Despite their importance in the history of philosophy and in particular in the work of Aristotle and Kant, mental capacities have been neglected in recent philosophical work. By contrast, the notion of a capacity is deeply entrenched in psychology and the brain sciences. Driven by the idea that a cognitive system has the capacity it does in virtue of its internal components and their organization, it is standard to appeal to capacities in cognitive psychology. The main benefit of (...) invoking capacities in an account of the mind is that it allows for an elegant counterfactual analysis of mental states: it allows us to analyze mental states on three distinct yet interrelated levels. A first level of analysis pertains to the function of mental capacities. A second level of analysis pertains to the mental capacities employed, irrespective of the context in which they are employed. A third level of analysis pertains to the mental capacities employed, taking into account the context in which they are employed. This paper develops an account of perceptual capacities. This account involves an analysis of their function, their individuation and possession conditions, the relation between perceptual capacities and their employment, as well as their informational and neural base conditions. (shrink)

It is usually appropriate for adults to make significant decisions, such as about what kinds of medical treatment to undergo, for themselves. But sometimes impairments are suffered - either temporary or permanent - which render an individual unable to make such decisions. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 sets out the conditions under which it is appropriate to regard an individual as lacking the capacity to make a particular decision (and when provisions should be made for a decision on (...) their behalf). -/- To what extent does having capacity require the endorsement of certain values? Drawing on Owens et al (2009), I assess the extent to which understanding relevant information and weighing it in coming to a decision requires certain evaluative commitments. With reference to literature on anorexia nervosa and decisions informed by religious beliefs, I argue that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the conditions for capacity are value-laden, and that if this is so it is important to open discussion about which patterns of distorted valuing undermine capacity, and why. (shrink)

FDS-T1 defines finite-observer distinguishability budgets. FDS-O1 turns those budgets into measurement capacity, and FDS-O2 turns finite record update into register time. This paper(FDS-T3) abstracts the common mechanism: capacity overflow. When task-relevant distinction demand exceeds accessible capacity, a finite observer or finite system cannot track all distinctions needed for full-fidelity prediction. The missing distinctions re-enter the accessible description as coarse-graining, effective stochasticity, hysteresis, false invariants, externalization demand, or failure. This paper formulates effective stochasticity as structured dynamics viewed through (...) non-injective finite projection. Even when dynamics on a larger state space is deterministic, the induced dynamics on the accessible record space can be stochastic because multiple inaccessible states map to the same visible state while having different successors. This version strengthens the phase-transition layer: it defines the overflow deficit, predictive susceptibility, effective Markovian closure error, informational hysteresis, observer hierarchy, and a maintenance-cost selection score for Phase-B invariants. Phase-B invariants are coarse variables that remain cheap to update, slow to forget, and approximately Markovian after microstate tracking fails. Deterministic simulations illustrate projection-induced stochastic kernels, critical deficit susceptibility, Markov closure, invariant selection, irrecoverable post-overflow loss, capacity-relative stochasticity, Phase-A/Phase-B transition, and semantic drift in finite-context AI-like systems. The paper does not claim that all randomness is epistemic, that quantum randomness is derived, that topology is required for all persistence, or that fundamental conservation laws are reduced to observer capacity. Its narrower contribution is a finite-capacity bridge model: effective stochasticity is the shadow cast by finite projection, and law-like structure is the residue of distinctions that remain cheap, predictive, and slow to forget under overflow. (shrink)

In paradigm exercises of agency, individuals guide their activities toward some goal. A central challenge for action theory is to explain how individuals guide. This challenge is an instance of the more general problem of how to accommodate individuals and their actions in the natural world, as explained by natural science. Two dominant traditions–primitivism and the causal theory–fail to address the challenge in a satisfying way. Causal theorists appeal to causation by an intention, through a feedback mechanism, in explaining guidance. (...) Primitivists postulate primitive agential capacities in their explanations. The latter neglect to explain how primitive capacities integrate with findings from natural science. The former do not explain why some feedback mechanism’s activity amounts to the agent’s guidance. In this paper I argue that both traditions should acknowledge a capacity to guide, as actually constituted by the executive system. I argue that appeals to this empirically discovered psychological system explain how individuals guide in a way that integrates with explanations from cognitive science. Individuals’ capacity to guide is embedded in the natural world through the activity of its constituent (mechanistic) components. (shrink)

The question “What is it to be an artifact?” must be distinguished from the question “What is it to be an artifact of kind K?”. Failure to distinguish between these two questions leads to an exaggeration of the role of intentions in the philosophy of artifacts. We accept that intentions are necessary to define the category of artifacts, but we reject the view that intentions are constitutive of what makes something a specific kind of artifact. In the first part of (...) this paper, we discuss a series of cases involving what we call “faith-based artifacts” which often exhibit a social dimension. These cases, we argue, constitute counterexamples to the thesis that something is an artifact of a specific kind if it was produced with the intention that it be an object of that kind. In the second part of the paper, we explain how a capacity-based approach to artifacts, by contrast, can accommodate faith-based artifacts. In the last section, we address an objection to the capacity-based approach. (shrink)

