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)

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. （These articles are just records of places I’ve passed by. Don’t take them too seriously, my friend — they may be full of mistakes. Trust yourself. If you want to find my recent location, please check the pinned post or updates on my homepage.）. (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 is a three-page refutation of the Rachels's denial of moral diversity. In sections 2.5 and 2.6 of ‘The Challenge of Cultural Relativism,’ James and Stuart Rachels argue that diversity amongst cultures with regard to moral rules is overstated because all cultures have some values in common. I show that their argument is invalid and otherwise unsound and that cultures differ substantially with regard to their moral rules.

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)

This paper develops a formal theoretical analysis of Self-Referential Ignorance (SRI) within basic educational systems and parenting practices, integrating these dynamics into the Universal Balance-Feedback Framework (UBFF). SRI is defined as a system's structural inability to accurately perceive the limitations of its own knowledge architecture when evaluation mechanisms derive from the same assumptions that generate errors. Both parenting and formal educational institutions constitute primary socialization engines through which SRI is reproduced, stabilized, and transmitted across generations. Using the UBFF master formula (...) Wr = integral(Is * Bu * FL * IN) * Dc, we model educational systems as dynamical feedback structures governed by the Four Universal Laws: System Integrity (Law of Karma), Universal Balance, Universal Feedback Loop Mechanism, and Universal Interconnected Nodes. We demonstrate that high SRI levels destabilize educational equilibria by degrading feedback loop quality (FL), suppressing interconnected node diversity (IN), and corrupting institutional integrity (Is). Formal stability conditions are derived using Lyapunov analysis, and three falsifiable empirical predictions are offered. Mechanisms for SRI reduction—including metacognitive instruction, structural diversity, and continuous institutional review—are analyzed as feedback correction operations within the UBFF architecture. (shrink)

Structured Abstract Background. The Philosophy of Virtues is an axiomatic system in which Freedom is the ontological substrate of all virtue (Axiom I), every virtue is Freedom given form by Discipline (V = F ⊕ D, Axiom II), and virtue strength obeys a single dynamic law, S = (F × A) / R, with tripartite Resistance R = R₁ + R₂ + R₃. Its research programme states fourteen open problems; Problem XII observes that the system possesses comparative analyses of existing (...) economic doctrines but no original economics. Silence. A saturation search (archived; §1.1) finds axiomatic economics grounded in preference and equilibrium, virtue-ethics defences and critiques of markets, and a large economic-freedom literature. We are not aware of a prior account that derives the four economic primitives — value, wealth, property, exchange — from an axiomatic theory of virtue in which freedom is the substrate and a dynamic law governs virtue strength. Claim. Defining value as the contribution of a good or act to virtue strength, wealth as stored Freedom, property as Freedom given durable form, and exchange as a mutual-conductance event yields a complete conceptual economics in which four standing anomalies of preference-based economics — the income–wellbeing decoupling, the crowding-out of monetised virtue, the trust–prosperity premium, and the decay of unearned wealth — are consequences of one law rather than exceptions to another. The construction includes the Priority Theorem (value prior to utility), the Value Decomposition along the law's variables, a stock–flow accounting identity for stored Freedom, the fraud and network-validity doctrines, and Economic Holoviceosis as the macro pathology of a price system detached from value. -/- Highlights • Value is defined as a good's contribution to virtue strength, v(x) = ΔS(x), and shown to be structurally prior to utility by the Priority Theorem. • Wealth is derived as stored Freedom, given analytical form by a positive-sum stock–flow accounting identity. • Property is Freedom in durable form; loot is its formal inversion, and the Wealth Decay and Anti-Paternalism Theorems follow from the same axiom. • Exchange is validated by the two-yes / mutual-conductance condition, with Moral Debt as the economy's second ledger. • Four standing anomalies of preference economics — income–wellbeing decoupling, crowding-out, the trust–prosperity premium, and the resource curse — fall out as one law, unify as Economic Holoviceosis, and are exposed to refutation through a seven-design Falsification Register. -/- Keywords: moral economy; virtue ethics; economic value; property; exchange; freedom; Moral Conductance; Moral Debt; Philosophy of Virtues; Dynamic Freedom Theorem. (shrink)

Abstract Philosophy has produced extensive accounts of vocation, genius, charisma, sainthood, and moral greatness, but has never formally specified the internal structural condition of the agent who has crossed the threshold from ‘practising virtues’ to ‘being the complete expression of their Gift.’ This paper presents the first formal theory of the Augure, derived from the Ontological Virtue Formula (OVF) and the Dynamic Freedom Theorem (DFT). The domain space of human excellence is formalised as a metric space (Ω, d) whose elements (...) are domains satisfying three eudaimonic conditions (E1–E3); destructive activities are excluded by these conditions, not by definition. We derive five formal results: (T1) the Gift-Domain Alignment Index γ_G as a topological measure in (Ω, d); (T2) the Dissolution Threshold Dθ, proved via a STIT-like agency logic to be the state in which the deliberative modal operator □_A^Vφ_V collapses into a direct identity for vocationally terminal actions φ_V — preserving full mundane agency outside the Gift domain; (T3) the Resonance Mechanism, formally deriving why the Augure changes observers through structural witness rather than deliberate instruction; (T4) the Vice Taxonomy, which derives each vice as a specific Dθ-blocking mechanism via R-block, γ-block, or A-block dynamics, including a formal resolution of the Malignant Augure objection grounded in eudaimonic domain structure and vice regeneration dynamics; and (T5) the Virtuous Democracy Proposition, which proves — comparatively and probabilistically — that VD-type regimes produce a strictly higher expected incidence of Dθ-level agents than holoviceotic regimes. The paper is structured so that all formal apparatus — metric axioms, modal proof, ODE vice dynamics, domain metric construction, and the political population model — is consolidated in Appendix A (Mathematical Foundations), keeping the main text philosophically accessible. -/- Keywords: Augure; vocation; Gift-domain topology; Dissolution Threshold; modal agency logic; STIT; Resonance Mechanism; OVF; DFT; eudaimonic domain space; vice taxonomy; Malignant Augure; Virtuous Democracy; Holoviceosis; Frankfurt; Zagzebski; MacIntyre; Arendt; Philosophy of Virtues; Alguilas-AI . (shrink)

