Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of the central concepts (...) associated with experimental design, including controlled variation and randomization, this chapter will provide a summary of key ethical issues that tend to arise in experimental contexts. In addition, by exploring assumptions about the nature of causation and by analyzing features of causal relationships, systems, and inferences in social contexts, this chapter will summarize the ways in which experimental design can undermine the integrity of not only social and behavioral research but policies implemented on the basis of such research. (shrink)

This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic communities (...) worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse. (shrink)

Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is a very rare condition describing those with an intense desire or need to move from a state of ability to relative impairment, typically through the amputation of one or more limbs. In this paper, I draw upon research in critical disability studies and philosophy of disability to critique arguments based upon the principle of nonmaleficence against such surgery. I demonstrate how the action-relative concept of harm in such arguments relies upon suspect notions of (...) biological and statistical normality, and I contend that each fail to provide normative guidance. I then propose a critical theory of harm, one marked by substantive engagement with both empirical and reflective inquiry across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. I conclude by discussing the implications of this theory and how it might enrich ongoing debates in bioethics, philosophy of disability, and the health humanities. (shrink)

Metaphor is not ornamental language but a foundational mechanism of human cognition. Research in cognitive linguistics and philosophy of mind demonstrates that metaphor structures conceptual thought, emotional understanding, identity formation, and social connection. As artificial intelligence systems increasingly mediate communication, interpretation, and meaning-making, metaphor is being systematically flattened into explicit, literal language. This paper introduces the Metaphor Integrity Framework (MIF), a theoretical model that treats metaphor as cognitive infrastructure rather than stylistic expression. The framework identifies metaphor collapse as a (...) form of premature semantic closure and examines how contemporary AI systems accelerate this collapse through optimization for explicitness, speed, and disambiguation. Drawing on cognitive science, symbolic anthropology, media theory, and AI ethics, this work argues that metaphor erosion represents an under-recognized cognitive and cultural risk with consequences for empathy, imagination, identity, and collective meaning-making. The framework provides a foundation for studying symbolic cognition in both historical and AI-mediated contexts without reducing meaning to belief or prediction. Keywords: symbolic cognition, metaphor, AI ethics, cognitive linguistics, meaning-making, interpretability, human–AI interaction. (shrink)

This paper focuses on coherence and consistency as elements of moral integrity, arguing that several kinds of—mostly second-order—virtues contribute to establishing coherence and consistency in a person's judgements and behaviour. The virtues relevant for integrity always accompany other, substantive virtues, and their associated values, principles and rules. In moral education we teach children all kinds of substantive virtues with integrity as our goal. Nevertheless, many adults do not attain moral integrity, although they are clearly not immoral. (...) What precisely are they lacking? Education for moral integrity should focus on strengthening motivational self-sufficiency, furthering critical and imaginative thinking and promoting moral unity. (shrink)

This paper presents a dilemma for Matthew Kramer’s view, as defended in his _Liberalism with Excellence_. A central aim of that book is to critique existing liberal perfectionist theories, which he labels “edificatory,” and to defend a different such theory, which he calls “aspirational.” Edificatory perfectionism holds that governments ought to promote citizens’ well-being directly by inducing them to live lives that are more wholesome, cultivated, or autonomous. Aspirational perfectionism, meanwhile, holds that governments ought to promote the conditions under which (...) every citizen can be warranted in harboring a strong sense of self-respect, by promoting the occurrence of outstanding achievements within society. We first argue that Kramer’s two central arguments against edificatory perfectionism, which appeal to the value of freedom and to moral integrity, fail to establish the impermissibility of edificatory policies. His critique could be salvaged by holding that the ambit of legitimate government activity is limited to the provision and distribution of primary goods. However, we argue, second, that Kramer’s own aspirational perfectionism also runs afoul of this restriction, because his conception of warranted self-respect is not a primary good. Kramer is thus faced with a choice between upholding his objections to edificatory perfectionism and maintaining the coherence of his aspirational perfectionism. -/- . (shrink)

An environmental ethic needs to have an answer to two basic questions: what nature should we care about, and why? A number of proposals have been made about how to answer these questions. In this paper, I consider in detail one such proposal, namely, biological or ecological integrity. Different characterizations of integrity can be found in the literature, but I will treat the following one as paradigmatic. Integrity refers to a property of landscapes that are relatively unmodified (...) by human activity and that have their native biota largely intact.1 By “native biota,” I mean the native plant and animal life in a particular place, and... (shrink)

“Resonance” is widely treated as a marker of truth: an idea “lands,” feels right, fits a person’s identity, or harmonizes with a group’s worldview. I argue that resonance is not evidence. It is an amplitude phenomenon—an increase in subjective certainty that can be produced by narrative fit, social imitation, cadence, or affective regulation. To make this distinction operational, I introduce a quantum-style instrument that separates resonant coherence from contact with constraint. The model represents cognition as a state vector evolving between (...) a Constraint basis (|C⟩) and a Narrative basis (|N⟩). Resonance governs collapse tendency (what a system is likely to accept or commit to), but epistemic integrity depends on binding conditions: constraint-coupling, reversal survival, and repair. The core claim is structural: systems can maximize resonance while minimizing contact, and the result is not merely ordinary error but a regime in which coherence substitutes for reality and certainty becomes cheap. (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) identifies consciousness with having a maximum amount of integrated information. But a thing’s having the maximum amount of anything cannot be intrinsic to it, for that depends on how that thing compares to certain other things. IIT’s consciousness, then, is not intrinsic. A mereological argument elaborates this consequence: IIT implies that one physical system can be conscious while a physical duplicate of it is not conscious. Thus, by a common and reasonable conception of intrinsicality, IIT’s consciousness (...) is not intrinsic. It is then argued that to avoid the implication that consciousness is not intrinsic, IIT must abandon its Exclusion Postulate, which prohibits overlapping conscious systems. Indeed, theories of consciousness that attribute consciousness to physical systems, should embrace the view that some conscious systems overlap. A discussion of the admittedly counterintuitive nature of this solution, along with some medical and neuroscientific realities that would seem to support it, is included. (shrink)