Decision-making capacity (DMC) plays an important role in clinical practice—determining, on the basis of a patient’s decisional abilities, whether they are entitled to make their own medical decisions or whether a surrogate must be secured to participate in decisions on their behalf. As a result, it’s critical that we get things right—that our conceptual framework be well-suited to the task of helping practitioners systematically sort through the relevant ethical considerations in a way that reliably and transparently delivers correct verdicts (...) about who should and should not have the authority to make their own medical decisions. Unfortunately, however, the standard approach to DMC does not get things right. It is of virtually no help in identifying and clarifying the relevant ethical considerations. And, embedded in the prevailing anti-paternalist paradigm, DMC assessments obfuscate and distort the underlying ethical justification for granting or withholding decisional authority. Here, we describe the core commitments of the standard approach to DMC and then highlight three problems with it. We then argue that these problems are significant enough that they call for more than merely tinkering and fine tuning—variations of the standard approach cannot adequately address them. Instead, we should ditch DMC. (shrink)

This paper investigates the nature of dispositional properties in the context of artificial intelligence systems. We start by examining the distinctive features of natural dispositions according to criteria introduced by McGeer (2018) for distinguishing between object-centered dispositions (i.e., properties like ‘fragility’) and agent-based abilities, including both ‘habits’ and ‘skills’ (a.k.a. ‘intelligent capacities’, Ryle 1949). We then explore to what extent the distinction applies to artificial dispositions in the context of two very different kinds of artificial systems, one based on rule-based (...) classical logic and the other on reinforcement learning. Here we defend three substantive claims. First, we argue that artificial systems are not equal in the kinds of dispositional properties they instantiate. In particular, we show that logical systems instantiate merely object-centered dispositions whereas reinforcement learning systems allow for the instantiation of agent-based abilities. Second, we explore the similarities and differences between the agent-centered abilities of artificial systems and those of humans, especially as relates to the important distinction made in the human case between habits and skills/intelligent capacities. The upshot is that the agent-centered abilities of truly intelligent artificial systems are distinctive enough to constitute a third type of agent-based ability — blended agent-based ability — raising substantial questions as to how we understand the nature of their agency. Third, we explore one aspect of this problem, focussing on whether systems of this type are properly considered ‘responsible agents’, at least in some contexts and for some purposes. The ramifications of our analysis will turn out to be directly relevant to various ethical concerns of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Decision-making Capacity matters to whether a patient’s decision should determine her treatment. But why it matters in this way isn’t clear. The standard story is that dmc matters because autonomy matters. And this is thought to justify dmc as a gatekeeper for autonomy – whereby autonomy concerns arise if but only if a patient has dmc. But appeals to autonomy invoke two distinct concerns: concern for authenticity – concern that a choice is consistent with an individual’s commitments; and concern (...) for sovereignty – concern that an individual exercises control over that which is hers to control. Here, I argue, neither concern can alone explain why dmc matters. Instead, dmc matters because it indicates a harmony between the two concerns – the demands of each concern are more likely to agree if a patient has dmc. This vindicates the standard story, but also makes clear that dmc is an inappropriate gatekeeper for autonomy. (shrink)

In "Rational Capacities" Michael Smith outlines the sense of capacity he believes to be required before blame is appropriate. I question whether this sense of capacity is required. In so doing, I consider different ways in which blame might be conditioned.

K — Coupling capacity in La Profilée — is the Lyapunov stability radius of the Frame attractor under Module perturbation: the maximal perturbation magnitude the system can absorb while remaining within the basin of attraction of its identity-bearing Frame. This paper proves it structurally. A preliminary theorem (K0) establishes the multiplicative necessity of F·M·K from LP’s axioms M1–M3. Eight further theorems derive K’s structural consequences. K1–K6 form the theoretical core: K1 grounds the IR equation in basin dynamics; K2–K3 formalize (...) depletion and development; K4 derives T_visible geometrically from basin erosion; K5 establishes K_min as the structural collapse boundary; K6 unifies all K-functions as aspects of the same basin geometry. K7 derives Q4 (Structural Self-Priority) as K-differentiation. K8 extends the architecture to phenomenal valence under Q3 and Σ-completeness. The paper connects LP's K-concept to Lyapunov stability theory, structural stability, and basin-of-attraction analysis. No new mathematical objects are required: K was always already a stability radius. This paper makes that precise. (shrink)

The electric activities of cortical pyramidal neurons are supported by structurally stable, morphologically complex axo-dendritic trees. Anatomical differences between axons and dendrites in regard to their length or caliber reflect the underlying functional specializations, for input or output of neural information, respectively. For a proper assessment of the computational capacity of pyramidal neurons, we have analyzed an extensive dataset of three-dimensional digital reconstructions from the NeuroMorphoOrg database, and quantified basic dendritic or axonal morphometric measures in different regions and layers (...) of the mouse, rat or human cerebral cortex. Physical estimates of the total number and type of ions involved in neuronal electric spiking based on the obtained morphometric data, combined with energetics of neurotransmitter release and signaling fueled by glucose consumed by the active brain, support highly efficient cerebral computation performed at the thermodynamically allowed Landauer limit for implementation of irreversible logical operations. Individual proton tunneling events in voltage-sensing S4 protein alpha-helices of Na+, K+ or Ca2+ ion channels are ideally suited to serve as single Landauer elementary logical operations that are then amplified by selective ionic currents traversing the open channel pores. This miniaturization of computational gating allows the execution of over 1.2 zetta logical operations per second in the human cerebral cortex without combusting the brain by the released heat. (shrink)