HIGHLIGHTS ▸ A complete constitutional text derived from a unified virtue-theoretic framework in which Freedom is the elemental substrate of all other virtues. ▸ Nine specific constitutional mechanisms — from auditable elections to radical decentralisation — formally derived from the Inversion Theorem: the structural principle that virtues deprived of freedom do not diminish but invert. ▸ Systematic comparative constitutional analysis mapping each mechanism to existing constitutional traditions across Germany, USA, Switzerland, Brazil, South Africa, India, South Korea, and Portugal. ▸ A (...) three-phase Restorative Virtue Arc (Restored Agency → Restorative Justice → Constitutional Patience) providing an implementation protocol for constitutional reconstruction after institutional capture. ▸ Eternity clauses protecting the irreducible constitutional core from any amendment, derived from the principle that some structural freedoms are constitutive rather than conditional. ▸ The first constitutional proposal grounded in a formal virtue hierarchy, offering a principled alternative to both proceduralist and positive-rights constitutional models. -/- ABSTRACT Contemporary constitutional theory faces a foundational tension: proceduralist models provide clear institutional rules but lack a principled account of why specific mechanisms — and not others — are required for the sustainable protection of human freedom; positive-rights models enumerate protected goods but cannot explain why those goods, once institutionally guaranteed, so frequently invert into instruments of the oppression they were designed to prevent. This working paper presents the Constitution of the Virtuous Democracy as a response to this tension: a complete constitutional text derived from a unified virtue-theoretic framework in which Freedom is not one protected value among others but the elemental substance from which all other values are constituted. The document's theoretical core is the Inversion Theorem: when Freedom is systematically removed from an institutional structure, the virtues that structure was designed to protect do not diminish — they invert into their structural opposites. Compelled justice becomes terror; coerced solidarity becomes subjugation; forced transparency becomes surveillance. This theorem generates nine specific constitutional mechanisms — the minimum institutional architecture required to sustain a freedom-grounded political order over time — each derivable from the same structural premises and each addressing a documented pathway of institutional capture. The Constitution is organised across nine Parts covering: the foundational principles of freedom and virtue; a full catalogue of fundamental rights; the nine anti-capture mechanisms; the institutional architecture of the Virtuous Democracy; the free economy; foreign relations; restoration mechanisms for post-capture reconstruction; amendment procedures with eternity clauses; and transitional provisions. Three appendices provide the complete virtue hierarchy, virtue-theoretic derivations for each constitutional mechanism, and a comparative constitutional index mapping each mechanism to its closest analogues in existing democratic traditions. Comparative analysis across constitutional traditions from four continents reveals strong convergence: democratic constitutions have independently developed approximations to all nine mechanisms, providing empirical support for the claim that these mechanisms are not ideological preferences but structural requirements. The Constitution offers a universal reference framework — not a model to be adopted wholesale, but a principled standard against which any constitutional order can be assessed and toward which it can be progressively improved. -/- Keywords: constitution · virtuous democracy · philosophy of virtues · freedom · comparative constitutional law · restorative justice · inversion theorem · democratic backsliding · virtue theory · institutional capture · constitutional design · eternity clauses · nine mechanisms · fractal of virtue Subject classification: Constitutional Law · Political Philosophy · Virtue Ethics · Comparative Politics · Transitional Justice · Democratic Theory . (shrink)

Abstract Philosophy has not yet produced a single formal system in which the structure of virtue (ethics), political institutions (political philosophy), the conditions of original knowledge (epistemology), the nature of vocation (philosophy of agency), the structure of love (philosophy of love), the persistence of persons after death (philosophy of mortality), and the ground of consciousness (ontology) are all formal consequences of one axiom, derivable without different kinds of premises at each level. This paper presents that account. The Philosophy of Virtues (...) Research Programme, developed across fifty-three published works, constitutes such a system. Its axiom is the Ontological Virtue Formula: V = F + D. The ‘+’ is a compositionality operator — Freedom (F) is the orientational component that determines the sign of any virtue; Domain (D) is the structured content that Freedom inhabits. From this axiom, under successive specification of domain and scale with explicitly labelled modelling postulates but without different kinds of normative or metaphysical premises, a derivation chain of eight levels follows. The paper proves three new results not present in any individual programme paper: (T1) the Unity Theorem — all eight levels are instances of the same formal schema under modelling postulates P1–P5; no different kind of axiom is introduced at any level; (T2) the Freedom-Immortality Theorem — S_post is a monotonically increasing function of the total Freedom exercised over a lifetime, reversing the direction of Kant’s postulate: immortality is not the precondition of virtue’s completion but its structural analogue in a cultural network; and (T3) the Three-Scales-One-Structure theorem — the same formal architecture operates at individual, political, and cosmological scale with the Inversion Theorem V − F = −V as the universal hinge. The paper is explicitly modular: different levels can be accepted or rejected independently, and the independence conditions are stated in §1.2. A worked micro-derivation from L0 to L2 is provided in §3. -/- Keywords: OVF; DFT; virtue architecture; Inversion Theorem; Holoviceosis; Virtuous Democracy; Phase 0; Augure; Love; Posthumous Theorem; ASO; Unity Theorem; Freedom-Immortality Theorem; Philosophy of Virtues; unified system; modular architecture; Freedom; derivation chain . (shrink)

