Socrates is one of the most important yet enigmatic philosophers of all time; his fame has endured for centuries despite the fact that he never actually wrote anything. In 399 B.C.E., he was tried on the charge of impiety by the citizens of Athens, convicted by a jury, and sentenced to death (ordered to drink poison derived from hemlock). About these facts there is no disagreement. However, as the sources collected in this book and the scholarly essays that follow them (...) show, several of even the most basic facts about these events were controversial in antiquity, and the questions persist today: How and why was Socrates brought to trial? Why did the jurors, members of the world's first democracy, find him guilty? When he was given an opportunity to escape execution, why did he refuse to do so and instead accept the punishment that he and his friends agreed was unjustly assigned to him? How exactly did Socrates die? Differences of opinion on these and other issues continue to arouse our curiosity and to challenge new generations of students and scholars. The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies is the first work to collect in one place all of the major ancient sources on Socrates' death--those of both his critics and his defenders--as well as recent scholarly views. Part I includes new translations of Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and the death scene from Phaedo, as well as other ancient sources that shed light on Socrates' trial and execution. Part II features some of the most influential recent scholarship on this historically momentous event with work by M. F. Burnyeat, Robert Parker, Mark L. McPherran, Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Richard Kraut, Christopher Gill, and Enid Bloch (whose essay is published here for the first time). Ideal for undergraduate surveys of ancient Greek philosophy and upper-level courses on Socrates and Socratic philosophy, this unique collection provides an unprecedented look into the many perplexing questions surrounding the trial and execution of this remarkable man. (shrink)

In many individual and collective contexts, alignment around a particular criterion is clearly established, yet this alignment does not consistently translate into stable and sustained execution. Individuals often recognize and endorse actions that are beneficial in the long term but repeatedly delay or fail to initiate them. Similarly, groups may reach consensus on a shared direction, yet exhibit fragmentation, regression, or discontinuity during implementation. These patterns are not isolated anomalies but recurring structural phenomena observed across contexts. Existing explanations tend (...) to reduce this disjunction to problems of motivation, willpower, or situational constraints.[1] However, the persistence of execution failure under conditions where alignment is already present suggests that such explanations remain insufficient. While prior frameworks have focused either on the formation of alignment (e.g., IOA: Integrated Output Architecture) or on the structure of execution (e.g., RAO: Reference-Anchored Operator), they do not adequately account for the conditions under which alignment is translated into sustained action. This paper proposes the concept of the Integrity Layer as an additional analytical level that addresses this gap. The Integrity Layer explains the transmission conditions through which aligned criteria are converted into execution and maintained over time. It identifies three structural constraints governing this process: transition cost, normative friction, and delayed reward visibility. The interaction of these constraints produces distinct patterns of execution outcomes, including stable execution, delay, distortion, and collapse. By introducing the Integrity Layer, this study reframes discontinuity in execution not as a problem of individual motivation or capacity, but as a function of structural conditions governing the transmission between alignment and action. This perspective extends existing frameworks and provides a more comprehensive account of execution continuity at both individual and collective levels. (shrink)

This chapter offers a proceduralist argument against capital punishment. More specifically, it contends that the possibility of irrevocable mistakes precludes the just administration of the death penalty. At stake is a principle of political morality: legal institutions must strive to remedy their mistakes and to compensate those who suffer from wrongful sanctions. The incompatibility of remedy and execution is the crux of the irrevocability argument: because the wrongly executed cannot enjoy the morally required compensation, execution is impermissible. Along (...) with defending his key premises, Yost explains the complicated role that sentencing uncertainty plays in the argument. He concludes by noting some of the flaws in substantive consequentialist and retributivist justifications of capital punishment. (shrink)

Large language model (LLM) agents are increasingly deployed in sequential decision-making pipelines where each action irrevocably modifies the environment. Existing agentic architectures commit to action sequences generated by the LLM without systematically evaluating the downstream consequences of those sequences prior to execution - a fundamental gap that amplifies risk and limits accountability. We introduce Consequence-Aware Agentic AI (CA2I), a formal framework that augments the standard generate-then-execute paradigm with a dedicated Consequence Assessment Module (CAM). CAM evaluates every candidate action sequence (...) against a historical consequence model and selects the sequence whose predicted outcome optimally balances return and risk before any irreversible action is taken. We formalise the framework as a constrained sequential decision problem and prove that, under mild stationarity assumptions, Sharpe-ratio-based selection dominates random selection in expectation. To validate the framework empirically, we instantiate CA2I in the domain of LLM-driven financial trading strategy selection, using GPT-5.4 to generate five candidate strategies per asset and a backtesting engine as the consequence model. Experiments on ten diversified US equities over a strictly held-out three-month out-of-sample window (August--October~2025) demonstrate that CA2I achieves a mean test-period Sharpe ratio of 0.51 - a 4.25 times improvement over random strategy selection (Sharpe = 0.12, p = 0.041) - while reducing mean maximum drawdown relative to buy-and-hold by 18%. Sensitivity analysis confirms selection stability: Sharpe-ratio and Calmar-ratio selection agree on 100% of strategy choices across all ten assets. We further demonstrate that CA2I provides a concrete, computationally tractable pathway toward Responsible AI in agentic systems: by making consequence evaluation an explicit, auditable, and mathematically grounded architectural step, the framework operationalises transparency, accountability, and harm avoidance as mandated by the EU AI Act, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and IEEE Ethically Aligned Design standards. (shrink)

