Responsible Belief, Influence, and Control: Response to Stephen White

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Rik Peels ◽  

I reply to Stephen White’s criticisms of my Influence View. First, I reply to his worry that my Appraisal Account of responsibility cannot make sense of doxastic responsibility. Then, I discuss in detail his stolen painting case and argue that the Influence View can make sense of it. Next, I discuss various other cases that are meant to show that acting in accordance with one’s beliefs does not render one blameless. I argue that in these cases, even though the subjects act in accordance with their own beliefs, there is plenty of reason to think that at some previous point in time they violated certain intellectual obligations that led to them to hold those beliefs. Even on a radically subjective account of responsibility, then, we can perfectly well hold these people responsible for their beliefs. I go on to defend the idea that reasons-responsiveness will not do for doxastic responsibility: we need influence on our beliefs as well. Thus, doxastic compatibilism or rationalism is untenable. Subsequently, I defend my earlier claim that there is a crucial difference between beliefs and actions in that actions are often subject to the will, whereas beliefs are not. Finally, I respond to White’s worry that if one has a subjective epistemic obligation just because one believes that certain actions are epistemically bad, some people will have a wide range of absurd epistemic obligations, such as the obligation to listen to Infowars.

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Mackenzie ◽  
Theo Vurdubakis

The connections between forms of code and coding and the many crises that currently afflict the contemporary world run deep. Code and crisis in our time mutually define, and seemingly prolong, each other in ‘infinite branching graphs’ of decision problems. There is a growing academic literature that investigates digital code and software from a wide range of perspectives –power, subjectivity, governmentality, urban life, surveillance and control, biopolitics or neoliberal capitalism. The various strands in this literature are reflected in the papers that comprise this special issue. They address topics ranging from social networks, mass media, financial markets and academic plagiarism to highway engineering in relation to the dynamics and diversity of crises. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this essay is to highlight and explore some of the underlying themes connecting codes and codings and the production and apprehension of ‘crisis’. We analyse how the ever-increasing intermediation of contemporary life by codes of various kinds has been closely shadowed by a proliferation of crises. We discuss three related aspects of the coupling of code and crisis (signification, performativity and excess) running across these seemingly diverse topics. We and the other contributors in this special issue seek to go beyond the restricted (and often restricting) understanding of code as the language of machines. Rather, we view code qua programs and algorithms as epitomizing a much broader phenomenon. The codes that we live, and that we live by, also tell us about the ways in which the ‘will to power’ and the 'will to knowledge' tend to be enacted in the contemporary world.


Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Boyd Millar

AbstractIt is widely acknowledged that individual moral obligations and responsibility entail shared (or joint) moral obligations and responsibility. However, whether individual epistemic obligations and responsibility entail shared epistemic obligations and responsibility is rarely discussed. Instead, most discussions of doxastic responsibility focus on individuals considered in isolation. In contrast to this standard approach, I maintain that focusing exclusively on individuals in isolation leads to a profoundly incomplete picture of what we're epistemically obligated to do and when we deserve epistemic blame. First, I argue that we have epistemic obligations to perform actions of the sort that can be performed in conjunction with other people, and that consequently, we are often jointly blameworthy when we violate shared epistemic obligations. Second, I argue that shared responsibility is especially important to doxastic responsibility thanks to the fact that we don't have the same kind of direct control over our beliefs that we have over our actions. In particular, I argue that there are many cases in which a particular individual who holds some problematic belief only deserves epistemic blame in virtue of belonging to a group all the members of which are jointly blameworthy for violating some shared epistemic obligation.