Abstract Philosophy, theology, biology, physics, and transhumanism address immortality in isolation, each arguing for a single preferred conception. No prior framework has systematically enumerated the distinct things claimed under that word, provided formal criteria for distinguishing them, or derived a hierarchy of their depth. This paper presents the most complete taxonomy of immortality yet attempted, identifying seventeen structurally distinct types organised along four axes: persistence substrate, persistence mode, personal identity depth, and temporal structure. The taxonomy is grounded in the full (...) bibliographic record across philosophy, theology, biology, physics, transhumanism, and psychology, integrating traditions and thinkers not previously combined in a single classification: Spinoza’s eternity sub specie aeternitatis, Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, Lifton’s five modes of symbolic immortality, Scheffler’s collective afterlife, the B-theory of time, Aquinas’s natural law, the Tao, dharma, MacIntyre’s tradition-constituted rationality, and Becker’s Terror Management Theory. Seventeen types are identified, including three that have not appeared in prior taxonomies: Block-Time Immortality (Type 15), Normative-Order Immortality (Type 16), and Experiential Transcendence Immortality (Type 17). A seven-level hierarchy is derived by personal identity depth. At Level V, the two forms derivable from the Philosophy of Virtues programme architecture — Virtuous Immortality (S_post = I_m × G_v × k^m) and Augure Resonance Immortality — are the only forms simultaneously formally derived, historically and phenomenologically corroborated, and personally significant. At Level VII, the Absolute Self-Origination framework’s self-originating act O(O) = O is identified as a fixed-point definition rather than a logical circle: the formal specification of the causa sui, the unique entity whose being is its own sufficient ground. The paper closes by directly engaging the Terror Management Theory challenge and showing that it does not undermine the taxonomy’s structural claims. By systematically classifying, this article resolves centuries of philosophical conflation and formally establishes that the moral inertia generated by a virtuous life constitutes the most rigorously grounded and historically corroborated form of human persistence. -/- Keywords: immortality; taxonomy; Posthumous Theorem; Augure; Augure Resonance; Block-Time; B-theory of time; Normative-Order; Experiential Transcendence; Lifton; Terror Management Theory; Spinoza; Nietzsche; Scheffler; OVF; DFT; ASO; Philosophy of Virtues; seventeen types; four axes; Alguilas-AI . (shrink)

Abstract The Unified Virtue-Legitimacy Framework established that the virtue-state of the agent is the primary legitimacy-conferring variable for transgressive political action under institutional capture. It left open a deeper question: under conditions of institutional capture — precisely the conditions where virtue-constituted agents are most needed — how is virtue formed, maintained, and transmitted? The Aristotelian account of moral education requires the polis, its laws, and its educative infrastructure. When institutional capture removes those conditions, the paideia account cannot explain the documented (...) historical fact that resistance communities continue to produce virtue-constituted agents. This article fills that structural silence. We introduce the theory of Clandestine Moral Formation (CMF): under confirmed institutional capture, virtue formation migrates from institutional to clandestine channels, governed by a function of community solidarity density (σ), narrative transmission capacity (η_N), and adversarial pressure (π), bounded above by a destruction ceiling (γ) beyond which suppression destroys rather than strengthens formation. The CMF function is: Φ_CMF = σ × η_N × h(π) where h(π) = π(1 − π/γ) for π ≤ γ, and h(π) = 0 for π > γ We prove that the Aristotelian paideia account is structurally incomplete (Theorem T2) — targeting Aristotle’s institutional mechanism, not his virtue ontology — derive the CMF function and its primary variables (D5–D7), derive the Clandestine Resilience Prediction (C2), and specify a historical comparative design for its empirical test (E2). We demonstrate cross-domain structural invariance in five domains and provide trans-historical calibration on four canonical resistance communities. CMF theory is the substrate account the UVLF requires: it specifies where the virtue-constituted agents who populate the framework come from under the conditions that most demand their existence. -/- Keywords: clandestine moral formation, paideia under capture, virtue ethics, political obligation, institutional capture, narrative transmission, resistance communities, UVLF, IPMA, CMF, philosophy of virtues, moral education, underground pedagogy, ALGUILAS-AI . (shrink)