This paper proposes a minimal, substrate-neutral ontology grounded in three irreducible modal operations: execution, interaction, and memory. These operations—corresponding to existence, possibility, and non-existence respectively—together form a triadic algebra capable of generating all known ontological, epistemological, and phenomenological structures. I argue that most classical and modern metaphysical puzzles arise from conflating these modal categories. When kept distinct, the triad explains the emergence of time, causation, identity, consciousness, information flow, and physical law. The model incorporates insights from pre-Socratic philosophy, Aristotelian (...) energeia, Kantian synthesis, phenomenological intentionality, and contemporary process metaphysics, while remaining simpler and more general than any of them. This ontology further provides interpretive clarity to quantum mechanics, relational physics, cognitive science, and formal epistemology. Notably, the tradeoff between precision and accuracy that the Minimal Ontology predicts for finite systems mirrors, and helps to interpret, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations in quantum mechanics. I conclude that the E/I/M triad constitutes both a minimal ontology and a minimal epistemology: the world knows itself through the same processes by which it exists. (shrink)

Nitrogen hypoxia has recently emerged as a method of execution in the USA, with Alabama conducting the first executions using this technique in 2024. This article examines the historical evolution, medicalisation and ethical dilemmas surrounding execution practices, with particular attention to the rise of nitrogen hypoxia. Drawing on a targeted review of medical, legal and ethical literature, we explore the development of lethal injection protocols, the legal and procedural drivers of nitrogen gas adoption and the complex role of (...) healthcare professionals in executions. Central concerns include the experimental nature of nitrogen hypoxia, the lack of transparency in execution protocols and the ethical implications of involving clinicians in state-sanctioned killing. We argue that the conflation of medical tools with punitive practices obscures fundamental distinctions between clinical care and capital punishment, raising urgent questions about professional integrity and public trust. Ultimately, we call for greater clarity, ethical consistency and transparency in addressing the interplay of medicine, law and the death penalty. By confronting these issues, we underscore the critical role of the medical community in advocating for humane practices and fostering informed public and legislative discourse on the intersection of medicine, ethics and capital punishment. We aim to contribute to the ongoing debate on the ethical and procedural challenges of state-sanctioned executions and the responsibilities of healthcare professionals. (shrink)

In this paper I will explore the question whether the Trivialization construction of transparent intensional logic (TIL) can be understood in terms of the Execution construction, specifically, in terms of its degenerate case known as the 0-Execution. My answer will be positive and the apparent contrast between the intuitive understanding of Trivialization and 0-Execution will be explained as a matter of distinct yet related informal perspectives, not as a matter of technical or conceptual differences.

Muslim historical works give contradictory accounts of the execution of Ḥujr. Using a source-critical approach, this paper will show that the narrators of Ḥujr’s execution shaped this story to support their religio-socio-political point of view. Uncovering these different versions will shed light on Islamic historiography. Being aware of the different versions of Ḥujr’s execution allows the reader to distinguish between what really happened from why these narrators feel it happened. This exercise can be useful for other historical (...) incidents or personalities which are extant in our sources. (shrink)

Retraction note: Rangel Pico, A. N., Ramírez Oliveros, E. P. & Zambrano Valdivieso, Ó. J. (2023). Design and execution of a sensor to measure air quality in work environments. HUMAN REVIEW. International Humanities Revista Internacional De Humanidades, 19(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.37467/revhuman.v11.4998 The Editorial Office of Eurasia Academic Publishing Group has retracted this article. An investigation carried out by our Research Integrity Department has found a group of articles, among which this one is found, that are not within the thematic scope (...) of the journal. We believe that the editorial process was manipulated and, furthermore, acceptance decisions were made under possibly inappropriate peer review. (shrink)

