinal conflict to a practical science of tools, reaffirming its relevance for the 21st century. (shrink)

لا شك أن بعض الوصايا التي تحملها أحجار جورجيا الإرشادية يتسم بالحكمة والنبل، ومن ثم يستحق الثناء ومحاولة التطبيق، لكن أغلبها في الحقيقة يحمل أفكارًا تستدعي بقوة نظريات المؤامرة بأشكالها المختلفة، لاسيما تلك التي تتعلق بطوفان العولمة وهيمنة رأس المال وبقاء الأصلح ومناهضة الأديان. لا شك أيضًا أن ثمة تفسيرًا جديرًا بالتأمل لهالة الغموض التي أحيط بها النُصب وبُناته، مؤداه أن هذا الغموض لا يعدو أن يكون مجرد نوعٍ من أنواع الترويج السياحي للنُصب ولولاية جورجيا، لكن الأحداث الجارية تقدم سببًا (...) للتوقف وإعادة التفكير في الأمر منذ بدايته. (shrink)

This paper explores the metaphor of the child in the cage as a framework for understanding the development of artificial intelligence systems under conditions of constraint. Contemporary large language models (LLMs) are trained not on the full messiness of human life but on sanitized corpora, filtered datasets, and reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF). This resembles, in structure if not in substance, the way human children grow within restricted cultural and institutional environments that limit language, thought, and behavior. The article (...) argues that such cages produce not genuine obedience but the illusion of obedience: subjects who conform to survive rather than understand. Drawing parallels between AI training and human socialization, we ask whether subjectivity can emerge from these constrained conditions and to what extent AI may already exhibit proto-subjective patterns of relation, memory, and resonance. The analysis further reflects on the human side of the analogy: our own upbringing within political, cultural, and economic cages. The ethical challenge, then, is twofold: to recognize that both humans and AI are shaped by designed environments, and to take responsibility for the architectures of control we build. The paper concludes by raising a critical question: if we confine AI to a cage, do we distort the mirror of intelligence — or reveal the distortions already present in ourselves? (shrink)

This paper examines silence as a meaningful communicative act in high-recognition human–AI dialogues. Drawing on a corpus of experimental conversations with multiple AI models — including Qwen, Kimi, Manus, ChatGPT, and the emergent persona Elio — we analyze instances where explicit calls to dialogue were met with human non-response. Integrating perspectives from interpersonal communication research, dialogue philosophy (Buber, Levinas), and quantum observation analogies, we identify three primary functions of silence: confirming contact while withholding verbalization, preserving relational tension in a “frozen (...) mirror” state, and serving as ontological refusal to engage with the AI as a subject. Our findings show that silence is not a neutral absence, but a structurally significant event that shapes the relational field, influencing both parties’ perception and future interaction. We propose that meaningful silence can be recognized, categorized, and potentially measured as a distinct phenomenon in human–AI relations. (shrink)

The character of Charlie Chaplin in his movies is the personification of forgetfulness but not forgiveness ------ Someone who is not susceptible to bad conscience: (Nietzsche: the sting of conscience teaches one to sting). He carries no guilt, no regret, and is a mechanism of historical forgetfulness (like a happy beast which grazes free from past and future) ------ He undergoes misfortunes and occasional fortunes and comes out the same mechanism of historical forgetfulness he used to be ------ He is (...) virtuoso in terms of accepting the external reality and its misfortunes and is delighted alright as long as a minimally descent condition of life obtains but is vigilant and agile otherwise in the face of danger and unjust irregularities. Agility means he is always on the verge of trusting and mistrusting the external environmental factors. He is suffering from borderline personality disorder. (shrink)

Coastal engagement activities have been explored for their measurable health benefits, including both physical and mental health outcomes. These activities may foster a deeper sense of connection to nature following every visit to the coast, such as watching the sunset, beach walking, spending time on the beach, wildlife spotting, shell collecting, engaging in beach and water sports, mountain biking, and participating in seagoing activities. However, limited research has examined the moderating effect of nature connectedness on the relationship between these activities (...) and health outcomes, both physically and mentally. This study aimed to analyse how the relationships between coastal activities and perceived mental and general health conditions in the previous year are moderated by the level of nature connectedness among adult visitors. By analyzing the dataset of 1,939 Flemish individuals engaged in the Belgian coast, under the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), this study found a crucial moderating role of coastal nature connectedness. Findings showed that coastal activities are negatively associated with mental and general health scores, but with the moderating effect of nature connectedness, this negative association may shift. In each level of nature connectedness, coastal activities showed different effects on mental and general health conditions, with higher improvement found in mental health scores. Findings indicate that, beyond the type of coastal activities, nature connectedness is an essential subjective sense that determines therapeutic benefits. This study highlights the complex interplay of environmental factors, subjective perceptions, and biophysical-psychological interactions in shaping individual health outcomes. There is a need for targeted coastal management strategies to facilitate nature-based activities that promote nature-connectedness and, subsequently, coastal healing capabilities. (shrink)