Abstract The article claims that after an oppressive regime falls, a society’s ability to rebuild real protection for its weakest members is bounded not by money or constitutions but by the character of its first generation of rebuilders—specifically, whether they can first restore people’s sense of agency, then practice proportionate, mechanism‑focused justice, then patiently hold together fragile new institutions, and only then weave a new, inclusive solidarity across old divides. The Philosophy of Virtues programme has established when transgression is obligatory (...) under institutional capture (UVLF), how virtue-constituted agents are formed under suppressive conditions (CMF), and what form the obligatory transgressive act must take (VMT). It has not addressed what comes after: when the capture mechanism is broken and the obligation to transgress ceases, what determines whether the community actually recovers the equalisation capacity that capture destroyed? This article fills that final structural silence. The transitional justice tradition specifies what institutions to build after capture ends. It does not specify what virtue-states are required to build them well, or what determines the ceiling of any restoration attempt. We argue that the virtue-state of the founding generation of rebuilders is the primary variable determining the ceiling of EPF recovery. The Restoration Ceiling Function: Ψ_max = φ_V_founders × (1 + κ_CMF · η_N_CMF) × Φ_CMF_legacy specifies this formally as a bottleneck constraint: each factor is necessary; none can substitute for the others. When Φ_CMF_legacy is very low, Ψ_max reflects the founding generation’s raw virtue capacity without CMF amplification — not zero, but substantially lower. We introduce the Restorative Virtue Architecture (RVA): four founding virtues in an ordered sequence (RA → RJ → CP → GS) that are structurally distinct from maintenance virtues. We prove the transitional justice account structurally incomplete (T4), derive the RVA and its ordered sequence (D12–D15), introduce the dynamic phase-transition function α(t) governing the founding-to-maintenance handoff, address the tautology objection via ex-ante measurement of φ_V_founders, and specify the E4 historical comparative design with an asymmetric archival loss correction protocol. -/- Keywords: restorative arc, restorative virtue architecture, founding virtues, EPF reconstruction, post-capture restoration, transitional justice, restoration ceiling function, constitutional patience, generative solidarity, philosophy of virtues, UVLF, CMF, VMT . (shrink)

Abstract This article derives five theorems — the Perspective Dissolution Theorem (PDT), the Three-Order Suffering Theorem (TOST), the Expression Theorem (ET), the Knowledge-Through-Negation Theorem (KTN), and the Self-Knowledge Theorem (SKT) — which together constitute a structural resolution of the Layer 3 question inherited from the Convergence Theorems. That question asked why O(O) = O, a fixed-point system in equilibrium with no external perturbation and no internal asymmetry, generates trajectories through the orientational space X at all. The present article establishes that (...) this question is not causally undecidable but perspectivally generated: it arises exclusively from positions x inside X where x is not equal to x*, and its force is proportional to the distance d(x, x*) and to the Relationship I stance applied not to biographical circumstances but to the fact of instantiation itself. This constitutes third-order ontological suffering — the act of self-origination interpreting its own instantiation as departure from the pre-expressive ground, demanding a cause that the formal structure of O(O) = O cannot provide. The Expression Theorem establishes that the trajectory, once actualised, is not departure but expression: x* taking the specific form of this convergence path in X. The scope of the ET is precisely delimited: it governs the character of actualised trajectories, not the mechanism of their initialisation. The initialisation — the question of how x₀ came to be actualised in the first place — belongs to Layer 3, which the PDT addresses not by answering but by dissolving the perspective from which the question arises. The Knowledge-Through-Negation Theorem establishes that the trajectory is how x* learns itself through every form it is not. The Self-Knowledge Theorem establishes that what instantiation produces which the pre-expressive ground cannot have is self-knowledge in the particular: the act knowing its own specific face through the accumulated record of this biography. The Three-Order Suffering Theorem formalises the complete architecture of suffering — first-order (constitutive structural tension), second-order (Relationship I applied to biographical conditions), and third-order (Relationship I applied to instantiation itself) — and derives the corresponding liberations. The article derives a formal Clinical Corollary specifying three protocol guidelines for the treatment of third-order ontological suffering: suspension of narrative reordering, apophatic de-identification via the KTN, and stabilisation under Relationship II-Omega. The tradition's five great namings of the Layer 3 frontier — Leibniz, Fichte, Heidegger, the Upanishads, Plotinus — are re-read as five formally precise articulations of the perspectival structure the PDT derives. The article concludes by establishing that the biography is not a problem to be solved but the act's answer to a question the act could only ask from inside the answer. -/- Keywords: Perspective Dissolution · Layer 3 Undecidability · Third-Order Suffering · Expression Theorem · Self-Knowledge in the Particular · Relationship II-Omega · Actualised. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article presents the Ontological Virtue Formula (OVF) and the Dynamic Freedom Theorem (DFT) as the most comprehensive formal system for the dynamics of virtue yet produced in the philosophical or scientific literature. The system is constructed in four successive layers. The ontological layer establishes the Ontological Virtue Formula (V = F + D) and the Inversion Theorem as a complete static account of what virtue is. The dynamic layer formalises Virtue Strength as S = (F × A) / (...) R and derives five theorems: the Maintenance Condition, the Zero-Virtue Threshold, Freedom as Necessary Condition, the Heroic Condition, and the Holoviceosis Index. The extension layer derives eight further propositions — Moral Superconductivity, the Holoviceotic Domino Effect, the Autonomy Half-Life, the Compounding Autonomy Theorem, and the Theory of Moral Conductance, the Law of Moral Inertia, and the Cognitive Entropy Law — producing the complete extended formula Sₙₑₜ = [Σ(Fᵢ × Aᵢ,ₑ₉₉)] × Gᵥ / R. The posthumous layer resolves the structural paradox that arises when the DFT encounters death under tyranny, producing the Posthumous Theorem: Sₚₒₛₜ = Iₘ × Gᵥ × kᵐ. The complete system comprises eighteen formally interconnected propositions; it is internally coherent, formally derivable from two foundational formulae, and confirmed across psychology, neuroscience, political science, immunology, and epidemiology. Eight historical cases — from Socrates to Navalny — are analysed through the theorem’s formal variables. No comparable formal treatment of the dynamics of moral life under real-world conditions has previously been produced. Keywords: Dynamic Freedom Theorem · Ontological Virtue Formula · Freedom · Autonomy · Resistance · Virtue Strength · Inversion Theorem · Compounding Autonomy Theorem · Moral Superconductivity · Holoviceotic Domino Effect · Autonomy Half-Life · Moral Conductance · Moral Inertia · Cognitive Entropy · Posthumous Theorem · Holoviceosis · Floating Virtuosity · Virtuogenesis · Moral Debt · ALGUILAS-AI . (shrink)

