Should We Freeze Our Bodies for Future Resuscitation?

This chapter examines the ethical implications of cryopreservation. Cryopreservation is usually performed soon after the heart has stopped beating, and after the individual has been pronounced legally dead. A few hundred people in the world had been “cryopreserved” — that is, fully immerged in liquid nitrogen at -196 C — in the hope that science will eventually discover a therapy for the disease that has killed them, and that future technology will succeed in bringing them back to life. Understandably, the root of many objections to cryonics seem to be its perceived weirdness. Another major objection to cryonics is that it is a waste of money, or a scam, i.e. a way to make money by promising dying people something that cannot possibly be achieved. The chapter then considers the concepts of human mortality and immortality.

Larval therapy from the patient’s perspective

Objective: to describe the perception of the patient undergoing larval therapy. Method: qualitative, exploratory-descriptive study, using oral history as a data collection technique and methodological framework, in the form of oral life history. Six patients with difficult-to-heal wounds participated in the study, followed by the dressing committee of a teaching hospital in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, undergoing larval therapy. Results: the testimonies of the patients/collaborators point to various values, such as belief, fear, acceptance, improvement of the wound and pain. They revealed that there is no major objection and that clarification regarding the treatment instituted proved to be important in the acceptance decision. Conclusion: the feelings expressed by the patients, such as improvement of the wound, reduction of pain and odor, optimization of the healing process, emergence of sparks of hope regarding the return to their life, among others, translate the benefits of Larval Therapy (LT). Despite the seizure caused by the animal’s movement over the affected area and the disgust it causes to some professionals and people, LT was considered wonderful, especially for its effectiveness in cleaning the wound without the need for new invasive procedures such as cutting and surgical debridement.

Causal necessitarianism and the monotonicity objection

Do causes necessitate their effects? Causal necessitarianism (CN) is the view that they do. One major objection—the “monotonicity objection”—runs roughly as follows. For many particular causal relations, we can easily find a possible “blocker”—an additional causal factor that, had it also been there, would have prevented the cause from producing its effect. However—the objection goes on—, if the cause really necessitated its effect in the first place, it would have produced it anyway—despite the blocker. Thus, CN must be false. Though different from Hume’s famous attacks against CN, the monotonicity objection is no less important. In one form or another, it has actually been invoked by various opponents to CN, past and present. And indeed, its intuitive appeal is quite powerful. Yet, this paper argues that, once carefully analysed, the objection can be resisted—and should be. First, I show how its success depends on three implicit assumptions concerning, respectively, the notion of cause, the composition of causal factors, and the relation of necessitation. Second, I present general motivations for rejecting at least one of those assumptions: appropriate variants of them threaten views that even opponents to CN would want to preserve—in particular, the popular thesis of grounding necessitarianism. Finally, I argue that the assumption we should reject is the one concerning how causes should be understood: causes, I suggest, include an element of completeness that excludes blockers. In particular, I propose a way of understanding causal completeness that avoids common difficulties.

The dignity approach to human rights and the impaired autonomy objection

There is little need to argue for the importance of human rights (HRs) in our world. If one looks at the role they play today, it is hard to deny that their impact has increased beyond anything the drafters of the 1948 Universal Declaration could have hoped or imagined. However, even though human rights today have a far greater impact on politics than in the past, the philosophical reflection that surrounds them has had a less fortunate history. It is doubtful whether we are today in a better position than we were in 1948 to answer any of the philosophical questions surrounding them, including, and perhaps most crucially, the question about their foundation. Why are human rights standards—of whatever sort—that we should adopt, or even just take seriously? The first two parts of this paper summarize my recent work on the above question (Caranti, 2017) and the third takes it a step further. I will 1) show why the main orientations in the contemporary philosophy of human rights all fail to yield a satisfactory foundation, 2) sketch an alternative foundation that exploits Kant’s account of human dignity in a rather critical way; and 3) address one major objection my approach is bound to attract (and in a certain form has already attracted). Since my foundation suggests that we have dignity (and as a consequence human rights) because we are autonomous, that is, capable of moral behavior, some scholars have argued that I am bound to the counterintuitive conclusion that people with a temporary or permanent lack of rational capacity, which would cause a condition of “impaired autonomy,” are not entitled to the protection of human rights. While this objection does nothing but reformulate in the language of human rights an old, classical objection to Kant’s ethics, replying to it requires mobilizing new intellectual resources.

Is knowledge of causes sufficient for understanding?