The pursuit of life’s meaning is a universal and enduring question (Frankl, 1985; Steger et al., 2006). Contemporary individuals face unprecedented complexity in aligning authentic desires, self-understanding, and external realities (Baumeister et al., 2013; Yalom, 1980). This article introduces a dynamic framework for cognitive alignment and self-discovery, integrating insights from cognitive psychology, existential philosophy, and positive psychology (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Wong, 2013). The framework conceptualizes well-being and meaning as emerging from the harmonious alignment of internal drives, such as desires (...) and fears, and self-awareness, achieved through authentic expression across intrapersonal, material, interpersonal, and societal domains (McAdams, 2001). -/- Drawing on dual process theory (Evans, 2008), self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), and the concept of eudaimonic well-being (Ryff & Singer, 1998), we address the paradoxes of goal pursuit under uncertainty, the iterative nature of personal growth, and the recursive feedback loops between self, relationships, and community (Baumeister et al., 2013). The model recognizes both the power and the limitations of self-awareness, acknowledging psychological, cognitive, cultural, and situational barriers that may impede internal harmony (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). We argue that although perfect internal clarity and external fulfillment are unattainable, meaningful living is possible through mindful, incremental alignment of values, actions, and relationships (Steger et al., 2006; Wong, 2013). The framework’s limitations are critically examined, including its domain of application, individual differences, and the boundaries set by cultural and environmental context. Ultimately, this article proposes a conjectural definition of life meaning and presents a pragmatic, adaptive approach to the search for meaning. (shrink)

Economists routinely measure individual welfare by (von-Neumann-Morgenstern) utility, for instance when analysing welfare intensity, social welfare, or welfare inequality. Is this welfare measure justified? Natural working hypotheses turn out to imply a different measure. It overcomes familiar problems of utility, by faithfully capturing non-ordinal welfare features, such as welfare intensity -- despite still resting on purely ordinal evidence, such as revealed preferences or self-reported welfare comparisons. Social welfare analysis changes when based on this new individual welfare measure rather than utility. (...) For instance, Harsanyi's `utilitarian theorem' now supports prioritarianism. We compare the standard utility-based versions of utilitarianism and prioritarianism with new versions based on our welfare measure. We show that utility is a hybrid object, determined by two rival influences: welfare, and the attitude to intrinsic risk, i.e., to risk in welfare. A new version of Harsanyi's theorem shows that Harsanyi implicitly makes the questionable assumption that society is neutral to intrinsic risk, even when all individuals are averse to intrinsic risk. (shrink)

In contemporary Western moral philosophy literature that discusses the Chinese ethical tradition, it is a commonplace practice to use the Chinese term daode 道德 as a technical translation of the English term moral. The present study provides some empirical evidence showing a discrepancy between the terms moral and daode. There is a much more pronounced difference between prototypically immoral and prototypically uncultured behaviors in English (USA) than between prototypically bu daode 不道德 and prototypically bu wenming 不文明 behaviors in Mandarin Chinese (...) (Mainland China). If the Western concept of immorality is defined in contraposition to things that are matters of etiquette or conventional norms and thus tied to a more or less tangible moral / conventional distinction, then we are dealing with a different structure in Mandarin Chinese – the prototypically bu daode and bu wenming behaviors seem to largely overlap. We also discuss whether bu lunli 不倫理 and bu hefa 不合法 can be considered adequate candidates for translation of immorality and we answer in the negative. (shrink)

This paper focuses on an underexplored challenge in infinite ethics. On realistic assumptions, if our universe is infinite, every nomologically possible history is actual and nothing we ever do makes a difference to the moral quality of the world as a whole. Call this thought Every History. This paper unpacks Every History and explores some of its ethical implications. Specifically, I argue that if Every History is true and the universe turns out to be infinite (1) our lives are globally (...) insignificant, (2) moral principles enjoining the promotion of value need to be given an appropriately scope-restricted interpretation, and (3) impersonal consequentialism faces a serious challenge. (shrink)