According to a widely shared intuition, normal adult humans require greater moral concern than normal, adult animals in at least some circumstances. Even the most steadfast defenders of animals' moral status attempt to accommodate this intuition, often by holding that humans' higher-level capacities (intellect, linguistic ability, and so on) give rise to a greater number of interests, and thus the likelihood of greater satisfaction, thereby making their lives more valuable. However, the moves from capacities to interests, and from interests to (...) the likelihood of satisfaction, have up to now gone unexamined and undefended. I argue that context plays a morally significant role both in the formation of an individual's capacities, and in the determination of the individual's interests and potential for satisfaction based on those capacities. Claims about an individual's capacities and interests are typically presented as unconditional; but on closer examination, they are revealed to be contingent on tacit assumptions about context. Until we develop an understanding of how to account for the role of context within our moral theories, attempts to defend special moral concern for human beings based on their superior capacities are less firmly grounded than is commonly thought. (shrink)

This chapter explores some conceptual connections between human-centered artificial intelligence (HCAI) research and empathic AI. First, I argue that HCAI is best understood as a framework that centers human well-being in AI development and deployment. Second, I argue a fruitful way to make the framework more precise is by focusing on human practical capacities. I use empathy as a case study, examining recent positive accounts of empathetic AI from the perspective of a well-being-focused HCAI. Finally, I note how this approach (...) relates to recent calls for a sociotechnical perspective on AI. (shrink)

Current AI governance discourse focuses on technical alignment, regulation, and institutional oversight — necessary priorities that share an unexamined assumption: that the humans inside governance systems possess the cognitive, emotional, and moral capacities needed to govern technologies of unprecedented power. This paper argues that human capacity-building deserves serious attention as a complementary governance strategy. It proposes a central distinction between agency-building and dependency-building interventions, and uses that distinction to evaluate three paths: assisted therapeutic intervention, cognitive enhancement, and early educational (...) development. The analysis spans neuroscience, psychopharmacology, education, contemplative practice, and governance theory. The conclusion is not that any single intervention will solve AI risk, but that human capacity is a governance variable that can no longer be treated as a background assumption. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, Kant’s name has become closely associated with the “constitutivist” program within metaethics. But is Kant best read as pursuing a constitutivist approach to meta- normative questions? And if so, in what sense? In this essay, I’ll argue that we can best answer these questions by considering them in the context of a broader issue – namely, how Kant understands the proper methodology for philosophy in general. The result of this investigation will be that, while Kant (...) can indeed be read as a sort of constitutivist, his constitutivism is ultimately just one instance of a much more general approach to philosophy – which treats as fundamental our basic, self-conscious rational capacities. Thus, to truly understand why and how Kant is a constitutivist, we need to consider this question within the context of his more fundamental commitment to “capacities-first philosophy”. (shrink)

Many philosophers of science think that most laws of nature (even those of fundamental physics) are so called ceteris paribus laws, i.e., roughly speaking, laws with exceptions. Yet, the ceteris paribus clause of these laws is problematic. Amongst the more infamous difficulties is the danger that 'For all x: Fx ⊃ Gx, ceteris paribus' may state no more than a tautology: 'For all x: Fx ⊃ Gx, unless not'. One of the major attempts to avoid this problem (and others concerning (...) ceteris paribus laws) is to claim that the subject matter of laws are ascriptions of dispositions, powers, capacities etc., and not the regular behaviour we find in nature. That we do not know whether the cetera are paria in a specific situation does not matter to the dispositionalist because the objects have the disposition regardless of the circumstances. The defence of the latter claim is that dispositions can be instantiated without being manifested. Hence, the laws that ascribe dispositions are strict and it looks as if they do not face the above mentioned problems of ceteris paribus laws. In this essay I attempt to show that these assumptions are wrong. I hope to illustrate that not only does the ceteris paribus clause reoccur inside the dispositions, moreover, there are laws—laws about non-fundamental entities with instable dispositions—which bear a ceteris paribus clause that cannot be hidden in a disposition. (shrink)

This paper argues for a sufficient evidence condition on knowledge and I argue that there is no belief condition on knowledge.

In this paper, I defend a new theory of the nature and individuation of perceptual capacities. I argue that we need a theory of perceptual capacities to explain modal facts about what sorts of perceptual phenomenal states one can be in. I defend my view by arguing for three adequacy constraints on a theory of perceptual capacities: perceptual capacities must be individuated at least partly in terms of their place in a hierarchy of capacities, where these capacities include the senses (...) themselves; an adequate account of perceptual capacities must be sensitive to empirical considerations; and an adequate account should accommodate the nature of the capacity to perceive. I arrive at these constraints by considering how Schellenberg’s view fails, before defending and developing my alternative in line with the constraints. I defend a view on which there are few, coarse-grained perceptual capacities which can fulfil complex explanatory roles because they are evaluatively gradable on many axes. Finally, on my view, perceptual capacities bear a particularly close relation to the sensory modalities themselves. (shrink)

In this paper we present an account of practical rationality and weakness of will in terms of rational capacities. We show how our account rectifies various shortcomings in Michael Smith's related theory. In particular, our account is capable of accommodating cases of weak-willed behaviour that are not `akratic', or otherwise contrary to the agent's better judgement. Our account differs from Smith's primarily by incorporating resolve: a third rational capacity for resolute maintenance of one's intentions. We discuss further two ways (...) to explain the importance of resolve to practical rationality: one based on Richard Holton's recent work, and an alternative, non-consequentialist account. (shrink)