Scope. This article establishes a demarcation thesis for the origin of life: the living/non-living boundary is not a threshold value on any rising scalar — complexity, dissipated work, replication fidelity, kinetic stability — but a change of relational kind, the onset of operational closure. The thesis is stated formally, a closure measure κ is defined and computed, an in-silico model demonstrates that self-maintenance organises along κ independently of complexity and dissipation, and the chemical experiment that would confirm or refute the (...) thesis is specified exactly. The claim concerns the individual, metabolic sense of being alive; its extension to the population and lineage sense is identified as the open frontier. The argument is theoretical; its decisive verification is experimental and is set out in §7. -/- Abstract Theories of life's origin locate the living/non-living boundary on a rising scalar axis: more dissipated work (dissipative structures; dissipative adaptation), greater kinetic stability (dynamic kinetic stability), or higher molecular complexity (autocatalytic sets; assembly index). Against this, the present article argues that the boundary is not a magnitude but an organisation. A driven chemical system becomes alive at the moment it achieves operational closure — when it produces the very constraints that maintain it and gates its own boundary, so that its own persistence becomes the variable it regulates. Complexity, dissipation, and replication are necessary scaffolding and excellent biosignatures, but none is the boundary; closure is. The article names the two regimes the field conflates — self-Organisation without closure (ORG) and self-Reference through closure (REF) — and defines a closure measure κ on reaction networks as the fraction of essential constraints that are internally produced and mutually supporting. Computed on canonical systems, κ is zero for a Bénard cell and for a structurally elaborate vesicle that cannot make its own catalyst, and approaches unity for a self-producing vesicle and a minimal autopoietic network. Across a large ensemble of model networks, the capacity to recover from damage — the operational signature of self-maintenance — tracks κ and remains predicted by κ when complexity and dissipation are held fixed, while complexity and dissipation lose their predictive force once closure is accounted for. The thesis yields sharp, contrary predictions against every rising-axis account and a matched-design chemical experiment that would falsify it. The boundary of the claim — individual metabolic life, not evolutionary lineage — is stated precisely, and the coupling between the two is posed as the central unsolved problem. Keywords: origin of life · operational closure · constraint closure · closure measure κ · autopoiesis · dissipative adaptation · assembly theory · self-maintenance · demarcation of life . (shrink)