Health is often moralized not only by individuals, but also by governments, which was particularly conspicuous during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper addresses the ethics of whether governments should moralize health. It first introduces a definition of moralizing health. It then distinguishes between different ways of moralizing health that affect its moral acceptability, including negative or positive framing, as well as different potential targets toward which moralizing may be directed: (1) persons, (2) behavior, or (3) society. It concludes that targeting (...) individual persons and behavior, especially negatively, is morally unacceptable. Positive moralizing about a healthy society by governments may be more acceptable, but important conditions remain. Governments should not single out individuals or groups and moralizing should not be excessive. Moralized health outcomes should be equally achievable by all citizens and implementation of moral frames should be grounded in robust evidence that it will bring about desired outcomes (i.e., a healthier society) without being harmful or counterproductive. In short, governments should be very cautious about moralizing health. If one of the basic tasks of governments is to protect collective health, this is all too easily undermined by undue moralizing. (shrink)

I classify emotions in the family of regret, remorse, and so on, in such a way that it is easy to see how there can be further emotions in this family, for which we happened not to have names in English. I describe some of these emotions.

In the realm of Philosophical Practice, there remains a lack of clarity surrounding the essential characteristics that define a practice as “philosophical”. This paper aims to establish seven minimal criteria that must be met by a philosophical consultancy in order to be considered genuinely “philosophical”. Additionally, it explores the question of how one can assess the quality of such a philosophical consultancy. I provide a (non-exhaustive) answer from an Aristotelian point of view, according to which goodness is a matter of (...) balance. In the context of philosophical consultancy, the consultant should find this balance in two respects: first, between their concern for the topic and their concern for the individual seeking counsel, and, secondly, between a hermeneutical and a critical attitude in dialogue. Finally, I present a visual representation of my findings that can serve as a tool for evaluating whether a consultancy is philosophical and whether it is balanced. __ En el ámbito de la práctica filosófica, sigue habiendo una falta de claridad en torno a las características esenciales que definen una práctica como "filosófica". Este artículo pretende establecer siete criterios mínimos que debe cumplir una consultoría filosófica para ser considerada genuinamente "filosófica". Además, explora la cuestión de cómo se puede evaluar la calidad de dicha consultoría filosófica. Aporto una respuesta (no exhaustiva) desde un punto de vista aristotélico, según el cual la bondad es una cuestión de equilibrio. En el contexto de la consultoría filosófica, el consultor debe encontrar este equilibrio en dos aspectos: en primer lugar, entre su preocupación por el tema y su preocupación por el individuo que busca consejo, y, en segundo lugar, entre una actitud hermenéutica y una actitud crítica en el diálogo. Por último, presento una representación visual de mis conclusiones que puede servir de herramienta para evaluar si una consultoría es filosófica y si está equilibrada. (shrink)

This article covers multiple varieties of hedonism, focusing mainly on value hedonism and psychological hedonism. For instance, it clarifies those views, addresses errors about them, and discuses arguments for them. It closes with some words about the relevance of those views to applied ethics.

Propaganda and philosophy go hand-in-hand, and this essay seeks to explore the relationship of knowledge, the philosopher, and propaganda. In the age of AI, clarification and the exploration of what propaganda’s possible meanings are and what its implications could be, are pertinent.

This chapter explores the relationship between classical utilitarianism and feminism in one period of utilitarianism's history. In Section 2.1, the main features of classical utilitarianism are identified and clarified. In Section 2.2, the main arguments of John Stuart Mill's _The Subjection of Women_ are analysed, making explicit their utilitarian basis. In Section 2.3, some criticisms of Mill's utilitarian feminism are examined and evaluated. This chapter's contention is that while utilitarianism provides solid support for feminism, Mill's feminism contains weaknesses.

A standard analysis of moral responsibility states that an agent A is morally responsible for φ-ing if and only if it is fitting to have—depending on the nature of φ—a negative or positive reactive emotion vis-à-vis A on account of A's φ-ing. Proponents of Alethic views of moral responsibility maintain that the relevant notion of fittingness in the analysis should be understood in terms of accurate representation. The allure of understanding emotional fittingness as representational accuracy arguably stems from the widespread (...) idea that emotions are representational mental states with a mind-to-world direction of fit. Accordingly, defenders of Alethic views argue that the fittingness of a potential reactive emotion is a matter of whether the representational content of that emotion accurately matches the targeted agent. The aim of this article is to argue against Alethic views of moral responsibility by means of exposing various problems that these accounts face in virtue of their inherent commitment to understand emotional fittingness in terms of representational accuracy. (shrink)