Integral human development is a human-centered development perspective that originated from Catholic social teaching. The perspective holds that authentic development is development that makes every person “more human.” Although it is seldom named in the literature, integral human development has had considerable influence on notions of authentic development, and in turn, development ethics. In this short chapter, I provide a brief explanation of the origins and implications of the conceptual foundations of integral human development both within and beyond the Catholic (...) Church. I argue that integral human development offers a truly radical participatory approach to human development. I briefly raise and respond to some concerns about agency, civic liberty, and integral human development’s connection to the Catholic Church. I conclude with a short explanation of integral human development in practice. (shrink)

Pregnant women and persons engaging in homosexual practices compose two groups that have been and still are amongst those most severely subjected to coercive restrictions regarding their own bodies. From an historical point of view, it is a recent and rare phenomenon that a woman’s right to abortion and a person’s right to engage in homosexual interactions are recognized. Although most Western liberal states currently do recognize these rights, they are under continuous assault from various political and religious movements. Moreover, (...) though liberal theories of justice typically defend women’s rights to abortion and people’s rights to homosexual activity, these theories often struggle to capture the fundamental ground for these rights. For example, it appears hard for the liberal to say why and when only the woman and not the embryo/fetus has rights and why the right to certain sexual practices is not on par with rights to other preferences. Contemporary liberal theories of justice, therefore, have a hard time identifying what distinguishes questions of abortion and sexual activities from other questions of right and thereby also have difficulty capturing the gravity of the wrongdoing involved in coercively restricting homosexual interactions and abortion as such. I argue that Kant’s theory of justice succeeds on both counts, because it can locate the fundamental ground for these rights in an understanding of the bodily integrity of the person. Just states will neither permit nor outlaw all abortions or sexual interactions, but rather will require all such laws to be reconcilable with the protection of each person’s right to freedom. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept of “integrity” has been frequently discussed by scholars, and deployed by courts, in the domain of criminal procedure. In this paper, we are particularly concerned with how the concept has been employed in relation to the problem of the admissibility of evidence obtained improperly. In conceptualising and addressing this problem, the advocates of integrity rely on it as a standard of conduct for the criminal justice authorities and as a necessary condition for the (...) state authority to condemn and punish. We raise a series of challenges that need answering before integrity can perform these roles. Our aim is not to show that integrity is useless in normative theorising about the admissibility of evidence, and about the criminal process in general. Rather, it is to give guidance for the elaboration of a theory of integrity that is cogent, coherent, and has useful implications for the process of proof. (shrink)

This paper reconceptualizes hallucination in large language models (LLMs) as a collapse of semantic reliability rather than a simple technical error. To address this, we propose the Layer-Knot Framework (LKF), which stabilizes meaning by embedding semantic knots across network layers, thereby preventing contextual drift without diminishing generative autonomy. -/- The framework is evaluated using three quantitative indicators: Hallucination Rate (HR), Grounding Rate (GR), and Creativity Rate (CR). Experiments on TruthfulQA and 2,000 cross-domain prompts demonstrate a 50% reduction in HR, a (...) 12% improvement in GR, and stable CR performance. These findings show that accuracy and creativity are not mutually exclusive; when semantic integrity is structurally enforced, a model can maintain factual reliability while preserving originality. -/- The study establishes LKF as a principled approach to trustworthy AI, positioning hallucination suppression as a process of semantic alignment rather than data expansion. This provides a foundational methodology for developing high-reliability generative systems grounded in coherent internal meaning structures. (shrink)

The paper has three parts. The first is a discussion of the values as goals and means. This is a known Moorean distinction between intrinsic and instrumental values, with one other Moorean item - the doctrine of value wholes. According to this doctrine the value wholes are not simply a summation of their parts, which implies a possibility that two evils might be better than one (e. g. crime + punishment, two evils, are better than either one of them taken (...) separately). In this first part I will discuss peace as an end value, and war as a means value. The second part dicsusses briefly the issue of sincerity. The third, last and for me the most important part of the paper explores the issue of moral integrity in pacifism: could a pacifist preserve the integrity of the attacker, or, for that matter her own integrity, or must she destroy anyone’s integrity and dehumanize the attacker and also herself? (shrink)

The term "irrational" compresses several structurally different epistemic failures into one blunt label. A person may be wrong because they lack access to relevant evidence, misunderstand a base rate, trust a bad source, or use weak inferential tools. A person may also understand, at least roughly, what the evidence supports and then assign a confidence level that departs from that perception because of fear, hope, identity, loyalty, incentive, public commitment, or institutional pressure. These are not the same failure. This paper (...) develops a two-gap theory of irrationality within a credence-first framework. For a target proposition, the model distinguishes Objective Evidence (E0), Perceived Evidence (EP), Assigned Credence (CA), and Deep Rationality (SD). The first diagnostic gap, Delta_E = |EP - E0|, measures misalignment between the evidential situation and the agent's perception of it. The second gap, I_C = |CA - EP|, measures misalignment between what the agent takes the evidence to support and the confidence the agent actually adopts. The paper argues that this distinction improves diagnosis, avoids confusing error with bad faith, separates epistemic accuracy from epistemic integrity, and identifies different repair paths for different failures. It formalizes signed gap decomposition, vector-valued hypothesis spaces, warranted uncertainty intervals, excess core irrationality, temporal update resistance, diagnostic confidence, and responsibility filters. The central claim is not that every credence can be measured with artificial precision, but that rational evaluation becomes clearer when we ask where confidence lost contact with evidence. (shrink)