Capacity-building projects are crucial for developing the skills of indigenous communities, fostering sustainable business growth, and empowering individuals. However, women in the Higaonon community had limited access to modern technologies and business management training. To address this gap, a project was implemented by the Non-Timber Forest Products- Exchange Programme (NTFP-EP), in collaboration with the Food Technology Department of Bukidnon State University. After several years of implementation, the project’s impact on the community remained uncertain. To evaluate this impact, a convergent (...) mixed-methods research study was conducted to assess the project’s impact on the socioeconomic well-being of Higaonon women and the effectiveness of the trainings in enhancing their financial management and technology operation and maintenance skills. The study was grounded in the theory of change framework. Participants were members of a Higaonon women-led social enterprise. Descriptive analysis revealed that the trainings were highly effective in addressing the women’s capacity- building needs. Thematic analysis yielded four relevant themes: empowerment and improved livelihoods, capacity building and skill development, challenges and opportunities, and community development and sustainability. A joint display analysis further confirmed that the trainings’ effectiveness aligned with the capacity building and skill development theme. These enhanced skills empowered women, improved their livelihoods, and opened new opportunities to overcome challenges. The improved financial literacy, technical skills, and business management capabilities have the potential to contribute to the long-term sustainability and prosperity of the community. Future research could explore the scalability of this social impact to inform policy and practice in community-based enterprise development. (shrink)

Governance ruptures, coups, revolutions, and state collapses, occur when the state’s capacity for repair fails to match accumulating violations of legitimacy, security, or welfare. This article terms this a Contradiction Debt (CD), a model that formalizes this imbalance as the ratio of effective repair to total violation (R/V). Building on theories of grievance, capacity, and legitimacy, the CD framework quantifies how ‘repair deficits’ erode trust and predict the timing of rupture. Using quarterly data from 52 country cases (2005–2025), (...) the model distinguishes high-risk from low-risk cases about as well as leading fragility indices do (measured by AUROC, a standard score of how well a model separates the two, where 1.0 is perfect and 0.5 is no better than chance; for the CD model, AUROC ≈ 0.54). However, the CD model has superior temporal precision, and is able to forecast most ruptures within ± one quarter. The framework was recently applied to the case of Hungary (not in the sample) and was able to specify not only the timing but also the form of the institutional rupture – constitutional confrontation at oversight institutions. This was confirmed by the April 2026 electoral rupture at exactly those institutions. Statistical regression models confirm that the R/V ratio adds predictive value beyond existing risk indicators. The decision-curve analysis – a method for evaluating whether acting on a model’s alerts yields better outcomes than either alerting on every case or none – confirms the practical usefulness of this model for taking preventive action. By linking grievances and state capacity through a measurable repair process, the CD model transforms opaque early-warning signals into interpretable diagnostics of governance strain. It thus complements event-based systems such as ACLED and ViEWS. (shrink)

Editorial introduction to series of papers resulting from a European Commission Project on mental capacity.

There is wide consensus among bioethicists about the importance of autonomy when determining whether or not a patient has the right to refuse life-saving treatment (LST). In this context, autonomy has typically been understood in terms of the patient’s ability to make an informed decision. According to the traditional view, decision-making capacity (DMC) is seen as both necessary and sufficient for the right to refuse LST. Recently, this view has been challenged by those who think that considerations of authenticity (...) and putative counterexamples should lead us to revise the traditional account. In this paper, we respond to these revisionist arguments, and we defend the traditional view according to which we have autonomy-based reasons to respect a patient’s decision to refuse LST if and only if she has DMC. (shrink)

Until recently, philosophers debating the rationality of time-biases have supposed that people exhibit a first-person hedonic bias toward the future, but that their non-hedonic and third-person preferences are time-neutral. Recent empirical work, however, suggests that our preferences are more nuanced. First, there is evidence that our third-person preferences exhibit time-neutrality only when the individual with respect to whom we have preferences—the preference target—is a random stranger about whom we know nothing; given access to some information about the preference target, third-person (...) preferences mirror first-person preferences. As a result, the simulation hypothesis has been proposed, according to which third-person preferences will mirror first-person preferences when we can simulate the mental states of the preference target. Second, there is evidence that we prefer negative hedonic events to be in our past (we are first-person negatively hedonically future-biased) only when we view future events as fixed and in no way under our control. By contrast, when we perceive it to be within our power to mitigate the badness of future events, we are first-person negatively hedonically past-biased. This is the mitigation hypothesis. We distinguish two versions of the mitigation hypothesis, the squirrelling version and the heuristic version. We ran a study which tested the simulation hypothesis, and which aimed to determine whether the squirrelling or the heuristic version of the mitigation hypothesis enjoys more empirical support. We found support for the heuristic version of the hypothesis, but no support for the squirrelling version. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends the capacity view, that is, the view that the ability to perceive the perspective-independent or intrinsic properties of objects depends on the perceiver’s capacity to act. More specifically, I argue that self-location and spatial know-how are jointly necessary to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects. Representing one’s location allows one to abstract from one’s particular vantage point to perceive the perspective-independent properties of objects. Spatial know-how allows one to perceive objects as the (...) kind of things that are perceivable from points of view other than one’s own and thus to perceive them as three-dimensional space occupiers. (shrink)

Paternalism is widely viewed as presumptively justifiable for children but morally problematic for adults. The standard explanation for this distinction is that children lack capacities relevant to the justifiability of paternalism. I argue that this explanation is more difficult to defend than typically assumed. If paternalism is often justified when needed to keep children safe from the negative consequences of their poor choices, then when adults make choices leading to the same negative consequences, what makes paternalism less justified? It seems (...) true that ordinary adults have capacities enabling them to promote their interests in ways most children lack. This can explain why paternalism is more often justified towards children than adults. What is not explained, however, is why paternalism would be justifiable for children, but not adults, when neither possess the relevant interest-promoting capacities—exactly the cases when paternalism towards adults might be considered. I argue that this dilemma undercuts capacities-based explanations for the belief that childhood is distinctively relevant for the permissibility of paternalism. I then address defenses of both consequentialist and deontological versions of the capacities-based explanation. Absent this capacities-based explanation, I argue that the intuition that less demanding justificatory standards apply to paternalism when directed at children than when directed towards adults presents unresolved problems for egalitarians. (shrink)