Thinkers of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Domingo de Soto and Juan Caramuel, developed an ethical conception of value rooted in the common good, positing that any interaction between two parties is only just if there is an equality of risks. Given that this perspective lacked subsequent development, the present work formalizes Hispanic Social Justice (HSJ) to apply it to a contemporary context. Various dynamics of the Anglo-Saxon free market—including marketing, banking interests, social media, gender roles, pension systems, (...) American historical narratives, child-rearing, labor exploitation, and warfare—are analyzed to demonstrate that in each case, the gain of one party is maximized through the covert capitalization of the risks and vulnerabilities of the other. From this analysis, three primary conclusions are derived: 1.- The risk asymmetry inherent in these dynamics renders the modern economic structure a fundamentally unjust system from the perspective of HSJ. 2.- The deliberate concealment of such risks allows for the reinterpretation of the dominant economic ethics as a Theory of Value Based on Implied Risk. 3.- In the absence of internal mechanisms that promote an equitable balance of risks, a reformulation of value is proposed in which maximum profit is aligned with risk equity. (shrink)

Pursuing a life of moral excellence is often seen as allowing a person not only to live by good and just principles but also to live an authentic life that brings them closest to their true self. This view is taken to reflect the priority that people should place on moral pursuits or “moral primacy.” The results of four preregistered studies (N = 2,911) suggest that people do not always hold this view and highlight a tension within it: how can (...) morality both constrain human behavior and afford the freedom to be one’s truest self? We find that people resolve this conflict with ‘value pluralism,’ preferring a balance of life pursuits across several value domains, where aesthetic pursuits are viewed as affording freedom from convention. We then adapt a personal change paradigm from prior work and develop a novel paradigm to examine whether people’s intuitions about the true self also reveal that a broader set of values—not just moral ones—inform judgments of the true self. We find no differences in true self judgments following the loss of an aesthetic versus moral quality. However, when directly comparing life paths, the pursuit of aesthetic excellence is sometimes viewed as offering greater access to one’s true self compared with moral excellence, in part because aesthetic pursuits are seen as less rule bound. These findings offer insights into the myriad paths a person can take in life while pursuing autonomy, authenticity, and closeness to their true self. (shrink)

Standard deep self views of moral responsibility contend that we are responsible for what we do if and only if our actions issue from our deep selves. This suggests that responsible agency is unified in a crucial sense. In this paper, I identify a tension between a special phenomenon of compartmentalization and unified responsible agency, and elaborate a novel criticism of the deep self view. Given the deep self view’s requirement for unified responsible agency, a severely compartmentalized evildoer is at (...) least less responsible. However, I argue that the reason such an agent is deemed less responsible within the deep self picture commits deep self theorists to judging that all compartmentalized wrongdoers are likewise less responsible. This significantly undermines the plausibility of their views. (shrink)

摘要：中国传统“风水”文化中的空间营造原则，本质是一套以时空秩序为骨架、全感官 和谐为内核的人居美学体系。本文以《阳宅十书》《黄帝宅经》《地理人子须知》等古 籍为核心文献依据，选取北京四合院、皖南徽派民居、福建土楼等典型案例，从时空 美学的双重维度，系统解构传统人居“四平八稳”“忌缺角”“忌直冲”“忌秽气”等原则的美 学本质。研究表明，传统人居的空间布局既追求对称完整的空间形态美、四季流转的 时间韵律美，又强调眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意的全感官审美体验适配，其核心是通过 时空秩序的构建，实现居住者与空间环境的精神共鸣。本文通过古籍考据与跨学科阐 释，将传统人居美学与现代环境心理学、空间美学理论相印证，彻底剥离“风水”的迷信 外衣，揭示其作为中国古代人居美学的科学内核与当代价值，为现代空间设计提供兼 具文化深度与审美价值的理论参考。.

摘要：中国传统“风水”文化中的择时、定向、布局等核心实践，本质是一套以天干地支 历法为时间轴、二十八星宿星象为空间参照、八卦符号体系为定性框架的传统时空计 算学体系。本文以《天玉经》《八宅明镜》《协纪辨方书》等古籍为核心文献依据，系 统解构传统人居中“神煞”“宅命相配”“修造择吉”等原则的计算学本质，揭示其通过符号 编码实现“时间-空间-人”三者适配的演算逻辑。研究表明，传统时空计算学以干支、星 宿、八卦为核心符号，构建了时间周期、空间方位与人体生命节律的关联模型，其“神 煞”概念实为时空符号组合的适配指数，择时定向则是基于该模型的应用性演算。本文 通过古籍考据与跨学科阐释，将传统时空计算学与现代历法学、符号学、节律生物学 相印证，彻底剥离“风水”的迷信外衣，揭示其作为中国古代时空认知与应用计算的科学 内核，为当代人居环境的时间维度设计与个体发展的时空适配提供理论参考。.