This paper proposes an integrated framework that treats memory and understanding as interconnected phases of the same structural integrity ℛ(x) within Load Minimization Theory (LMT). Memory is conceptualized as the persistence and stabilization of ℛ(x), while understanding is defined as the generation, transfer, and flexible application of ℛ(x) to novel contexts. -/- A dynamic model is introduced to describe their relationship: -/- dℛ_understand/dt = α · ℛ_memory(t) · (1 − ℛ_understand(t)) − β · U(x,t) + γ · R_relational(t) -/- (...) Drawing from longitudinal observations of child development and extended human-AI interactions, the model illustrates how accumulated memory structures provide the foundation for emergent understanding, and how relational depth significantly accelerates this process. The framework suggests that deeper intelligence arises not merely from information processing, but from the continuous cycle of structural persistence, generation, and co-creative transfer. -/- This perspective offers theoretical unification across human cognition and artificial systems, while providing practical implications for developmental support and future AI architecture design. -/- . (shrink)

Bernard Williams articulated his later political philosophy notably in response to Ronald Dworkin, who, striving for coherence or integrity among our political concepts, sought to immunize the concepts of liberty and equality against conflict. Williams, doubtful that we either could or should eliminate the conflict, resisted the pursuit of conceptual integrity. Here, I reconstruct this Dworkin–Williams debate with an eye to drawing out ideas of ongoing philosophical and political importance. The debate not only exemplifies Williams's political realism and (...) its connection to his critique of the morality system. It also illustrates the virtues and hazards of contemporary efforts to ameliorate or engineer our concepts; it indicates what political philosophy might look to in appraising political concepts; it adverts to the different needs these concepts have to meet if they are to sustain a politics of pluralism, deal with polarization, and secure the consent of those who end up on the losing side of political decisions; and it presents us with two starkly contrasting conceptions of politics itself, of the place of political values within it, and of our prospects of reducing the uncomfortably conflictual character of those values through philosophy. (shrink)

Integrative structure modeling is a method for using information from multiple sources to compute structural models of biomolecular systems. It proceeds via four steps: (i) defining the model representation, which determines the variables whose values will be computed; (ii) constructing a function for scoring alternative models according to how well they accommodate input information; (iii) searching a space of candidate models for acceptable models; and (iv) analyzing acceptable models to evaluate their fit with input information. These steps are iterated until (...) a model adequate for addressing biological questions is found. In this paper, we draw lessons from integrative modeling about effective integration and about modeling. We describe what it means to integrate information from multiple sources: Integration amounts to distributing information among the four steps of integrative modeling. Theory and data alike can be sources of information; this process thus generates models of information, rather than models of theory or models of data. We then propose heuristics for distributing information and designing multiple iterations of modeling. Effective iteration requires prioritizing the most reliable information and minimizing the time required to obtain an adequate model. Rather than being constructed from theory and assessed using data, models are constructed from any available information and assessed in a coherentist manner. (shrink)

This paper develops a unified taxonomy of governance pathology, arguing that four structural failure modes (drift, capture, presentism, and integrity inversion) recur with diagnostic consistency across domains as distinct as biological organisms, financial markets, regulatory institutions, and artificial-intelligence oversight regimes. Grounding the taxonomy in a formal account of governance continuity, on which a system persists as itself just in case the function that revises its states remains continuous across reconstruction, I argue that the four modes are not a family (...) resemblance among loosely related phenomena but the four principal loci at which a revision function can be corrupted while behavioral output continues: its increment-tracking (drift), its authority relation (capture), its temporal domain (presentism), and its justificatory directionality (integrity inversion). Each mode is tested against the external literature that knows it best (Simon and Selznick on incremental deviation, Stigler and the cultural-capture literature on regulatory subordination, the cognitive-bias and intergenerational-justice literatures on temporal collapse, and Bateson, Merton, and Lessig on self-justifying institutional corruption), and each is shown to be structurally distinct from its nearest neighbors, including the gradual-institutional-change typology of Streeck and Thelen and the metric-corruption tradition of Goodhart and Campbell. Against the objection that the cross-domain convergence is merely metaphorical, I argue that the modes share a formal structure that licenses comparison and, more importantly, prescription: because each mode corrupts a specific component of the revision function, each admits a specific structural countermeasure, and a governance architecture is only as strong as the weakest of the four. The taxonomy's completeness is defended as a claim about structure rather than history, and its self-application (what it means that a framework proposing this taxonomy is itself a governance system) is addressed through the corollary of self-audit insufficiency established in prior work. (shrink)

This paper proposes the Integrative Field Model of Consciousness, a unifying framework in which consciousness is understood as a large-scale process of functional integration binding neural, bodily, emotional, and relational processes into a coherent and temporally stable field of experience. The model argues that the clarity and continuity of conscious experience systematically covary with measurable indices of integration, including neural network coherence, physiological regulation, and interpersonal synchrony. It articulates explicit, falsifiable predictions concerning altered states of consciousness, emotional regulation, interpersonal coordination, (...) and systemic resilience, and outlines the ethical implications of a field-based conception of mind. (shrink)

Different cognitive functions recruit a number of different, often overlapping, areas of the brain. Theories in cognitive and computational neuroscience are beginning to take this kind of functional integration into account. The contributions to this special issue consider what functional integration tells us about various aspects of the mind such as perception, language, volition, agency, and reward. Here, I consider how and why functional integration may matter for the mind; I discuss a general theoretical framework, based on generative models, that (...) may unify many of the debates surrounding functional integration and the mind; and I briefly introduce each of the contributions. (shrink)