Neurofeedback is a complex learning scenario, as the task consists of trying out mental strategies while processing a feedback signal that signifies activation in the brain area to be self-regulated and acts as a potential reward signal. In an attempt to dissect these subcomponents, we obtained whole-brain networks associated with efficient self-regulation in two paradigms: parallel, where the task was performed concurrently, combining feedback with strategy execution; and serial, where the task was performed consecutively, separating feedback processing from strategy (...) execution. Twenty participants attempted to control their anterior midcingulate cortex using functional magnetic resonance imaging NF in 18 sessions over 2 weeks, using cognitive and emotional mental strategies. We analyzed whole-brain fMRI activations in the NF training runs with the largest aMCC activation for the serial and parallel paradigms. The equal length of the strategy execution and the feedback processing periods in the serial paradigm allows a description of the two task subcomponents with equal power. The resulting activation maps were spatially correlated with functionally annotated intrinsic connectivity brain maps. Brain activation in the parallel condition correlates with the basal ganglia network, the cingulo-opercular network, and the frontoparietal control network ; brain activation in the serial strategy execution condition with the default mode network, the FPCN, and the visual processing network; while brain activation in the serial feedback processing condition predominantly with the CON, the DMN, and the FPCN. Additional comparisons indicate that BG activation is characteristic to the parallel paradigm, while supramarginal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus activations are characteristic to the serial paradigm. The multifaceted view of the subcomponents allows describing the cognitive processes associated with strategy execution and feedback processing independently in the serial feedback task and as combined processes in the multitasking scenario of the conventional parallel feedback task. (shrink)

The ancient tradition is strong that the execution of M. Marius Gratidianus during the Sullan proscriptions was carried out by L. Sergius Catilina. The earliest evidence comes from several passages in Cicero's speech in toga candida, delivered just before the consular elections in 64 and designed to rake up as much prejudice as possible against his two main rival candidates, Catilina and C. Antonius . While in none of the passages does Cicero specifically mention the executioner or the victim, (...) it is Asconius commenting on the passages who reveals that Catilina was the executioner and Marius Gratidianus the victim. We do not have a great deal of the speech in toga candida left ; if we did have the whole speech, it is clear that we would have been given the name by Cicero himself. The Ciceronian version is that the head of Gratidianus was cut off by Catilina, carried in his hands through the city from the Janiculum to the temple of Apollo, and delivered to Sulla still full of life and breath. This version is followed by Plutarch . A variation can be found, as early as Sallust . There is a fragment of the historiae which says that Gratidianus died after his arms and legs had been broken and his eyes gouged out, so that he expired as it were through each and every limb. There is nothing about his head being cut off and carried about, nor is there any mention of Catilina as the executioner. While the details of the torture and mutilation become progressively more gory, this version is followed by Livy , Valerius Maximus , Lucan , and Florus. (shrink)

Hemodynamic response to motor execution (ME) and motor imagery (MI) was investigated using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We used a 31 channel fNIRS system which allows non-invasive monitoring of cerebral oxygenation changes induced by cortical activation. Sixteen healthy subjects (mean-age 24.5 yeas) were recruited and the changes in concentration of hemoglobin were examined during right and left hand finger tapping tasks and kinesthetic MI. To suppress the systemic physiological interference, we developed a preprocessing procedure which prevents over-activated reporting in (...) NIRS-SPM. In the condition of ME, more activation was observed in the anterior part of the motor cortex including the pre-motor and supplementary motor area (pre-motor and SMA), primary motor cortex (M1) and somatosensory motor cortex (SMC; t (15) > 2.27), however, in the condition of MI, more activation was found in the posterior part of motor cortex including SMC ( t (15) > 1.81), which is in line with previous observations with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). (shrink)

Routine action sequences critically rely on neural mechanisms maintaining contextual and temporal information to disambiguate similar tasks (e.g. making coffee or tea). In this study we show the involvement of areas in temporal and lateral prefrontal cortices in maintaining temporal and contextual information for the execution of hierarchically‐organized action sequences.

A curious and comparatively neglected element of death penalty jurisprudence in America is my target in this paper. That element concerns the circumstances under which severely mentally disabled persons, incarcerated on death row, may have their sentences carried out. Those circumstances are expressed in a part of the law which turns out to be indefensible. This legal doctrine—competence-for-execution —holds that a condemned, death-row inmate may not be killed if, at the time of his scheduled execution, he lacks an (...) awareness of his impending death or the reasons for it. I argue that the law of CFE should be abandoned, along with the notion that it is permissible to kill the deeply disturbed just so long as they meet some narrow test of readiness to die. By adopting CFE, the courts have been forced to give independent conceptual and moral significance to a standard for competence that simply cannot bear the weight placed upon it. To be executable, CFE requires that a condemned prisoner meet a standard demonstrating an awareness of certain facts about his death. Yet this standard both leads to confusing and counter-intuitive results and is unsupported either by the reasons advanced by the courts on its behalf or by any of the standard theoretical justifications of criminal punishment. If executing the profoundly psychotic or delusional is wrong the law needs a better account of the wrong done when prisoners like Ford are killed. I suggest wherein that wrong might be located. (shrink)

Psychopathy, executive functions, and neuropsychological data: a response to Sifferd and Hirstein.