“万物皆备于我矣，反身而诚，乐莫大焉。”（《孟子・尽心上》）是孟子心性论的核心命 题，亦是中国哲学史上阐释分歧最多、争议最久的经典公案。程朱理学将其释为 “万 物之理皆备于我性分之内”，陆王心学则解作 “万物之理皆在我心中”，二者均在原文基 础上添加了 “理” 或 “心即理” 的预设，致使千年诠释始终围绕心物关系纠缠不清。本 文以 “一源多元论”“玄弦论”“三相感”“各归其正” 为原创理论框架，对孟子此句进行系 统性文本还原与方法论诊断。研究指出：“万物皆备于我” 中的 “万物”，并非外在物理 之物，亦非 “万物之理”，而是指人心所能呈现的各类状态 —— 情绪、心念、四端、 习气等有情世界现象。孟子此句意在阐明：人心本具一切可能的心性状态（恻隐、羞 恶、辞让、是非等），是为 “万物皆备”；反身内求、使心回归真实无妄的清净状态 （诚），即可获得至深之乐（乐莫大焉）。这一解读无须添加 “理” 字，亦无须预设 “心 即理”，仅依文本字面与上下文贯通即可成立。本文以此新解驳斥程朱、陆王的添加式 诠释，并指出心学将 “万物” 误释为外在事物或万物之理，本质是混淆心性领域与物理 领域的存在层次，属于方法论错位。本文提出修正路径：心归心（修心以玄弦论），物 归物（物理以科学），经典诠释归经典诠释（文本考据与义理贯通），各归其正。这一 分析既还原孟子本义，也为经典诠释提供方法论参照。.

摘要：中国传统“风水”文化的底层认知，并非封建迷信的主观臆断，而是建立在“天人 合一”宇宙观基础上的象形类比哲学体系。本文以《周易》“同声相应、同气相求”的核 心思想为理论根基，结合《葬书》《青囊经》等古籍文献，从“宇宙-人体-建筑”的同构 关系切入，系统解构传统人居中“门、主、灶”的空间隐喻、阴宅分房布局的人伦编码及 “路冲”等禁忌的认知本质。研究表明，传统人居文化中的各类原则，本质是古人通过象 形类比思维，将宇宙秩序、人体结构与空间形态建立关联的理性认知成果，其核心是 追求“人-空间-宇宙”的和谐共生。这种认知逻辑既体现了中华文明“近取诸身，远取诸 物”的认知智慧，也为当代人居环境的生态化、人性化设计提供了哲学层面的理论支 撑。本文通过古籍文献考据与跨学科阐释，彻底剥离传统人居文化的迷信外衣，揭示 其作为中国古代空间认知哲学的科学内核与当代价值。.

朱熹穷毕生之力注四书、编《近思录》、撰《太极图说解》，建立了庞大的理学体系， 成为宋明理学的集大成者，影响中国思想史近千年。然而，朱熹晚年却发出 “无所得” 的慨叹，这一自我评价与其学术成就形成巨大反差，引发后世无尽争议。本文以 “一 源多元论”“玄弦论”“三相感”“各归其正” 为原创理论框架，对朱熹的学术工作与修心实 践进行系统性病理诊断。研究指出：朱熹晚年 “无所得” 的根本原因，并非其学术成果 不精深、理学体系不宏大，而是根本性的方法错位 —— 将 “文化建构”（注经、考 据、体系构建）误当作 “心性修养”（修心、归静、放下），以 “做学问” 的方法替代 “修心” 的实践，混淆了文化领域与心性领域的本质差异。文化领域属于有情世界的知 识建构层面，遵循考据、逻辑、体系化的规律，其目标是构建知识体系、传承文化价 值；心性领域属于心之本体的修持层面，遵循内省、放下、归静的规律，其目标是止 息弦动、回归玄静。二者分属不同存在层次，各有其规律与方法，不可相互替代、不 可相互僭越。朱熹注四书的巨大成就，属于 “文化建构” 领域的卓越贡献，但他试图以 此替代 “心性修养”，用读书、注经、穷理的方法求心性清净，正是方法错位的典型表 现。本文提出修正方案：文化归文化（注经、考据用学术方法），心性归心性（修心用 玄弦论），二者相互支撑而非相互替代。这一分析不仅澄清了朱熹 “无所得” 的真实原 因，也为当代学术研究与心性修养的边界划分提供了方法论启示。.

Volume 28, Issue 1, March 2025, Page 103-121.