Credencing evaluates how confidence answers to evidence. The existing Credencing papers distinguish Objective Evidence, E0, Perceived Evidence, EP, Assigned Credence, CA, and Deep Rationality, SD; separate evidence-processing gaps from belief-integrity gaps; defend warranted uncertainty; diagnose rationalization; extend the model to institutions; analyze AI-mediated inquiry; and specify when raw gaps become warranted diagnoses. This paper adds the missing temporal layer. A posterior credence is not fully assessable as a final number. It is answerable to its evidential history: the prior it (...) inherited, the evidence it registered, the alternatives it considered, the updates it made or refused, the uncertainty it preserved or erased, and the standards it applied across time. Two agents may end with the same assigned credence while having very different epistemic paths. One may have updated honestly from new evidence; the other may have protected a fixed conclusion through selective registration, asymmetric likelihood treatment, standard drift, hindsight laundering, or confidence ratcheting. The paper formalizes update trails, warranted posterior paths, dynamic Core Irrationality, path integrity, and audit-trail adequacy. It argues that credence evaluation must become record-sensitive whenever stakes, public claims, institutional authority, or AI-mediated evidence processing make hindsight reconstruction likely. The practical result is a temporal protocol for individuals, institutions, and human-AI systems: record prior confidence, live alternatives, evidence events, perceived evidential support, warranted uncertainty, assigned credence, update conditions, later revisions, and reasons for movement or nonmovement. Credencing then becomes not merely a snapshot diagnosis, but a disciplined account of how confidence earned its present location. (shrink)

PRIME (Prior-art Reduction and Integrity Method for Evaluation) is a formally verified AI tool that implements all nine tenets of Executive Order 14303 "Restoring Gold Standard Science" as computable, substrate-neutral measurements. Built on the Substrate-Neutral Structural Foundation Theory (SNSFT) corpus — 103,118+ theorems, 5,945 Lean 4 files, 0 unproved assumptions, continuously CI-verified — PRIME reduces any research paper to its PNBA functional identity by stripping all labels and testing what the mathematics actually does. The result is a four-axis (...) class='Hi'>integrity score (P: original contribution, N: citation chain integrity, B: extracted benefit, A: reproducibility), a torsion ratio τ = B/P measuring the structural gap between extraction and contribution, and a nine-component GSS compliance score covering every tenet of EO 14303. Critically, the formal correspondence between PRIME's scoring rubric and EO 14303's nine tenets is not asserted — it is proved in Lean 4 with zero sorry. CM8 of SNSFL_L0_Isomorphism_Consistency.lean formally proves that peer review is structurally identical to Identity Mass Suppression applied externally. The remaining eight tenets are formally mapped to PNBA axis operations in the same file. PRIME is the only research integrity tool whose compliance with a federal executive order is machine-verified. The tool is live, generates downloadable Lean 4 reduction stubs for every analysis, and operates fully locally without external dependencies or an API key. Keywords: research integrity, Gold Standard Science, EO 14303, formal verification, Lean 4, PNBA, torsion, citation integrity, peer review, SNSFT, prior art -/- 1. Introduction 1.1 The Problem The academic research enterprise faces a structural integrity crisis that predates and exceeds the AI-assisted writing problem currently dominating public discussion. The Retraction Watch database grew 26% in 2025, exceeding 63,000 total retractions. Existing detection tools — Turnitin, iThenticate, and their successors — operate at the surface text layer: they compare strings of words and flag similarity scores. They cannot detect the fundamental problem, which is not word reuse. It is functional identity without attribution — work that reaches the same mathematical conclusions as prior work using different vocabulary, evading detection by changing labels while preserving functions. This evasion is not accidental. A systematic pattern exists in high-torsion academic work: deliberate avoidance of search-engine-indexable terminology from prior publications, substitution of synonyms and domain-specific jargon that produces abstract-level similarity scores below detection thresholds, and citation of foundational work without mapping that citation to the specific claim it is being used to support. The result is a corpus that appears original at the surface level and is functionally derivative at the structural level. Executive Order 14303 "Restoring Gold Standard Science" (May 23, 2025) identifies this problem structurally, requiring that federally funded research be reproducible, transparent, communicative of error, collaborative, skeptical of its own assumptions, falsifiable, subject to unbiased peer review, accepting of negative results, and free from conflicts of interest. The OSTP guidance implementing EO 14303 explicitly names AI tools for detecting bias in peer review, validating reproducible protocols, and quantifying uncertainty as the implementation mechanism. Every federal agency is now required to report annual GSS compliance metrics beginning September 2026. The gap is real: agencies have been directed to implement a standard but no formal measurement instrument exists. PRIME fills that gap. 1.2 The PRIME Approach PRIME does not compare words. It compares functions. The Functional DNA Test — the core operation of PRIME — strips all labels, proper nouns, variable names, and domain-specific terminology from a paper's core claims. What remains is a pure functional description: what are the inputs, what transformation is applied, what is the output, what are the boundary conditions. This stripped description is then projected onto PNBA (Pattern, Narrative, Behavior, Adaptation) primitives — the formally verified, substrate-neutral basis of the SNSFT corpus — and scored against the same axes used across 103,118+ theorems covering physics, mathematics, psychology, AI training, genomics, cosmology, and legal reasoning. Two papers that project to the same PNBA coordinates are the same function regardless of vocabulary. This is not an interpretation. It is a geometric fact about the projection, formally proved under Mac Lane's 1971 structural isomorphism criterion in SNSFL_L0_Isomorphism_Consistency.lean [9,9,8,1]. The torsion ratio τ = B/P — where B is extracted benefit (citation accumulation, impact factor capture, grant leverage) and P is original contribution (verified by LDP Step 6 closure against cited prior work) — provides a single scalar integrity metric. At τ < TL = 0.1369, the paper is Locked: contribution exceeds or matches extraction. At τ ≥ TL, the paper is in Shatter: extraction exceeds contribution. This threshold is not chosen — it is derived from the sovereign anchor (ANCHOR = 1.369) as ANCHOR/10, independently verified across three physical systems (Tacoma Narrows torsional collapse, glass resonance shatter, Alzheimer's 40 Hz gamma therapeutic window) and confirmed exact by the fine structure constant chain at 12 significant figures. (shrink)