For people with Bipolar Affective Disorder, a self-binding (advance) directive (SBD), by which they commit themselves to treatment during future episodes of mania, even if unwilling, can seem the most rational way to deal with an imperfect predicament. Knowing that mania will almost certainly cause enormous damage to themselves, their preferred solution may well be to allow trusted others to enforce treatment and constraint, traumatic though this may be. No adequate provision exists for drafting a truly effective SBD and efforts (...) to establish such provision are hampered by very valid, but also paralysing ethical, clinical and legal concerns. Effectively, the autonomy and rights of people with bipolar are being 'protected' through being denied an opportunity to protect themselves. From a standpoint firmly rooted in the clinical context and experience of mania, this article argues that an SBD, based on a patient-centred evaluation of capacity to make treatment decisions (DMC-T) and grounded within the clinician-patient relationship, could represent a legitimate and ethically coherent form of self-determination. After setting out background information on fluctuating capacity, mania and advance directives, this article proposes a framework for constructing such an SBD, and considers common objections, possible solutions and suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Background: The school meals program has multiple objectives of education, nutrition, and value transfer. To ensure achieving the goal, total quality management (TQM) is implemented in the school meals program. Supply chain issues pose significant challenges to TQM implementation in the program execution. Aim: This study aims to examine national and international capacities in supply chain management by analyzing the variety of food items delivered through the school meals program. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge (...) Theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that the method of obtaining supplies, whether through in-kind donations from local, regional, national sources, or national food reserves and purchasing from neighboring or distant countries, had a significant positive association with the variety of food items included in school meals or snacks. Conversely, obtaining supplies in-kind from neighboring or distant countries had a significant negative association with the food variety. Additionally, purchasing supplies from local, regional, or national food reserves had an unclear association with the food variety. Conclusions: Findings underscore the importance of supporting the World Bank and World Food Programme’s recommendation to rely more on local resources and capacities. Enhancing supply chain management at the national level is crucial for developing a long-term and sustainable school meals program. (shrink)

Food insecurity remains a persistent challenge in many developing regions, including Nigeria, where inadequate processing skills and limited value addition often reduce the nutritional and economic benefits of agricultural produce such as plantain. In Delta State, homemakers play a key role in food processing and household nutrition, yet many lack the necessary capacity to effectively process and utilize plantain products for improved food security. This study therefore assessed the capacity-building needs of homemakers in processing and utilization of plantain (...) products in Delta State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted, with a population of about 1,236,315 homemakers across 25 Local Government Areas. A sample of 384 respondents was selected using multistage sampling from five LGAs and ten markets, ensuring urban and rural representation. Data were collected using a validated questionnaire on plantain products such as flour, chips, puree, and biscuits. Analysis involved SPSS, using mean, standard deviation, and t-test at 0.05 significance level. A total of 309 valid responses were analyzed, giving an 84.5% return rate. The results showed that among 309 homemakers in Delta State, most were married (71.5%), with a majority having household sizes of 5–7 persons (47.9%). A large proportion (83.2%) had at least secondary education, while income levels were fairly distributed across categories. Findings on capacity-building needs revealed that all 17 items scored below the 2.50 benchmark, indicating that homemakers generally lacked adequate skills in processing and utilizing plantain products such as flour, chips, biscuit, and puree, and therefore require training in these areas. A significant difference was also found between young and old homemakers, with young respondents showing greater training needs. Further results showed that homemakers faced several challenges in plantain processing, including communication gaps, inadequate funding, poor government policies, lack of storage facilities, and limited technical know-how, with a high grand mean of 3.50 confirming agreement. However, no significant difference was found between rural and urban homemakers regarding these challenges. The study concluded that homemakers in Delta State lack essential skills for effective plantain processing and utilization, which limits their contribution to household food security and value addition. (shrink)

I motivate and defend a new account of ignorance for which ignorance is the lack of a suitable explanatory connection between (i) one’s exercise of epistemic abilities and (ii) believing the truth. This view carves out a previously unexplored option space in the ongoing conceptual debate about ignorance in analytic epistemology and is shown to yield better results than competing views of ignorance, including those that define ignorance as a lack of knowledge, a lack of true belief, or as characterized (...) by a failure of inquiry. Unlike these other views, the account defended here places an agent’s exercise of her epistemic abilities at its core, enabling it to provide a more nuanced explanation for various instances of ignorance and non ignorance, as well as for the evaluative character of ignorance. (shrink)

We investigate a speci c model of knowledge and beliefs and their dynamics. The model is inspired by public announcement logic and the approach to puzzles concerning knowledge using that logic. In the model epistemic considerations are based on ontology. The main notion that constitutes a bridge between these two disciplines is the notion of epistemic capacities. Within the model we study scenarios in which agents can receive false announcements and can have incomplete or improper views about other agent's epistemic (...) capacities. Moreover, we try to express the description of problem speci cation using the tools from applied ontology { RDF format for information and the Protege editor. (shrink)