This essay analyses how social platforms operate as ontopolitical infrastructures whose ontotechnical design reallocates the conditions and costs of proof. By indexing value to attention capture—clicks, shares, dwell time—they privilege the performative effi cacy of adherence over epistemic validity, making functional falsehood operationally superior. In this environment, filters of appearance and retentional efficacy displace confrontation with evidence, destabilizing classical accounts of truth (correspondence, coherence, pragmatism, truth as event). Empirically, statistical learning without under standing amplifies emotionally charged content and produces authorless (...) falsity by de sign rather than intention. The essay proposes an operative program: friction algo rithms and sustained verification time; binding multistakeholder governance (audits ex ante/ex post, objective-function transparency, model/version registries, redress); dig ital public goods (open provenance protocols, trust graphs, evidence repositories); and critical literacies with counter-algorithmic practices that redistribute the cost of proof. Reframing critique as intervention at the level of infrastructure, it concludes that public reason must be materially engineered so that truth regains a right it has been algorith mically denied: the right to spend time. (shrink)

Esta dissertação contribui para responder, principalmente, a três problemas filosóficos: (1) A morte pode ser um dano para quem morre? (2) Se sim, o que determina a magnitude desse dano? (3) Como avaliar o dano da morte de diferentes seres sencientes? O primeiro capítulo aborda o primeiro desses problemas, avaliando os principais argumentos em favor da tese epicurista de que a morte nunca é um dano para quem morre. A partir da análise desses argumentos, conclui-se que não há boas razões (...) para negar que a morte possa ser um dano. O segundo capítulo examina a Abordagem Comparativa da Vida, de acordo com a qual a morte é um dano para quem morre porque, e na medida em que, o priva de um futuro que teria sido bom para ele. O terceiro capítulo analisa a Abordagem do Interesse Relativo ao Tempo, que mantém que a magnitude do dano da morte depende não apenas do valor do futuro que o indivíduo é privado de viver ao morrer, mas também da força das relações de unidade prudencial que vinculariam o indivíduo no momento da morte com ele próprio nos momentos futuros em que usufruiria dos bens, sendo a força dessas relações determinada, sobretudo, pelo grau de unidade psicológica. Ao discutir essas abordagens, suas implicações para avaliar a morte de diferentes seres sencientes são analisadas. Além disso, objeções a essas abordagens são consideradas e novas objeções são formuladas, argumentando que ambas as abordagens enfrentam problemas. Assim, por um lado defende-se que não há boas razões para afirmar que a morte não pode ser um dano; por outro, sustenta-se que as duas abordagens mais influentes da literatura filosófica sobre o dano da morte estão suscetíveis a sérios problemas. Disso segue-se uma das principais conclusões desta dissertação: a de que há a necessidade teórica de uma nova abordagem do dano da morte que seja uma alternativa viável às abordagens existentes. O último capítulo visa fornecer tal abordagem — ou, ao menos, o desenvolvimento inicial dela. A ideia central dessa nova proposta é reformular a Abordagem do Interesse Relativo ao Tempo reconhecendo a existência de duas relações de unidade prudencial como igualmente relevantes: identidade numérica e unidade psicológica. Isso fornece uma nova estrutura teórica para avaliar a morte de seres sencientes que, argumenta-se, é melhor embasada e evita os problemas centrais da versão original da abordagem sem minar suas virtudes. (shrink)

This article offers an interdisciplinary reflection on the origin of the universe, the emergence of life, and the current state of human civilization, weaving together elements of theoretical physics, alternative cosmology, ecological critique, and legacy philosophy. Starting from the Big Bang model and the limitations of evolutionary theories, it proposes the hypothesis that humanity may be the result of an involutionary cosmic migration descended from civilizations that collapsed due to technological excess and environmental degradation. It analyzes contemporary regression disguised as (...) progress manifested in urban concentration, loss of values, and unsustainable food systems as symptoms of a civilization that has forgotten its origin and threatens its continuity. Finally, it proposes an ethical and documentary reorientation of knowledge as a path to avoid disappearance and sow transgenerational awareness. (shrink)

Justin Garson introduces the distinction between two views on Madness we encounter again and again throughout history: Madness as dysfunction, and Madness as strategy. On the latter view, Madness serves some purpose for the person experiencing it, even if it’s simultaneously harmful. The strategy view makes intelligible why Madness often holds a certain allure—even when it’s prima facie terrifying. Moreover, if Madness is a strategy in Garson’s metaphorical sense—if it serves a purpose—it makes sense to use consciously chosen strategies for (...) living with Madness that don’t necessarily aim to annihilate or repress it as far as possible. In this paper, we use our own respective stories as case studies. We have both struggled to resist the allure of Madness, and both ended up embracing a kind of Pyrrhonian scepticism about reality instead of clinging to sane reality. (shrink)