Author(s):  
О. Кravchuk ◽  
V. Symonenkov ◽  
I. Symonenkova ◽  
O. Hryhorev

Today, more than forty countries of the world are engaged in the development of military-purpose robots. A number of unique mobile robots with a wide range of capabilities are already being used by combat and intelligence units of the Armed forces of the developed world countries to conduct battlefield intelligence and support tactical groups. At present, the issue of using the latest information technology in the field of military robotics is thoroughly investigated, and the creation of highly effective information management systems in the land-mobile robotic complexes has acquired a new phase associated with the use of distributed information and sensory systems and consists in the transition from application of separate sensors and devices to the construction of modular information subsystems, which provide the availability of various data sources and complex methods of information processing. The purpose of the article is to investigate the ways to increase the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes using in a non-deterministic conditions of modern combat. Relevance of researches is connected with the necessity of creation of highly effective information and control systems in the perspective robotic means for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine. The development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine management system based on the criteria adopted by the EU and NATO member states is one of the main directions of increasing the effectiveness of the use of forces (forces), which involves achieving the principles and standards necessary for Ukraine to become a member of the EU and NATO. The inherent features of achieving these criteria will be the transition to a reduction of tasks of the combined-arms units and the large-scale use of high-precision weapons and land remote-controlled robotic devices. According to the views of the leading specialists in the field of robotics, the automation of information subsystems and components of the land-mobile robotic complexes can increase safety, reliability, error-tolerance and the effectiveness of the use of robotic means by standardizing the necessary actions with minimal human intervention, that is, a significant increase in the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110165
Author(s):  
Mohammadhiwa Abdekhoda ◽  
Fatemeh Ranjbaran ◽  
Asghar Sattari

This study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the role of information and information resources in the awareness, control, and prevention of COVID-19. This study was a descriptive-analytical survey in which 450 participants were selected for the study. The data collection instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data through SPSS. The findings show that a wide range of mass media has become well known as information resources for COVID-19. Other findings indicate a significant statistical difference in the rate of using information resources during COVID-19 based on age and gender; however, this difference is not significant regarding the reliability of information resources with regard to age and gender. Health information has an undisputable role in the prevention and control of pandemic diseases such as COVID-19. Providing accurate, reliable, and evidence-based information in a timely manner for the use of resources and information channels related to COVID-19 can be a fast and low-cost strategic approach in confronting this disease.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 719
Author(s):  
Shahrooz Rahmati ◽  
William Doherty ◽  
Arman Amani Babadi ◽  
Muhamad Syamim Akmal Che Mansor ◽  
Nurhidayatullaili Muhd Julkapli ◽  
...  

The environmental crisis, due to the rapid growth of the world population and globalisation, is a serious concern of this century. Nanoscience and nanotechnology play an important role in addressing a wide range of environmental issues with innovative and successful solutions. Identification and control of emerging chemical contaminants have received substantial interest in recent years. As a result, there is a need for reliable and rapid analytical tools capable of performing sample analysis with high sensitivity, broad selectivity, desired stability, and minimal sample handling for the detection, degradation, and removal of hazardous contaminants. In this review, various gold–carbon nanocomposites-based sensors/biosensors that have been developed thus far are explored. The electrochemical platforms, synthesis, diverse applications, and effective monitoring of environmental pollutants are investigated comparatively.


Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Linda Widar ◽  
Erika Wall ◽  
Sven Svensson

BACKGROUND: The complex position of a first line manager is characterized by heavy workload and contradictory demands. Little is known about how first line managers experience demand and control in their work. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to explore experiences of demand and control among first line managers within psychiatric and addiction care. METHOD: In the present study, interviews with ten managers in for-profit psychiatric and addiction care in Sweden were analyzed with a phenomenographic approach. RESULTS: The managers experiences of demand and control implied varied and extensive responsibilities for a wide range of professions; regulation by organizational, economic, and political frameworks; creating balance in their work; and handling the emergence and consequences of acute crisis. These experiences of demand and control involved high and contradictory demands together with coexisting high and low levels of control. Many of their work characteristics could be described in terms of both demand and control. CONSLUSION: The first line managers experiences of demand and control are more complex than implied by the job demand control theory. Our results suggest that the organizational position and branch should be considered when identifying health hazards in the work environment of first line managers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Putri Anis Syahira Mohamad Jamil ◽  
Karmegam Karuppiah ◽  
Irniza Rasdi ◽  
Vivien How ◽  
Shamsul Bahri Mohd Tamrin ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper provides a specific deliberation on occupational hazards confronted daily by Malaysian Traffic Police. Traffic police is a high-risk occupation that involves a wide range of tasks and, indirectly, faced with an equally wide variety of hazards at work namely, physical, biological, psychosocial, chemical, and ergonomic hazards. Thereupon, occupational injuries, diseases, and even death are common in the field. The objective of this paper is to collate and explain the major hazards of working as Malaysian traffic police especially in Point Duty Unit, their health effects, and control measures. There are many ways in which these hazards can be minimised by ensuring that sufficient safety measures are taken such as a wireless outdoor individual exposure indicator system for the traffic police. By having this system, air monitoring among traffic police may potentially be easier and accurate. Other methods of mitigating these unfortunate events are incorporated and addressed in this paper according to the duty and needs of traffic police.


Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Boyd Millar

Abstract Very often when the vast majority of experts agree on some scientific issue, laypeople nonetheless regularly consume articles, videos, lectures, etc., the principal claims of which are inconsistent with the expert consensus. Moreover, it is standardly assumed that it is entirely appropriate, and perhaps even obligatory, for laypeople to consume such anti-consensus material. I maintain that this standard assumption gets things backwards. Each of us is particularly vulnerable to false claims when we are not experts on some topic – such falsehoods have systematic negative impacts on our doxastic attitudes that we can neither prevent nor correct. So, when there is clear expert consensus on a given scientific issue, while it is permissible for experts to consume anti-consensus material, laypeople have an epistemic obligation to avoid such material. This argument has important consequences for philosophical discussions of our epistemic obligations to perform or omit belief-influencing actions. Such discussions typically abstract away from the important differences between experts and laypeople. Accordingly, we should reject this typical practice as problematic, and insist instead that laypeople and experts have fundamentally different epistemic obligations.


Oxygen ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
John T. Hancock

Control of cellular function is extremely complex, being reliant on a wide range of components. Several of these are small oxygen-based molecules. Although reactive compounds containing oxygen are usually harmful to cells when accumulated to relatively high concentrations, they are also instrumental in the control of the activity of a myriad of proteins, and control both the upregulation and downregulation of gene expression. The formation of one oxygen-based molecule, such as the superoxide anion, can lead to a cascade of downstream generation of others, such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and the hydroxyl radical (∙OH), each with their own reactivity and effect. Nitrogen-based signaling molecules also contain oxygen, and include nitric oxide (NO) and peroxynitrite, both instrumental among the suite of cell signaling components. These molecules do not act alone, but form part of a complex interplay of reactions, including with several sulfur-based compounds, such as glutathione and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Overaccumulation of oxygen-based reactive compounds may alter the redox status of the cell and lead to programmed cell death, in processes referred to as oxidative stress, or nitrosative stress (for nitrogen-based molecules). Here, an overview of the main oxygen-based molecules involved, and the ramifications of their production, is given.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranju Ravindran Santhakumari Manoj ◽  
Maria Stefania Latrofa ◽  
Sara Epis ◽  
Domenico Otranto

Abstract Background Wolbachia is an obligate intracellular maternally transmitted, gram-negative bacterium which forms a spectrum of endosymbiotic relationships from parasitism to obligatory mutualism in a wide range of arthropods and onchocercid nematodes, respectively. In arthropods Wolbachia produces reproductive manipulations such as male killing, feminization, parthenogenesis and cytoplasmic incompatibility for its propagation and provides an additional fitness benefit for the host to protect against pathogens, whilst in onchocercid nematodes, apart from the mutual metabolic dependence, this bacterium is involved in moulting, embryogenesis, growth and survival of the host. Methods This review details the molecular data of Wolbachia and its effect on host biology, immunity, ecology and evolution, reproduction, endosymbiont-based treatment and control strategies exploited for filariasis. Relevant peer-reviewed scientic papers available in various authenticated scientific data bases were considered while writing the review. Conclusions The information presented provides an overview on Wolbachia biology and its use in the control and/or treatment of vectors, onchocercid nematodes and viral diseases of medical and veterinary importance. This offers the development of new approaches for the control of a variety of vector-borne diseases. Graphic Abstract


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