What capacities must an AI system possess to be held responsible for its actions? I argue that AI systems can be accountable agents when they possess sufficiently strong commitments to relevant norms (ethical, rational, or conventional). This paper articulates empirically determinable necessary and sufficient conditions for possessing such commitments. Specifically, I argue that what I term a meta-reflective capacity toward a goal is both necessary and sufficient. Meta-reflection is the capacity to maintain resource-optimal performance by appropriately changing one’s (...) cognitive strategy in response to changes in internal constraints. A commitment’s strength can be characterized by the constraints under which a system fails to maintain resource-optimality. The path forward for a theory of AI responsibility requires articulating which qualitative internal system limitations are excusable, forgivable, or competence-undermining. Considerations of the mutability of constraints offer a partial way to delineate such classes. This framework connects philosophical theories of responsibility to cognitive processes and provides a path toward identifying and engineering normative commitments in biological and artificial systems. (shrink)

In this Introduction, I situate the underlying project “Autonomy and Mental Disorder” with reference to current debates on autonomy in moral and political philosophy, and the philosophy of action. I then offer an overview of the individual contributions. More specifically, I begin by identifying three points of convergence in the debates at issue, stating that autonomy is: 1) a fundamentally liberal concept; 2) an agency concept and; 3) incompatible with (severe) mental disorder. Next, I explore, in the context of decisional (...) capacity assessments, the difficulties to reconcile 1) and 2) with 3) which they at the same time seem to imply. Having clarified the centrality of a cogent notion of mental disorder for addressing these difficulties, I comment on three promising lines of inquiry about the nature and scope of autonomy that emerge from the following chapters. (shrink)

Cases of severe and enduring Anorexia Nervosa (SEAN) rightly raise a great deal of concern around assessing capacity to refuse treatment (including artificial feeding). Commentators worry that the Court of Protection in England & Wales strays perilously close to a presumption of incapacity in such cases (Cave and Tan 2017, 16), with some especially bold (one might even say reckless) observers suggesting that the ordinary presumption in favor of capacity ought to be reversed in such cases (Ip 2019). (...) -/- Those of us who worry that such trends and proposals amount to (or at least pose a serious threat of) wrongful discrimination on the grounds of disability nevertheless feel the pull of judging many SEAN service users to be incapacitous with respect to decisions regarding (perhaps amongst other things) treatments involving feeding, artificial or otherwise. But it is difficult to get to grips with exactly what their incapacity consists in. Many such service users seem able to understand, retain, use and weigh information, and express a decision (i.e. they seem, prima facie, to satisfy the ‘MacArthur’ criteria). At the very least, they do not, generally. (shrink)

Cambodians are still vulnerable. To reverse those conditions, National Social Protection Strategy (N.S.P.S) was developed for the poor and vulnerable people to promote their livelihoods. Royal Government of Cambodia (R.G.C) has paid attention to social assistance. In strategic plans, highlights on strengthening, and collectively developing social security, consistent and effective. With these issues, the government establishes a national social protection policy framework to help all people in particular poor and vulnerable people (M.o.E.F, 2017, p.1). The research aims at reviewing the (...) institutional capacity of government institutions in charge of the National Social Protection Framework (N.S.P.P.F) toward its goal achievement The Department for International Development (D.E.F.I.D) capacity approach is proposed as a framework for this institution of government toward its goal achievement. The D.E.F.I.D (2003) cited in Kay amp Franks (2003) identifies the approach for assessing capacities in three-level. The strengths and the weakness of the seven points were identified. Those included an Overview of N.S.P.P.F, financial resources, relationship with others, policies and systems, strategies, structures, and technical skills and competencies. It was concluded that budget limitations and lack of data and guidelines for implementing the frameworks were limited. Recommendations were identification of People with Disability (P.W.D) data, people close to the poverty line, the inclusion of P.W.D, increase in budget, and budget decentralization. (shrink)

Maternal cardiac remodeling during pregnancy reflects a coordinated transformation that supports increased circulatory demand while maintaining functional stability and enabling postpartum resolution. This process can be described in terms of the relationship between intrinsic adaptive capacity and exposure load. Adaptive capacity reflects the ability of the maternal system to sustain organized structural and functional change through integrated processes including mitochondrial energetics, transcriptional regulation, hormonal signaling, and calcium handling. Exposure load reflects the magnitude and duration of environmental and pharmacological (...) influences acting on the system across gestation and the postpartum period. -/- Within this framework, remodeling trajectories arise from the interaction between these components over time. When adaptive capacity is sufficient relative to exposure load, cardiac structure and function evolve along stable, coordinated trajectories and resolve toward baseline postpartum. As exposure load increases or adaptive capacity is reduced, trajectories shift toward persistent structural and functional alteration, with measurable changes in growth patterns, contractility, metabolic state, and calcium dynamics. Combined exposures engage multiple regulatory axes simultaneously and produce coordinated system-level effects that extend beyond individual pathways. -/- This formulation yields testable predictions. Remodeling outcomes are expected to exhibit transition behavior across graded exposure levels, with increased variability and divergence near critical thresholds. Temporal persistence of altered states following exposure provides a direct measure of adaptive capacity, and combined exposures are predicted to produce amplified, integrated responses. Quantitative indices of mitochondrial function, metabolic regulation, signaling dynamics, and contractile behavior provide operational access to these processes and support the construction of predictive models across gestation and postpartum recovery. -/- This account is theoretical and integrative in scope and is intended to organize existing findings and generate testable hypotheses rather than to serve as clinical guidance or replace established medical frameworks. It provides a structured approach for relating mechanistic measurements to system-level outcomes and for understanding how maternal cardiovascular adaptation remains stable or diverges under varying conditions of exposure and intrinsic capacity. (shrink)