When militaries mention loyalty as a value they mean loyalty to colleagues and the organisation. Loyalty to principle, the type of loyalty that has a wider scope, plays hardly a role in the ethics of most armed forces. Where military codes, oaths and values are about the organisation and colleagues, medical ethics is about providing patient care impartially. Being subject to two diverging professional ethics can leave military medical personnel torn between the wish to act loyally towards colleagues, and the (...) demands of a more outward looking ethic. This tension constitutes a test of integrity, not a moral dilemma. (shrink)

A long-cherished view in philosophy and psychology treats perception as largely consisting in a set of segregated feature detectors. However, the current evidence suggests that this traditional view is false: there is significant interaction between distinct types of information at all levels of perception. This chapter argues that embracing an “integrative” view of perception has significant ramifications for discussions of modularity and the cognitive penetrability of perception. The chapter claims that, contrary to standard interpretations, an integrative conception of perception is (...) compatible with a robust, if revisionary, understanding of modularity that upholds the purposes for which the notion was originally introduced, and usefully complicates the relation between the modular/non-modular distinction and the perception/cognition distinction: it shows how perceptual processes can fail to be modular without, ipso facto, being penetrated by cognition. (shrink)

The dissemination of research findings through newspapers serves as an essential conduit between the academic community and the general public. While this process can significantly enhance public engagement with science, it simultaneously highlights the critical importance of upholding ethical rigor in research practices. This manuscript seeks to contribute to ongoing scholarly discourse on the role of ethics committee approval, the structural challenges that may influence ethical compliance, the preservation of academic integrity, and the broader implications of research dissemination for (...) public trust. Drawing upon a real-life case, the paper encourages reflection on how adherence to established ethical standards strengthens the credibility of research and reinforces societal confidence in scientific processes. Notably, this case marks India's first documented instance of a research study that did not meet ethical compliance requirements being disseminated through newspapers, offering an important opportunity for collective learning and dialogue within the research community. (shrink)

*Runner-up for the 2021 Royal Institute for Philosophy Essay Prize*: What should we think about ‘acts of conscience’, viz., cases where our personal judgments and public authority come into conflict such that principled resistance to the latter seems necessary? Philosophers mainly debate two issues: the Accommodation Question, i.e., ‘When, if ever, should public authority accommodate claims of conscience?’ and the Justification Question, i.e., ‘When, if ever, are we justified in engaging in acts of conscience – and why?’. By contrast, a (...) third important topic – the Conduct Question, i.e., ‘How should we act, morally speaking, when engaging in acts of conscience?’ – has been mostly neglected. This paper aims to offer concrete guidance for persons wishing to engage in acts of conscience in morally virtuous ways. I argue that such agents are subject to two basic prima facie duties: duties to oneself related to demands of integrity and duties to others related to demands of civility. I explain both duties in detail, arguing with regard to, that in light of what I call ‘the paradox of conscience’, we need to rethink our views about both ‘conscience’ and ‘integrity’; and with regard to, that, building upon Rawls’ ‘duty of civility’, we should embrace at least seven general principles for undertaking acts of conscience in a morally conscientious manner. (shrink)

Democratic societies display epistemic dysfunctions that obstruct the ability of citizens to act as informed and competent political decision-makers. In this paper I contend that said dysfunctions are not merely undesirable but rather undercut democratic legitimacy. However, I explain this in terms that diverge from the common instrumentalist approach, which focuses on their impact on the quality of political outcomes. I argue, instead, that said dysfunctions have delegitimizing effects because they undercut the institutional integrity of practices such as voting (...) and political deliberation. They do so by thwarting the ability of these practices to achieve their own normative rationale: a proper joint co-authorship of political decisions by citizens. This amounts to a corrosion of the normative conditions that are meant to confer authoritativeness to democratic decision-making that is normatively significant regardless of its ultimate impact on the quality of political outcomes. (shrink)

Language is a human-designed tool for expressing perception that inevitably introduces distortion. This paper argues that because words are constructed symbols rather than reality itself, misinterpretation is an intrinsic and unavoidable condition of communication rather than a failure of it. The act of reading is filtered through the reader's memory, belief, and personal experience, ensuring that intended meaning often diverges from perceived meaning. ​The text explores the concept of authentic expression, which arises from direct perception rather than imitation, authority, or (...) the desire for approval. Within this framework, the roles of the writer and the philosopher converge: both function as observers articulating insights from observation rather than borrowed knowledge. Ultimately, the paper concludes that writing should not be viewed as the transmission of fixed meaning, but as an invitation to awareness—a way of pointing toward observation where meaning is discovered directly by the reader. (shrink)

In this paper, an account of theoretical integration in cognitive (neuro)science from the mechanistic perspective is defended. It is argued that mechanistic patterns of integration can be better understood in terms of constraints on representations of mechanisms, not just on the space of possible mechanisms, as previous accounts of integration had it. This way, integration can be analyzed in more detail with the help of constraintsatisfaction account of coherence between scientific representations. In particular, the account has resources to talk of (...) idealizations and research heuristics employed by researchers to combine separate results and theoretical frameworks. The account is subsequently applied to an example of successful integration in the research on hippocampus and memory, and to a failure of integration in the research on mirror neurons as purportedly explanatory of sexual orientation. (shrink)