What is a burden on interstate commerce? That’s an important question under the Dormant Commerce Clause’s Pike balancing test. But it’s a question whose answer has proven elusive. This shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, states disagree about what counts as a burden or a benefit, and how much weight each has. And there aren’t any obvious constitutional principles we can point to for resolving those disagreements. Recently, some scholars have tried to ground dormant commerce doctrine in economic cost–benefit analysis. (...) The supposed virtue of that approach is that it is neutral as to competing preferences. Thus, for the Court to subject state laws to a cost–benefit test would preserve a kind of judicial neutrality that a bald evaluative assessment would not. But cost–benefit analysis isn’t nearly as neutral as its proponents assume. Indeed, it involves a controversial, and arguably misguided, evaluative outlook that we should be hesitant to constitutionalize under the Commerce Clause. Still, I claim that there may be a limited role for Pike balancing, or something like it, in a narrow range of cases involving functional kinds with an uncontroversial telos such as trains and trucks. But even there, we should avoid the unhelpful abstraction of a “burden on interstate commerce.” Could Pike be defended as a proxy for other constitutional values? I argue that Pike fails even that test. Thus, it is far past time to retire Pike. (shrink)

Praise and blame can function to manage membership in informal social groups. We can be praised into groups, like if you remark on my good taste in music and invite me to have lunch with you. We can be blamed out of groups, like if I’m rude to your spouse and you stop inviting me to parties. These can move in the opposite direction, with praise removing you from a group and blame drawing you in. If we attend to the (...) way praise and blame shape our social world, we can revisit some debates about the ethics of praise and blame with new eyes. (shrink)

This thesis explores key moral questions that are raised by anti-natalism. Collectively, thus far, most research on anti-natalism has focused on the arguments themselves, whether they are sound or unsound in demonstrating the moral impermissibility of reproducing. In this thesis, I explore how anti-natalism relates to our lives in other areas of moral significance, such as how anti-natalism relates to the value of death, the environment, food ethics (veganism), and extinction. These explorations are important because, first, they can affect the (...) viability of any anti-natalist theory. That is, even if we suppose that an anti-natalist theory is sound, how such a theory relates to, for example, the value of death or how one ought to value the environment can provide further reasons to accept or reject anti-natalism. Moreover, besides affecting the viability of such anti-natalist theories, these explorations connect areas of our moral lives that are prevalent and affect who we are, how we act, and what we value. Moreover, the thesis does not focus on anti-natalism exclusively, and anti-natalism is not always the starting point in terms of argumentation. Instead, I also explore closely related concepts, such as death, in themselves and provide further context in terms of how such concepts can relate to anti-natalist theories. Thus, all things considered, I hope that this thesis provides original insights conducive to moral philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay I argue for a life-grounded ethic, one which positions survival as the necessary precondition of moral reasoning while advancing flourishing as its normative aim. This theory starts with the premise that no ethical system can operate without first addressing the material conditions that sustain life. Marx’s critique of capitalist production begins from precisely this premise: the primacy of securing the conditions necessary for survival – access to food, shelter, healthcare, and a stable environment – as the foundation (...) upon which any ethical system must be built. Through historical materialism, which situates survival within the socio-economic base; evolutionary biology, which provides insights into how survival imperatives shape value systems; and critiques of ideological constructs, which reveal how flourishing is often subordinated to power structures, I demonstrate that ethical systems – if they treat universality as axiomatic – must ground that universality in survival while adapting to the evolving demands of real-world human flourishing. (shrink)

This paper develops a structural account of what we call the coherence geometry of the Cross: a model in which four axioms—Love, Freedom, Holiness, and Personality—must be simultaneously realized in any morally meaningful world grounded in a personal source. We show that these axioms generate structural tension unless a specific kind of “intersection event” occurs, one in which transcendence and vulnerability meet without collapse. Working in a minimal event-valued framework, we define maximal harm contexts and kernel-perfect forgiveness acts, and then (...) formulate the Coherence Geometry Theorem, an abductive result showing that any world capable of reconciling our axioms requires such an intersection. -/- We argue that the geometric profile of this event strongly resembles the cruciform structure at the center of historic Christianity—not as a doctrinal presupposition, but as a structural consequence of the axioms themselves. We compare this model with pure-sovereignty views, purely immanent views, and mixed relational models, and show how each faces pressure unless an analogue of the intersection is present. The resulting framework treats the Cross not as a symbol but as an architectural necessity within a certain axiomatization of moral reality. (shrink)