There are considerations – excuses – which reduce or eliminate responsibility for wrongdoing and so shield us from blame without casting doubt on the wrongfulness of our conduct. Many think that these excuses reflect the agent's incapacity to do the right thing in the face of duress, provocation, exhaustion etc. I shall suggest that the crucial thing is rather how much control one ought to exercise over one’s action, a requirement specified in a standard of culpability. This standard is distinct (...) from the rules of conduct that determine what is right or wrong and it is often conventional. For example, social roles like that of soldier, engineer or parent have distinctive standards of culpability as well as rules of conduct associated with them and it is these standards which determine the range of excuses available to those who breach the rules of conduct. (shrink)

This paper proves that infinite integration capacity is structurally impossible under the minimal conditions of persistence. Assuming IK → ∞ forces IR → 0 for all finite transformation loads, making every transformation admissible. This collapses selective admissibility, forces full transitivity, and reduces all identity classes to a single equivalence class — violating C3. Infinite capacity does not stabilize identity. It eliminates the boundary condition that makes identity possible. This result closes the LP persistence domain from above. Together with (...) the structural exclusion of undifferentiated origin (Paper 131), equilibrium (Paper 134), and overload (IR > 1, Papers 80/103), the domain of persistent identity under real transformation is now structurally complete. Outside these four bounds, the persistence problem is not difficult. It is undefined. (shrink)

This research note introduces Reflective Capacity (Cᵣ) as a minimal and necessary variable for unifying the mechanisms developed across three existing components of Reflective Humanism: (1) RH 1.0, which proposed the Founder–Supporter–Critic (FSC) triad and the principle of temporal desynchronization; (2) FRA 1.0, which articulated a fractal reflective architecture (F₅→F₀) consisting of nested triadic loops across multiple timescales; (3) Substrate Stack 1.0, which defined the biological constraints (B₅→B₀) that shape and limit reflective interpretation. Across these three works, a missing (...) variable becomes clear: the amount of reflective “bandwidth” available to process mismatch, integrate feedback, and maintain synchronization with reality. This paper defines Reflective Capacity (Cᵣ) as the system’s available cognitive–emotional–biological bandwidth for reflection and shows that reflective stability requires a load–capacity balance: reflection remains adaptive when Lᵣ Cᵣ. Cᵣ is not a replacement for the Critic function (C) in FSC; it is the capacity that allows C—and the entire triad—to operate at all. Cᵣ 1.0 will later be integrated with RH 1.0, FRA 1.0, and the Substrate Stack in Reflective Humanism 1.1, forming a unified architecture for reflective systems across psychological, social, political, and artificial domains. (shrink)

In response to an impasse, articulated in the late 1980s, the cognitive capacities of ordinary people assumed central place in contemporary critical social theory. The participants’ perspective gained precedence over scientific standards branded as external. The notion of cognition, however, went unchallenged. This article continues the move away from external standards, and discusses two models of critique, which differ based on their underlying notions of cognition. The representational model builds on cognitive content, misrecognition and normativity; three features which are illustrated (...) with positions adopted by prominent exponents of critical social theory. An alternative understanding relies on action-oriented disclosure and the participants’ basic familiarity with the social world. On this reading, what clashes with unequal structures is skilful coping, rather than representations and normative standards. The action-oriented approach may overcome the dilemma of understanding both the impact and the possible transcendence of unequal structures, although it cannot ultimately replace representational critique. (shrink)

Most work at the intersection of law and the philosophy of action focuses on criminal responsibility. Unfortunately, this focus has been at the expense of reflecting on how the philosophy of action might help illuminate our understanding of issues in civil law. In this essay, focusing on Anglo-American jurisprudence, we examine the conditions under which a party to a legal agreement is deemed to have the capacity required to be bound by that agreement. We refer to this condition as (...) the capacity condition. We begin by showing how recent work on the metaphysics of powers might ground an account of the role of capacities in the metaphysics of intentional agency. After discussing the capacity to contract in Anglo-American jurisprudence, we show how the general ontology of capacities and agency sketched can ground and help clarify legal thinking about capacity. We argue that when we couple our understanding of capacity with relevant recent data from developmental neuropsychology, a lacuna in Anglo-American contract law becomes evident. Specifically, it appears that persons in early adulthood do not clearly satisfy the conditions requisite for them to satisfy the capacity condition. In the light of this, we sketch some potential solutions that are compatible with existing legal standards and would contribute to a more consistent application of the capacity condition in contract law. (shrink)