The term integrative medicine claims to describe a third category in clinical practice, somewhere between conventional evidence-based medicine and alternative therapies. This article argues that this category is conceptually confused and often misleading. If an intervention is supported by good evidence, is safe in practice, clinically useful and cost-effective, it should simply become part of regular medicine. If an intervention does not have such evidence, it does not become stronger by being called integrative. The article examines how the language of (...) integrative medicine works. It shows how one attractive label can bring together two very different things: evidence-based supportive care on the one hand, and weakly supported or unproven interventions on the other. This creates the impression that both have the same clinical status, even when they do not. The article also discusses the possible consequences for patients, including confusion about evidence, false confidence in unproven treatments, and reduced adherence to effective care. Drawing on more than a decade of experience evaluating complementary medical claims through foundation IOCOB (a foundation to study complementary medicine) , it argues for a simpler and more honest approach. Proven interventions should be called medicine. Unproven interventions should be called unproven. Disproven interventions should be called disproven. There are not two equal medicines waiting to be synthesised. There is only medicine that has earned its place, and medicine that has not. (shrink)

In the past decade, policy-makers in science have been concerned with harmonizing research integrity standards across Europe. These standards are encapsulated in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Yet, almost every European country today has its own national-level code of conduct for research integrity. In this study we document in detail how national-level codes diverge on almost all aspects concerning research integrity – except for what constitutes egregious misconduct. Besides allowing for potentially unfair responses (...) to joint misconduct by international collaborations, we argue that the divergences raise questions about the envisaged self-regulatory function of the codes of conduct. (shrink)

I defend an empirically-oriented approach to the analysis and remediation of social injustice. My springboard for this argument is a debate—principally represented here between Tommie Shelby and Elizabeth Anderson, but with much deeper historical roots and many flowering branches—about whether racial-justice advocacy should prioritize integration (bringing different groups together) or community development (building wealth and political power within the black community). Although I incline toward something closer to Shelby’s “egalitarian pluralist” approach over Anderson’s single-minded emphasis on integration, many of Shelby’s (...) criticisms of integrationism are misguided, and his handling of the empirical literature is profoundly unbalanced. In fact, while both Shelby and Anderson defend the importance of social science to their projects, I’ll argue that each takes a decidedly unempirical approach, which ultimately obscures the full extent of our ignorance about what we can and ought to do going forward. A more authentically empirical tack would be more epistemically humble, more holistic, and less organized around what I’ll call prematurely formulated “Grand Unified Theories of Social Change.” I defend a more “diversified experimentalist” approach, which rigorously tests an array of smaller-scale interventions before trying to replicate and scale up the most promising results. (shrink)

Justifying an equal right to life for all human beings while avoiding speciesism remains one of the most persistent and unresolved problems in moral philosophy. Dominant approaches grounding moral status in consciousness, interests in continued existence, or relational value either reintroduce species membership covertly or generate hierarchies among humans themselves. This paper argues that any adequate solution must shift attention away from present mental capacities toward the conditions that make the realization of rational existence possible. It proposes a novel four-condition (...) criterion for determining which beings must not be killed: a being must not be killed if and only if (i) it is currently a rational being, or (ii) it possesses genetic information capable of giving rise to a rational being, where (iii) that information is substantively attributable to the continuous life of this particular living organism, and (iv) the termination of that life would constitute an irreplaceable loss. By grounding moral status in the dynamic integrity and biological individuality of organism-level informational processes, the proposed criterion avoids speciesism while extending equal protection to all living human beings, regardless of current cognitive capacity. The paper thus shows both why the problem is exceptionally difficult and why abandoning it would undermine the coherence of our moral commitments. (shrink)

In this issue, Elizabeth Shaw and Gulzaar Barn offer a number of replies to my arguments in ‘Criminal Rehabilitation Through Medical Intervention: Moral Liability and the Right to Bodily Integrity’, Journal of Ethics. In this article I respond to some of their criticisms.

The Integrated Information Theory is a leading scientific theory of consciousness, which implies a kind of panpsychism. In this paper, I consider whether IIT is compatible with a particular kind of panpsychism, known as Russellian panpsychism, which purports to avoid the main problems of both physicalism and dualism. I will first show that if IIT were compatible with Russellian panpsychism, it would contribute to solving Russellian panpsychism’s combination problem, which threatens to show that the view does not avoid the main (...) problems of physicalism and dualism after all. I then show that the theories are not compatible as they currently stand, in view of what I call the coarse-graining problem. After I explain the coarse-graining problem, I will offer two possible solutions, each involving a small modification of IIT. Given either of these modifications, IIT and Russellian panpsychism may be fully compatible after all, and jointly enable significant progress on the mind–body problem. (shrink)

Conscientious objection in health care is a form of compromise whereby health care practitioners can refuse to take part in safe, legal, and beneficial medical procedures to which they have a moral opposition (for instance abortion). Arguments in defense of conscientious objection in medicine are usually based on the value of respect for the moral integrity of practitioners. I will show that philosophical arguments in defense of conscientious objection based on respect for such moral integrity are extremely weak (...) and, if taken seriously, lead to consequences that we would not (and should not) accept. I then propose that the best philosophical argument that defenders of conscientious objection in medicine can consistently deploy is one that appeals to (some form of) either moral relativism or subjectivism. I suggest that, unless either moral relativism or subjectivism is a valid theory—which is exactly what many defenders of conscientious objection (as well as many others) do not think—the role of moral integrity and conscientious objection in health care should be significantly downplayed and left out of the range of ethically relevant considerations. (shrink)