Performing an action and observing it activate the same internal representations of action. The representations are therefore shared between self and other. But what exactly is shared? At what level within the hierarchical structure of the motor system do SRA occur? Understanding the content of SRA is important in order to decide what theoretical work SRA can perform. In this paper, we provide some conceptual clarification by raising three main questions: are SRA semantic or pragmatic representations of action?; are SRA (...) sensory or motor representations?; are SRA representations of the action as a global unit or as a set of elementary motor components? After outlining a model of the motor hierarchy, we conclude that the best candidate for SRA is intentions in action, defined as the motor plans of the dynamic sequence of movements. We shed new light on SRA by highlighting the causal efficacy of intentions in action. This in turn explains phenomena such as inhibition of imitation. (shrink)

In the 1770s’ lectures on ethics, Kant distinguishes between two principles of obligation: the principle of adjudication and the principle of execution. The former is the normative standard of moral evaluation, while the latter denotes the incentive for performing an obligatory action. This distinction is significant in that it anticipates Kant’s mature position of combining these two principles, i.e. the moral law later becomes the supreme principle of moral judgment and (via respect) is itself the incentive to moral action. (...) I explicate Kant’s distinction in view of the moral thought of Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and Christian Wolff. I challenge the dominant views which interpret Kant’s distinction in connection with Hutcheson and Smith, and argue that it is best understood in relation to Wolff’s conception of obligation. While Hutcheson’s distinction between exciting and justifying reasons is broadly similar to Kant’s distinction, Hutcheson’s account does not center on the concept of obligation. Furthermore, I argue that Smith’s distinction between the character of virtue and the faculty of the mind by which it is recommended to us does not concern the normative and motivational moments of moral agency, but rather the meta-ethical question of the nature of virtue and the faculty that conditions its appraisal. Finally, I show that Wolff’s conception of obligation involves normative and motivational aspects conceptually similar to Kant’s distinction between the two principles of obligation. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 344-362, April 2022.

Dynamic symbolic execution is an effective technique for fuzzing programs with application to software verification as well if the search terminates during symbolic execution. However, the state space explosion problem often prevents the symbolic search from exploring the entire state space. As static analysis operates on the whole program rather than single execution paths, it can cut out parts of the program that are irrelevant for verifying a property. In this paper, we explore how slicing can be (...) used before dynamic symbolic execution for analyzing assertion reachability in Java programs. We report on our first experience using state-of-the-art open-source Java slicers on the SV-COMP Java benchmark before applying GDart, a dynamic symbolic execution engine for Java. Currently, this experiment has not been successful, as the slicers are not mature enough to reliably produce correct slices of a task in the SV-COMP benchmark. However, in a few examples, the approach delivered promising results that motivate the future development of slicers for Java. (shrink)

Shows that executive integrity is not merely a moral trait but a dynamic process of making empathetic, responsible, and sound decisions. Describes key features of executive integrity including effective social interaction, open dialogue, and responsive leadershipand explains how integrity can be developed and practiced in today's organizations.

abstract During the current round of fighting in the Middle East, Israel has provoked considerable controversy as it turned to targeted killings or assassination to battle militants. While assassination has met with disfavour among traditional observers, commentators have, more recently, sought to justify targeted killings with an appeal to both self‐defence and law enforcement. While each paradigm allows the use of lethal force, they are fundamentally incompatible, the former stipulating moral innocence and the latter demanding the presumption of criminal guilt. (...) Putting aside the paradigm of law enforcement which demands due process and forbids extra‐judicial execution, the only possible avenue for justifying named killings lies in self‐defence. While named killings might be defensible on the grounds that there are no other ways to disable combatants when they fight without uniforms, the costs, including the cost of targeted killing emerging as an acceptable convention in its own right, should be sufficient to view the practice with a good deal of caution. (shrink)

Although the model proposed by Thelen and co-authors provides a detailed explanation for the processes underlying reaching, many aspects of it are highly speculative. One of the reasons for this is our lack of knowledge about transformation of a hand movement plan into joint movements. The leading joint hypothesis (LJH) allows us to partially fill in this gap. The LJH offers a possible explanation for the formation of movement and how it may be represented in memory. Our explanation converges with (...) the dynamic model described in the target article. (shrink)

This article constitutes excerpts of a videotaped discussion hosted by the New England Journal of Medicine on January 14, 2008, concerning a range of topics on lethal injection prompted by the United States Supreme Court's January 7 oral arguments in Baze v. Rees. Dr. Atul Gawande moderated the roundtable that included two anesthesiologists - Dr. Robert Truog and Dr. David Waisel - as well as law professor Deborah Denno. The discussion focused on the drugs used in lethal injection executions, whether (...) physicians should participate, potential alternatives, and some of the legal parameters of Baze. (shrink)