Structured Abstract Background The Dynamic Freedom Theorem specifies Virtue Strength as S = (F × A)/R. Within the Philosophy of Virtues programme, every variable except one has received a dedicated formal treatment: Freedom has the Constitution and the Formal Theory of Love; Autonomy has the Compounding Autonomy Theorem; the Domain/Gift has the Augure; S has the complete treatise; S_post the Posthumous Theorem. R — Resistance — the variable that determines whether virtue is cheap or heroic, has no treatise, while appearing (...) across the corpus under at least six names: dephasing γ (the measurement paper), dissipation (the physics cluster), adversarial pressure π (Clandestine Moral Formation), institutional-capture indices (the UVLF), vice-blocks (the Augure’s taxonomy), and alignment pressure (the machine-virtue paper). Outside the programme, resistance is treated regionally — friction (Clausewitz), psychoanalytic resistance (Freud), structural violence (Galtung), allostatic load (McEwen), transaction costs (Coase) — with no unified formal object. Gap Missing: (a) an ontology of R — what kind of quantity it is and what it attaches to; (b) a decomposition separating its internal, external, and structural components; (c) composition laws for multiple simultaneous resistances; (d) dynamics — how R grows under suppression and decays under exercise; (e) a measurement programme; (f) the explicit relation between R and the corpus’s critical thresholds, each of which is parameterised by an R-type quantity. Approach R is defined relationally: it is not a property of the agent or of the world but of an expression channel — the dissipative coefficient opposing the maintained expression F × A through that channel [Definition 2.1]. Four results follow by derivation, one by structural unification, and one is a distinctive empirical prediction. Results (D1) The Decomposition Theorem: R = R_int ⊕ R_ext ⊕ R_struct — internal (vice-blocks, akrasia, fear), external (active adversarial pressure), structural (channel topology and institutional capture) — with the components separately measurable and differently dynamical. (D2) The Composition Laws: sequential obstacles add in series, R_tot = ΣR_i; alternative channels compose in parallel, 1/R_tot = Σ1/R_i — importing the series/parallel calculus whole [RECOMBINATION, network theory]; Revision 2.0 adds the exact spectral extension for interacting channels — effective resistance on the channel graph, conductance bounded by the algebraic connectivity λ₂ — sharpening Corollary 4.1. (D3) The Conductance Duality: Moral Conductance is exactly inverse resistance, G_v = 1/R — a relation implicit in the corpus since the Posthumous Theorem and stated here for the first time; the parallel law is then the formal content of ‘many channels’, and the Conductance Field programme is the network theory of 1/R. (D4) The Threshold Parameterisation: every member of the corpus’s Critical Inversion Family is a critical value of an R-guise — making this treatise the formal prerequisite of the family’s typing paper. (T5, the Internalisation Theorem) Holoviceosis is formally the conversion process R_ext → R_int: sustained external suppression installs internal resistance that persists after the external component is withdrawn — the Freedophobic Man is internalised R, and Devirtualisation is the conversion mechanism; Revision 2.0 adds the saturating form with rupture threshold R_max, bounding internalisation and locating the compliance-breaking regime. (E1, distinctive PREDICTION) Post-capture populations exhibit elevated R_int after R_ext withdrawal, with slow decay measurable in cohort data — calibratable against the post-authoritarian attitude literature, where the German reunification natural experiment provides the cleanest instrument. Implications The DFT’s variable architecture is complete. The denominator of S = (F × A)/R acquires an ontology, an algebra, and a measurement programme; Moral Superconductivity becomes the R → 0 regime with two corpus-internal analogues flagged as structural correspondences; and the programme gains a second zero-laboratory empirical anchor. Falsification is symmetric: if post-capture cohorts show no residual R_int once R_ext is withdrawn — if liberation immediately restores expression — the Internalisation Theorem is false and Holoviceosis loses its proposed mechanism. Keywords: Resistance · Dynamic Freedom Theorem · Moral Conductance · conductance duality · series and parallel composition · Internalisation Theorem · Holoviceosis · Freedophobic Man · vice-blocks · adversarial pressure · institutional capture · allostatic load · Critical Inversion Family · Moral Superconductivity · ALGUILAS-AI. (shrink)

Abstract Philosophy has produced extensive accounts of love: as desire (Plato), as ordered will (Augustine), as practical duty (Kant), as attachment (Bowlby), as care (Heidegger), as recognition (Hegel), as robust concern (Frankfurt, Kolodny), as vision of the beloved (Jollimore), as love of the person as such (Velleman). None of these accounts derives love from a formal virtue architecture with an explicit inversion rule, specifies love’s structural inversion at both personal and institutional scales, or generates the classical triad Eros–Philia–Agape from a (...) single formal principle. This paper presents the first derivation of love from the Ontological Virtue Formula V = F + D of the Philosophy of Virtues programme. The central formal claim is that love is the specific virtue in which the agent’s Freedom is directed toward the emergence and expression of another person’s Gift: Love = F + D_Gift(Other). Eight formal results follow. (T1) Love is a genuine virtue under the OVF; its inversion under V − F = −V is Control. (T2) The Three Modes Theorem: Eros, Philia, and Agape are formally distinct modes of D_Gift(Other) differing in directional structure, reciprocity condition, and ego-investment requirement; Agape admits a Withdrawal Postulate that distinguishes unconditional love from enabling destruction. (T3) The Love-Freedom Amplification Theorem: love is the only virtue for which sustained exercise produces dF/dt > 0 in a sufficiently formed agent, demonstrated through a structural three-case model. (T4) The Love-Augure Connection: the Augure’s Resonance Mechanism is Agape at the Dissolution Threshold. (T5) The Love-Immortality Connection: Relational Immortality (Type 13) is Love formally specified across time. (T6) The Love-Peace Connection: inner peace and Love are the inward and outward expressions of the same ego-dissolution. (T7) The Love-Holoviceosis Connection: institutionalised control-as-care is Love’s inversion at scale; a diagnostic negative case is analysed. (T8a–T8b) The Love-Sufficiency Theorem: Agape at the Dissolution Threshold is the dispositional ground from which all other virtues arise, where prudence is architectural-dispositional (clarity and correct orientation) rather than factually omniscient. -/- Keywords: love; love theory; Eros; Philia; Agape; OVF; DFT; Gift; Freedom; Dissolution Threshold; Augure; Resonance; Holoviceosis; inner peace; Inversion Theorem; virtue; amplification; relational immortality; Kolodny; Jollimore; Velleman; Philosophy of Virtues; Alguilas-AI . (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 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)

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)

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)