According to a traditional account, understanding why X occurred is equivalent to knowing that X was caused by Y. This paper defends the account against a major objection, viz., knowing-that is not sufficient for understanding-why, for understanding-why requires a kind of grasp while knowledge-that does not. I discuss two accounts of grasp in recent literature and argue that if either is true, then knowing that X was caused by Y entails at least a rudimentary understanding of why X occurred. If my defense is successful, it would cast doubt on an influential account of the epistemic value of understanding.

On the Difference between the Lexicon and Computation (Regarding Slavic Yers)

This article discusses three concerns regarding Becker and Gouskova’s (2016) analysis of Russian yers that relies on cluster-based yer vocalization and two sublexicons (morphemes with and without yers), to which lexically specific constraints refer. First, it misses the basic generalization about Slavic yers expressed by the established analysis (Lower): yer vocalization is triggered by five different mechanisms, instead of one mechanism under Lower. It is further shown that the major objection against Lower disappears when the existence of final empty nuclei is recognized. Second, Becker and Gouskova confound generalizations about the lexical distribution of yers in morphemes and the computational mechanism that decides which yers appear on the surface. They argue that Lower was established before relevant cluster-based generalizations were discovered, hence misses out on relevant empirical material that invalidates its central idea, that clusters are irrelevant for yer vocalization. However, the phenomena their argument is based on do not concern yer vocalization (computation): they are lexical in kind and therefore confirm the irrelevance of clusters for yer vocalization, supporting Lower. Third, although generalizations about yer-deletion-created clusters are central for Becker and Gouskova’s analysis, they are irrelevant for learners (children or adults). The authors’ experimental evidence precisely shows that speakers are happy to lexicalize and compute sequences (such as yerCC) that are absent from the lexicon. The gaps at hand are thus accidental, rather than systematic.

Objection from Sub-Cortical Structures

This chapter explains and responds to the major objection to the duality claims, the objection from sub-cortical structures. What gives rise to the duality intuition is that, after split-brain surgery, mental state interaction appears to operate oddly indirectly—when the mental states in question are in opposite hemispheres. Nonetheless, interhemispheric mental interaction is not entirely indirect, that is, not exclusively mediated by sensation/perception and re/action. According to the objection from sub-cortical structures, remaining direct interhemispheric interaction is substantial enough to support the 1-thinker claim over the 2-thinkers claim. I argue instead that remaining direct interhemispheric interaction is not so substantial, and that what remaining direct interhemispheric interaction there is remains consistent with the 2-thinkers claim that the rest of the data support. R and L are thus not discrete but still distinct thinkers.

The merits of higher-order thought theories

Over many years and in many publications David Rosenthal has developed, defended and applied his justly well-known higher-order thought theory of consciousness.2 In this paper I explain the theory, then provide a brief history of a major objection to it. I suggest that this objection is ultimately ineffectual, but that behind it lies a reason to look beyond Rosenthal's theory to another sort of HOT theory. I then offer my own HOT theory as a suitable alternative, before concluding in a final section.

Momentum: An Economic View

Momentum strategies have widely been recognized in the literature for several markets, asset classes and time horizons. However, these strategies face a major objection as they significantly violate even the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis. Recently, it has been shown that, from a mathematical perspective, the inner dynamics of asset prices are better described by the Mandelbrot Market Model. This model uses fractal trends observed in real stock data, and the mathematical characteristics measured and used in the model show that trends in this fractal setup explain momentum. A central question attached to this mathematical analysis is why these long trends exist, economically. Although it has been documented well in the literature that investors are not rational and are prone to several biases, we show in this work by example that momentum strategies leverage fundamental, company-specific improvements of the business condition, capturing the value generation process. Consequently, this work supports the mathematical claims made previously: There are no efficient markets as investors constantly fail to anticipate available information.

Existence as a Perfection

This paper is a defense of the view that existence is a perfection. Anselm’s First Ontological Argument is referred to throughout. Two major objections are advanced: the ‘perfect island’ objection and the ‘perfect devil’ objection. A rebuttal of both, based on Anselm’s reply to Gaunilo, is tendered, but itself faces a major objection. Two lines of defense against this objection are possible. The first is sympathetically explained but it is argued that it ultimately fails. The second, which focuses on the idea of a perfection and a perfect being, is elaborated and defended against a seemingly powerful objection. It is concluded that there is a reasonable interpretation of the claim that existence is a perfection.