This book offers a new theory of mental capacity in law. The problem the theory addresses is capacity law’s disarray. Today, judges lack the conceptual resources that are necessary for being able to say what counts as capacity, and leading academics openly wonder whether capacity law is even law given the looseness of existing principles for addressing its central questions. Against that backdrop, this book advances three main lines of argument. Part I argues that the problems (...) of capacity law stem from conceptual and legal frameworks that drastically underdetermine their subject matter: though we have statutes that give us lists of conditions for incapacity, we lack principled ways to link mental and behavioural phenomena to those conditions. That is a problem both for the individual whose capacity is in question and for courts whose rule of law duties include giving principled reasons for their decisions. To address these problems, Part II presents what will be called the two-part theory of capacity. The first half of that theory advances the view that capacity is best understood as a cognitive state in which one’s deliberative processes minimally conform to certain norms of rationality. The second half of the theory adds to this picture by arguing that capacity depends on our belief formation system functioning as it should from a naturalistic point of view. Part III takes the two-part theory of capacity and applies it to a number of actual and theoretical hard cases in the law. What emerges from these applications is a restatement of the law of capacity that resolves the conceptual and practical inadequacies of the prevailing framework identified in Part I. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for people to hold bizarre views. Sometimes, these views appear before the courts in mental capacity cases. Judges must then decide if the views are so bizarre that they constitute evidence of incapacity or, instead, if those views are the everyday sort that do not constitute such evidence. The idea behind the distinction is that the everyday sort can be false but, in some important sense, not that unreasonable. But what should tip the balance of (...) reasons for a view to count as severely unreasonable rather than merely so? It turns out that capacity law is unable to provide a principled answer to this question because it lacks a standard to parse beliefs. This paper offers such a standard, focussing on the ability to reason, or the ‘use and weigh’ criterion, which features in most capacity statutes. The standard takes the form of a threshold with four necessary conditions. The main idea is that when a person's belief satisfies those conditions, it counts as evidence of an inability to reason. The standard's objective is to displace the various unarticulated conceptions of reasonableness which judges are currently compelled to use to determine questions of reasoning ability. (shrink)

In this paper, we highlight some problems for accounts of disability and enhancement that have not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. The reason, we contend, is that contemporary debates that seek to define, characterise or explain the normative valence of disability and enhancement do not pay sufficient attention to a wide range of cases, and the transition between one state and another. In section one, we provide seven cases that might count as disability or enhancement. We explain why each (...) case might count, and on what basis, and why it is been neglected. Each case is explained as a transition in what we call capacity space. We then argue that no definition of disability or enhancement addresses all of these cases, except for strict welfarist accounts of disability that do not rely on a depiction of any particular capacity. We argue further, however, that this is a serious deficiency of welfarist conceptions of disability. We then address objections to our account. (shrink)

This paper attempts to articulate a dispositional account of innateness that applies to cognitive capacities. After criticizing an alternative account of innateness proposed by Cowie (1999) and Samuels (2002), the dispositional account of innateness is explicated and defended against a number of objections. The dispositional account states that an innate cognitive capacity (output) is one that has a tendency to be triggered as a result of impoverished environmental conditions (input). Hence, the challenge is to demonstrate how the input can (...) be compared to the output and shown to be relatively impoverished. I argue that there are robust methods of comparing input to output without measuring them quantitatively. (shrink)

Studying the neural correlates of conscious awareness depends on a reliable comparison between activations associated with awareness and unawareness. One particularly difficult confound to remove is task performance capacity, i.e. the difference in performance between the conditions of interest. While ideally task performance capacity should be matched across different conditions, this is difficult to achieve experimentally. However, differences in performance could theoretically be corrected for mathematically. One such proposal is found in a recent paper by Lamy, Salti and (...) Bar-Haim [Lamy D, Salti M, Bar-Haim Y. Neural correlates of subjective awareness and unconscious processing: an ERP study. J Cognitive Neurosci 2009,21:1435-46], who put forward a corrective method for an electroencephalography experiment. We argue that their analysis is essentially grounded in a version of High Threshold Theory, which has been shown to be inferior in general to Signal Detection Theory. We show through a series of computer simulations that their correction method only partially removes the influence of perfor- mance capacity, which can yield misleading results. We present a mathematical correction method based on Signal Detection Theory that is theoretically capable of removing performance capacity confounds. We discuss the limitations of mathemati- cally correcting for performance capacity confounds in imaging studies and its impact for theories about consciousness. (shrink)

When do neural networks trained on multiple related prediction tasks converge to aligned internal dynamics rather than segregated representations? We present a minimal, fully controlled computational study demonstrating that strong cross-modal alignment emerges from a simple architectural constraint: a shared latent bottleneck trained bidirectionally on forward and inverse prediction (Wolpert, Ghahramani, & Jordan, 1995; Kawato, 1999). We train gated recurrent units (GRUs) in a synthetic sensorimotor environment with two self-supervised objectives: predicting sensory consequences from actions (forward model) and inferring actions (...) from sensory streams (inverse model). When both objectives share a single recurrent core, we observe substantial unitwise alignment between perform and observe modes. Across 2,000 sequences and 20 epochs in a canonical setting (hidden size 96), 25–30% of units exhibit |r| > 0.75 between perform and observe activations, ~35–40% exceed |r| > 0.6, and peak units reach r ≈ 0.9. Ablations using separate recurrent cores, forward-only training, or shuffled observation labels eliminate this alignment, establishing that it arises from architectural and training constraints rather than task structure alone. We then conduct a systematic capacity scaling analysis, varying GRU hidden size from 4 to 512 with strict evaluation controls (independent test sequences and untrained baselines). We identify a pronounced intermediate-capacity regime (h ≈ 32–48) in which four metrics co-optimize: (i) alignment gain Δr (difference between shared- and separate-core maximum |r|), (ii) compression ratio between perform and observe state manifolds, (iii) linear separability of mode identity, and (iv) structured developmental trajectories during training. Beyond this regime, larger models achieve lower prediction error but reduced alignment and weaker compression, deviating from standard monotonic scaling trends observed in predictive performance (Kaplan et al., 2020; Wei et al., 2022). These results suggest that cross-modal alignment is not a byproduct of scale, but a consequence of architectural bottlenecks interacting with bidirectional predictive objectives. More broadly, they indicate that representational compression, mode alignment, and structured developmental dynamics can arise from constraint-driven learning in recurrent systems, with implications for multi-task learning, multimodal modeling, and representation geometry in neural networks. (shrink)