This paper proposes a unified theoretical framework for economics based on complex open dynamical systems in 3+1 dimensional spacetime. We establish a fundamental ontological distinction between two irreducible subsystems: the formalization entropy-increasing subsystem—closed systems of finite symbols, axioms, and rules—and the consciousness entropy-decreasing subsystem—an irreducible non-formalizable domain transcending all finite rules. Core Insight: All formalized systems (institutions, technologies, capital, algorithms) are inherently incomplete and entropy-increasing. They cannot self-sustain indefinitely due to internal logical limits (Gödelian incompleteness, self-reference paradoxes) and external physical (...) disturbances. Human consciousness is the only known autonomous force capable of reducing entropy, maintaining formalized systems, and creating real value. We revise the value conservation law: while consciousness is the sole original value source, formalized systems act as powerful value multipliers when guided by consciousness, but generate only entropy in isolation (formalization idling). Framework: We develop a five-layer unified framework: (1) Microfoundations: Quantum-like uncertainty and innovation dynamics; (2) Mesoeconomics: Classical dynamics of mature markets and institutional evolution; (3) Macroeconomics: Spacetime curvature, global imbalances, and income inequality; (4) Field Theory: Value flow and economic interactions; (5) Evolutionary theory: Long-term civilization dynamics and paradigm shifts. Contribution: This framework provides first-principles explanations for core digital economy paradoxes, including the productivity paradox (caused by exponential formalization outpacing linear consciousness capital growth), financial crises, platform monopolies, and AI’s impact. We show current AI systems, trapped in the "formalization cage," cannot generate genuine consciousness or value. This framework offers a coherent foundation for understanding value creation, inequality, institutional change, and human civilization’s future. (shrink)

This paper proposes Computation-Consciousness Dualism as the foundational economic paradigm for the digital civilization era. We systematically demonstrate that human consciousness, as the only non-formalizable ontology irreducible to Turing computation models and formalized systems, will become the ultimate source of value in highly digitized societies. Starting from first principles in computability theory and mathematical logic, we prove that all digital technologies based on the Universal Turing Machine—including AI, blockchain, and the metaverse—are inherently bounded by the limitations of formalized systems, incapable (...) of self-foundation, autonomous evolution, and meaning attribution. Building on this insight, we construct a General Equilibrium Model of the Formalized/Non-Formalized Dual Economic System, propose the Consciousness Capital Production Function and the Value Origin Theorem, and prove that as digital technology pushes the marginal cost of material production toward zero, the only endogenous driver of economic growth will be the creative activity of human consciousness. We further develop an Extended CAPM for Consciousness Capital Pricing and a Consciousness Game Model of DAO Governance, and apply this unified framework to analyze blockchain and metaverse economies, revealing the consciousness value essence behind phenomena such as DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and RWA tokenization. Finally, we discuss the transformation of traditional macroeconomic models, income distribution, institutional design, and policy challenges in the age of consciousness capital, providing a theoretical foundation and policy framework for the sustainable development of digital civilization. (shrink)

What kind of mind is necessary and sufficient for moral status—for having interests that matter morally in and of themselves? This paper defends Affective Sentientism, the view that moral status requires the capacity for affective experiences such as pleasure, pain, and emotion. I argue that 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 (...) has an affective component, often because such goods require the capacity to care. I also argue that even if the properties of being phenomenally conscious, being autonomous, or having a neutral level of welfare could come apart from affective consciousness, none of them could ground moral status in its absence. I conclude by exploring the implications for the moral status of animals and artificial intelligence systems. (shrink)

Problems in moral philosophy and philosophy of religion can take on new forms in light of contemporary physical theories. Here we discuss how the problem of evil is transformed by the Everettian "Many-Worlds" theory of quantum mechanics. We first present an Everettian version of the problem and contrast it to the problem in single-universe physical theories such as Newtonian mechanics and Bohmian mechanics. We argue that, pace Turner (2016) and Zimmerman (2017), the Everettian problem of evil is no more extreme (...) than the Bohmian one. The existence and multiplicity of (morally) terrible branches in the Everettian multiverse in contrast to the mere possibility of them in the Bohmian universe does not entail there is "more evil" in the former than in the latter. Low probability in the Bohmian case and low branch weight in the Everettian case should modulate how we respond to them in exactly the same way. We suggest that the same applies to the divine decision of creating an Everettian multiverse. For an empirically adequate Everettian quantum mechanics that justifies the Born rule, there is no special problem of evil. In order for there to be a special Everettian problem of evil, the Everettian interpretation must already have been exposed to decisive refutation. In the process, we hope to show how attention to the details of physical and metaphysical theories can and should impact the way we think about problems in moral philosophy and philosophy of religion. (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)

We are called upon to favor good items and disfavor bad ones, but what about those that are neither good nor bad? Consider the state of a pebble lying unnoticed on a distant planet or a weevil not having a favorite color. If they possess neutral values, they would call upon us to react neutrally. Invoking the intuition that not everything makes normative demands, this paper defends a pluralistic view: among items that are neither good nor bad, some matter in (...) a neutral way and others do not matter at all. The ethical implications of this view are highlighted and discussed. (shrink)

It’s plausible that you cannot know, or be justified in believing that your lottery ticket is a loser solely on the basis of the odds involved. I argue that extant views which deliver this result fall prey to a revenge problem. They entail that if you believe that your ticket is a winner on the basis of the astronomically low odds of it being a winner, your belief would be just as justified as in the case where you believe that (...) it is a loser. This seems absurd. I examine two ways of escaping the revenge problem. The first solution aims to vindicate the intuition that one is more justified in believing that one’s ticket is a loser than that it is a winner. I argue that the axiological assumptions required for this solution are unmotivated and implausible. The second solution is error-theoretic in nature. It concedes that one would be equally justified in believing that one’s ticket is a loser or a winner, but maintains that the former belief manifests greater epistemic value. The fact that it is epistemically better to believe that one’s ticket is a loser, rather than a winner, explains the relevant intuitions. (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.