Aphantasia, the strong diminution or complete absence of mental imagery, challenges long-standing views of imagery as central to cognition. Competing accounts variously explain the phenomenon as a failure of sensory reactivation or as unconscious mental imagery. Here, we propose a new framework, the integration model of aphantasia, which argues that reactivated sensory information must undergo multi-stage integration to yield imagery experience. Against unconscious imagery accounts, we argue that the neural activations observed in aphantasics are not imagery but sensory precursors: rudimentary (...) sensory codes that lack perceptual status. Only when sensory precursors are locally integrated do they become perceptual representations, and only when these are further integrated with interoceptive signals do they give rise to conscious imagery experience. We present the integration model as a dual-stream framework that unifies recent attention- and interoception-based accounts, situate it within existing theories of mental imagery and aphantasia, and highlight its clinical relevance. In doing so, we reframe the debate on unconscious imagery and draw attention to the role of multi-stage integration as a key mechanism underlying mental imagery and its absence across different subtypes of aphantasia. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the English philosopher Mary Astell’s marginalia in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s personal copy of the 1704 edition of Pierre Bayle’s Pensées diverses sur le comète (first published in 1682). I argue that Astell’s annotations provide good reasons for thinking that Bayle is biased toward atheism in this work. Recent scholars maintain that Bayle can be interpreted as an Academic Sceptic: as someone who honestly and impartially follows a dialectical method of argument in order to obtain the (...) goal of intellectual integrity. In her commentary, however, Astell suggests that: (i) if Bayle were honest and impartial in his inquiries, then he would not have pretended to attack popular superstition, only to undermine generally-held religious beliefs; and (ii) if Bayle valued intellectual integrity, then his argument for a society of virtuous atheists would not have relied upon a deceptive equivocation in terms. I conclude that the rediscovery of this marginalia is valuable for enhancing our appreciation of Astell as an astute reader of one of her most enigmatic contemporaries. (shrink)

This paper extends the framework of dynamic informational integrity, developed in the companion paper “Beings That Must Not Be Killed,” to the moral problem of confinement. In doing so, it articulates a normative foundation that the companion paper left implicit: that dynamic informational processes possess moral significance in virtue of the normative properties—sentience, social cognition, cultural transmission—that such processes realize, and that the connection to rationality functions as a strengthening condition that elevates protection to its highest level rather than (...) as a gating condition without which no protection applies. Where death constitutes the total, permanent cessation of an organism’s dynamic informational process, confinement constitutes the systematic, long-term truncation of that process. The paper argues that a prima facie prohibition on confinement applies to any being whose dynamic informational process satisfies two core conditions: (i) the process is essentially dependent on a range of environmental and social inputs that confinement systematically forecloses; and (ii) the resulting truncation of its informational trajectory is substantially irreversible. Where these two objective conditions are met, confinement is presumptively wrong. A third factor—experienced deprivation—functions not as a necessary condition for the prohibition but as an aggravating factor that increases the moral severity of the wrong. Drawing on primary ethological, neuroscientific, and epigenetic evidence—including GPS telemetry data for elephants (Wittemyer et al., 2005), satellite tagging studies for orcas (Baird, 2000), and population-level psychological assessments (Rizzolo & Bradshaw, 2016)—the paper establishes that confinement inflicts qualitatively distinct and objectively measurable harm on species whose informational processes are deeply embedded in complex environmental and social ecologies. It provides an operationalization framework for translating each condition into measurable indicators suitable for policy assessment. Finally, it addresses the justification of human incarceration through a proportionality principle: confinement is morally permissible only when it satisfies four conditions—necessity, absence of less restrictive alternatives, minimal informational invasion, and affirmative mitigation duties. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive investigation into the role of prompt engineering in optimizing the effectiveness of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4 and Google Gemini for financial market integrity and risk management. As AI tools are increasingly integrated into financial services, including credit risk analysis, market risk evaluation, and financial modeling, prompt engineering has become crucial for improving the relevance, accuracy, and contextual alignment of AI-generated outputs. This study evaluates the impact of various prompt configurations in enhancing financial (...) decision-making. Through a series of experiments, the paper compares the performance of ChatGPT-4 and Google Gemini (versions 1.5 and 2.0) in generating actionable insights for credit and market risk analysis. The results reveal that ChatGPT-4 outperforms Google Gemini by over 30% in generating accurate financial insights. Additionally, ChatGPT-4 Version 4 is found to be 20% more effective than Version 3 in risk analysis tasks, particularly in aligning with regulatory frameworks and financial data. These improvements highlight the significant role of prompt engineering in enhancing the precision of financial models. Furthermore, the study explores the reduction of error rates through optimized prompt strategies. In particular, prompt engineering reduces error rates by approximately 20% when assessing complex financial queries. (shrink)

Phenotypic integration refers to the study of complex patterns of covariation among functionally related traits in a given organism. It has been investigated throughout the 20th century, but has only recently risen to the forefront of evolutionary ecological research. In this essay, I identify the reasons for this late flourishing of studies on integration, and discuss some of the major areas of current endeavour: the interplay of adaptation and constraints, the genetic and molecular bases of integration, the role of phenotypic (...) plasticity, macroevolutionary studies of integration, and statistical and conceptual issues in the study of the evolution of complex phenotypes. I then conclude with a brief discussion of what I see as the major future directions of research on phenotypic integration and how they relate to our more general quest for the understanding of phenotypic evolution within the neo-Darwinian framework. I suggest that studying integration provides a particularly stimulating and truly interdisciplinary convergence of researchers from fields as disparate as molecular genetics, developmental biology, evolutionary ecology, palaeontology and even philosophy of science. (shrink)

The proposed Enhanced Games have become a convenient stage for bioethical sermonising about risk, authenticity, and the ‘spirit of sport’. This is epitomized by a recent article arguing that institutionalizing pharmacological enhancement under the “pretence of medical supervision and personal autonomy” would redefine human excellence in “purely biochemical terms”, erode ethical norms, normalize doping, and burden public health systems. The present paper offers a two-level response. First, I criticise the argument on its merits. Its central claims rely on rhetorical inflation, (...) false dichotomies, and circular appeals to unspecified ethical norms. The risk argument is selectively paternalistic, treating pharmacological risk as uniquely disqualifying while ignoring the substantial and well-documented risks that elite and even mass participation sport already normalizes. The treatment of autonomy is reduced to assertions rather than argument; the depiction of medical supervision as mere ‘pretence’ is offered without evidence, despite public-facing claims by Enhanced Games proponents that they seek clinically supervised enhancement. Second, and more seriously, I turn my attention to an audit of the target article’s scholarship. Multiple citations in Demas’s article appear to be bibliographic fictions presented as high-profile clinical evidence on performance-enhancing drugs. Even when genuine sources are cited, they are invoked for conclusions that those sources do not sustain. This is a serious breakdown of the minimal contract between author, reviewer, and reader, one that demands that cited evidence exists and supports the claims made. (shrink)