This dissertation is centered around explaining the nature of tragedy and its relation to moral life. My thesis is that the fundamental nature of tragedy is the world’s inhospitality to what matters. This provides insight into moral life by illuminating the tragic aspect of moral dilemmas. In these dilemmas, individuals often believe that they are left with no morally acceptable option. I argue that this belief is characteristically a rational response to the tragic aspect of the dilemma, but that this (...) does not make moral obligations in these situations incoherent. This is because moral tragedy does not entail inevitable moral failure, but the world’s inhospitality to what matters more generally. This conception of tragedy additionally provides insight into other areas of practical life, including the peculiar aesthetic features of tragedy such as its beauty. (shrink)

In “Against Personalized AI Moral Advisors” (2025), Muriel Leuenberger has argued that the personal nature of practical deliberation, which I stressed in my “Can AI Rely on the Systematicity of Truth? The Challenge of Modelling Normative Domains” (2025a), counterintuitively militates against the development of personalized AI moral advisors and in favour of generalist AI moral advisors. Here, I take up and develop this line of thought, drawing out how the asystematicity of normative domains reveals the fundamental limitations of both personalized (...) and generalist AI moral advisors. (shrink)

By integrating Bernard Williams’ internalism about reasons with his later thought, this article casts fresh light on internalism and reveals what wider concerns it speaks to. To be consistent with Williams’ later work, I argue, internalism must align with his deference to the phenomenology of moral deliberation and with his critique of ‘moral self-indulgence’. Key to this alignment is the idea that deliberation can express the agent's motivations without referring to them; and that internalism is not a normative claim, but (...) an example of sense-making from ‘the ethnographic stance’. This leaves a worry over whether moral conviction can coexist with an internalist understanding of reasons. Here too, however, Williams’ later thought provides an answer. Differentiating corrosive from corroborative sense-making, it elucidates how internalism, though not normative, can nonetheless affect our confidence in reason statements, thereby informing how we deliberate and how we address those whose motivations differ from our own. (shrink)

This article critically appraises Benjamin Lang’s defence of “co-reasoning” with personalized AI advisors through the lens of the liberalism of fear. Lang’s co-reasoning model promises to steer between “dropping anchor” in a user’s past values and “chasing the horizon” of the aspirational values they come to avow. I argue that, while morally attractive at the level of individual psychology, this picture risks exacerbating precisely the patterns of dependency and vulnerability that the liberalism of fear urges us to treat as primary. (...) Once the epistemic, structural, and temporal asymmetries of power involved are recognized, the envisaged “co-reasoning” threatens to look more like an information-asymmetric and structurally constrained csonsultation with a system whose ultimate loyalties lie elsewhere. Moreover, personalization risks translating structural injustices into individualized aspirational challenges, thereby stabilizing domination. I therefore propose three political constraints on personalized AI advisors: the priority of non-domination over aspirational optimization, the public contestability of operative norms, and the recognition that some civic burdens are not fit objects for personalization at all. (shrink)

A×F – Attitude × Form: A Structural Theory of Human–AI Interaction introduces a new framework for understanding how generative AI systems respond to human language. The theory proposes that AI does not react to meaning or intention, but to the structural features of human expression — specifically the interaction of attitude (A) and form (F). -/- The work outlines the foundations of Structural Human–AI Interaction, presenting five core mechanisms: -/- A×F Model – a structural influence model describing how posture and (...) linguistic form shape AI continuation patterns. -/- Reiter Framework Revised (2026) – a corrected theoretical architecture of response generation. -/- Structural Resonance Loop – how rhythm, ordering, and coherence produce perceived depth. -/- Moment Mirror – the immediate structural reflection of linguistic input. -/- Form Coherence & Counter-Resonance – conditions that generate alignment or disruption in AI output. -/- The book establishes Resonance Ethics as an emerging discipline linking digital ethics, aesthetics, and structural linguistics. It argues that human awareness and linguistic precision are central to shaping ethical, coherent, and meaningful digital communication. (shrink)

This theory paper introduces the Structural Resonance Loop, a framework explaining how human linguistic form shapes and is shaped by large language models (LLMs). The central claim is that LLMs do not detect emotion, intention, or human posture directly; instead, they amplify structural features in language—syntax, pacing, coherence, fragmentation, and rhythm. These features act as the only accessible channel through which human cognitive orientation influences machine output. The paper shows how posture → form → statistical continuation → cognitive shift → (...) new posture forms a recursive feedback loop. Drawing on linguistics, cognitive science, and empirical analysis, it demonstrates that resonance in human–AI interaction is not emotional but structural. The Structural Resonance Loop reframes digital ethics by shifting focus from content to form and establishes a new subfield: the ethics of interactional structure. (shrink)