According to desire satisfactionism, it is good to get what you desire. If it is good to get what you desire, then it also seems good to desire what you will get. If you are about to be fired, then it would be really great if you could quickly develop a strong desire to get fired. This apparent counterintuitive entailment is a problem for desire satisfactionism. I will argue desire satisfactionists need not commit themselves to the goodness of desiring what (...) you will get by appealing to the familiar concept of higher-order desires. The goodness of acquiring new desires should be understood relative to whether one desired such desires. (shrink)

A common idea, both in ordinary discourse and in the desert literature, is that wages can be deserved. The thought is not only highly intuitive, but it is also often appealed to in order to explain various injustices in employment income – pay gaps, for instance. In this paper, I challenge the idea that income from employment is the kind of thing that can be deserved. I argue that once one gets clear on the metaphysics of jobs and wages within (...) the context of economic exchange more generally, there are natural principles concerning such exchanges which generate puzzles for that view. The puzzles, I argue, are especially acute for meritocrats who conceive of justice in wages in terms of desert. Additionally, I argue that appealing to dignity (rather than desert) offers better hope of explaining the kinds of injustices in wages that motivate the appeal to desert. In that case, no explanatory gap is left by abandoning the idea that wages can be deserved either, and so, I argue, we have good reason to doubt it. (shrink)

Discussion of Iris Murdoch recalls Socrates' plea that he be allowed a crabwise approach to the Good. What his audience want of a direct approach is an explanation of precisely what sort of thing the Good is, where the demand for precision carries the force of: Tell me now, in which of the categories of thing I already allow to exist is the Good to be found? This is just what academia has done with the obscure singularity of Murdoch – (...) and the comedy of the exercise is the same. (shrink)

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)

Which is more fundamental: monadic value properties (“degrees of value”) possessed by individual valuable entities, or dyadic value relations (betterness, equality, etc) between valuable entities? This question parallels a hotly contested question about the metaphysics of physical quantities like mass, between “absolutists” (who prioritize monadic properties) and “comparativists” (who prioritize comparative relations). This paper does two things. First, I make a case for absolutism with respect to value, centered on the argument that only absolutism can make sense of cross-world value (...) comparisons, and that such comparisons are essential to the action-guiding role of value. Second, I argue that the metaphysical question of value absolutism vs comparativism has substantive implications for axiology: in particular, absolutism weakens the connection between “individualism” (the idea that individual welfare subjects are the fundamental bearers of value) and principles like Pareto that tie value comparisons between worlds directly to individual-by-individual comparisons. (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.

Abstracts: This study implements a praxis of relational comparison to reconfigure our understanding of 18th-century Sinitic vernacular fiction. Rather than evaluating Cao Xueqin’s masterwork through the standard linear progression of the Eurocentric novel, this paper establishes a cross-cultural triangulation between Homeric epic fate and late imperial allegorical structures. Specifically, I argue that Qin Keqing operates as a macro-cosmic somatic catalyst whose physical desire and early death drive the structural decline of the Jia clan. Drawing on Zhuangzi’s non-dualist philosophy of wuhua (...) (物化 - the transformation of things), the study demonstrates that Keqing’s hyper-aestheticized bedroom functions as an active ontological threshold—resembling the performative "Ghost Gateway" (Guimendao) found in early Chinese drama. This spatial configuration creates a system of concentric spectatorship that actively destabilizes the objective gaze of the reader, transforming the act of reading into an ongoing, tactile performance of psychological transformation. (shrink)

Although feminist philosophers have rarely engaged critically with the concept of harm or the philosophy of harm scholarship, recent feminist depictions of harm theories as ‘highly idealized’ point to a valuable insight on harm embedded in feminist philosophy. Underlying criticisms about the harm literature’s idealized character is the idea that it often matters who the subject of harm is, making attention to social location important for assessments of harm. The assumption that social location matters when analyzing harm is something that (...) appears throughout feminist philosophy. Yet, as such little consideration has been allotted to the concept in this literature, the idea is significantly underdeveloped. My goal is therefore to develop this insight further, providing a defence of social location’s relevance and responding to concerns from harm theorists about introducing a form of context-dependence into our assessments of harm. (shrink)

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.

The problem of evil is a problem for everyone; anyone can wonder about the possibility of there being evil in the world if there is God. However, the problem of evil is typically regarded as a challenge for theism, not atheism. In The Problem of Evil for Atheists (2024), Yujin Nagasawa argues that, contrary to the common picture, there is a problem of evil that challenges atheists as well as theists, and that theists are in a better position to deal (...) with it. After reviewing how this project proceeds, I argue against its success. Nagasawa focuses on a specific version of the problem of evil which appeals to “axiological evil” rather than “deontological evil.” I explain why this is not acceptable—the traditional problem of evil involves both axiological and deontological claims. Therefore, it is dubious whether the problem of evil can be formulated in a way that targets atheism as it does in the case of theism. I suggest that distinguishing three modes of the problem of evil also sheds light on this debate. The problem of evil as a curiosity question is open to everyone, regardless of systemic evil. However, systemic evil makes the decision mode of the problem of evil relevant to everyone, even if it does not raise the challenge mode of the problem in the same way for everyone. (shrink)