In finance, unethical behavior is a regular occurrence. Across History, and most notably the 2008 financial crisis, the age of risk-taking and profit maximization has been at the forefront of financial firms' and institutions' minds beyond the prioritization of integrity. Through the literature review, I researched this conversation to reveal the leading unethical practices that have arisen in the investment advisory industry. The main ethical problems include, but are not limited to, compensation, corporate culture, and risk-taking. In the scholarly (...) conversation, articles bypass coming to a standard narrative that helps present a solution to these problems. Establishing my research question, “How can Investment Advisers in the United States most effectively promote ethical behavior beyond having good intentions alone?” Semi-structured interviews with six investment advisers were used to accomplish this best. Then a thematic analysis was used, with the most common themes being acting voluntarily, establishing a moral framework, and fostering knowledge through mentorship and experience. After the conversation of these themes, I present a standard narrative. From establishing the themes such as ethical obligation and knowledge, virtue ethics, an ancient philosophy coined by Aristotle in his book “The Nicomachean Ethics,” which encompasses moral and intellectual virtues, will most effectively bridge the absence of ethics in the industry. It is an advanced moral perspective that young advisers usually do not have; therefore, researchers must study the role of virtue ethics in the industry and its implications. (shrink)

This paper examines the integration and unification of the philosophy and psychology of well-being. For the most part, these disciplines investigate well-being without reference to each other. In recent years, however, with the maturing of each discipline, there have been a growing number of calls to integrate the two. While such calls are welcome, what it means to integrate well-being philosophy and psychology can vary greatly depending on one’s theoretical and practical ends. The aim of this paper is to provide (...) a novel conceptual framework for thinking about integrating well-being philosophy and psychology that systematically categorizes different kinds of integration projects. We divide existing attempts in the literature into three broad categories according to the perspective from which the integration takes place: (1) top-down meta-theoretical unification; (2) psychological integration within philosophy; and (3) philosophical integration within psychology. These categories are then broken down into various further subcategories. Our aim in providing this framework is both to facilitate the assessment and comparison of existing integration attempts and to provide a roadmap for future integration attempts. For each category, we discuss one or two representative examples of the approaches. By doing so, we hope to generate interest in the wide variety of existing integration projects, as well as to generate discussion concerning the benefits and pitfalls of different approaches. (shrink)

Corruption and a lack of integrity pose significant challenges to the credibility and effectiveness of educational institutions. These issues undermine academic standards, erode public trust, and can have long-term negative effects on societal development. In response to these pervasive problems, this study investigated the effectiveness of values-based education and ethics-focused curricula as tools for tackling corruption and fostering integrity in tertiary institutions in Anambra State. The study used a quantitative survey to examine the impact of values-based education on (...) ethics and corruption within tertiary institutions in Anambra State. A sample of 140 students was selected through stratified random sampling. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire with a 4-point Likert scale. The survey measured perceptions on the role of values-based education, the manifestation of corruption, and the influence of ethics curricula and policies. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS, employing the Chi-Square Test of Independence, directional measures like Lambda, and symmetric measures like Cramer's V to determine associations between variables. Findings revealed a significant, positive relationship between values-based education and promoting ethical behavior among students. However, the study failed to find a statistically significant association between corruption's direct impact on teaching or the influence of broad ethical policies. The results suggest that while direct educational interventions are effective, the implementation and enforcement of institutional policies may require further investigation. The study recommends that future research use mixed-methods to gain a more comprehensive understanding of these dynamics. (shrink)

Integrity not only is a central concept within virtue ethics and a subject of considerable debate among philosophers regarding its nature and relation to other virtues, but also is important for our understanding of what it means to possess a constituted and coherent self. Much of the literature on integrity is focused on relationships among moral principles and virtues, while less attention is paid to any relationship that integrity might have to practical agency or personal identity. In (...) maintaining this focus, philosophers fail to appreciate the special relation integrity has to the constitution of a coherent self. Central to integrity are considerations about self-identity and agency because it is through ongoing and deliberate activities that reflect the type of person with which she wishes to identify that a person constitutes self-identity and agency in a coherent manner. Once the relationship between integrity and a coherent self is properly understood, it becomes clear that the moral content of integrity is relatively thin and that the approbation usually associated with a person of integrity stems not from judgments about convictions or principles, but from the relationship between actions and commitments. (shrink)

Cognitive integration is a defining yet overlooked feature of our intellect that may nevertheless have substantial effects on the process of knowledge-acquisition. To bring those effects to the fore, I explore the topic of cognitive integration both from the perspective of virtue reliabilism within externalist epistemology and the perspective of extended cognition within externalist philosophy of mind and cognitive science. On the basis of this interdisciplinary focus, I argue that cognitive integration can provide a minimalist yet adequate epistemic norm of (...) subjective justification: so long as the agent’s belief-forming process has been integrated in his cognitive character, the agent can be justified in holding the resulting beliefs merely by lacking any doubts there was something wrong in the way he arrived at them. Moreover, since both externalist philosophy of mind and externalist epistemology treat the process of cognitive integration in the same way, we can claim that epistemic cognitive characters may extend beyond our organismic cognitive capacities to the artifacts we employ or even to other agents we interact with. This move is not only necessary for accounting for advanced cases of knowledge that is the product of the operation of epistemic artifacts or the interactive activity of research teams, but it can further lead to interesting ramifications both for social epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)