Non-human animal chimeras, containing human neurological cells, have been created in the laboratory. Despite a great deal of debate, the status of such beings has not been resolved. Under normal definitions, such a being could either be unconventionally human or abnormally animal. Practical investigations in animal sentience, artificial intelligence, and now chimera research, suggest that such beings may be assumed to have no legal rights, so philosophy could provide a different answer. In this vein, therefore, we can ask: What would a chimera, if it could think, think about? Thinking is used to capture the phenomena of a novel, chimeric being perceiving its terrible predicament as no more than a laboratory experiment. The creation of a thinking chimera therefore forces us to reconsider our assumptions about what makes human beings (potentially) unique (and other sentient animals different), because, as such, a chimera’s existence bridges our social and legal expectations about definitions of human and animal. Society has often evolved new social norms based on different kinds of (ir)rational contrivances; the imperative of non-contradiction, which is defended here, therefore requires a specific philosophical response to the rights of a thinking chimeric being.

Two studies examined the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection (CRT) and the tendency to accord genuinely moral (non-conventional) status to a range of counter-normative acts — that is, to treat such acts as wrong regardless of existing social opinion or norms. We contrasted social violations that are intrinsically harmful to others (e.g., fraud, thievery) with those that are not (e.g., wearing pajamas to work and engaging in consensual acts of sexual intimacy with an adult sibling). Our key hypothesis was that more reflective (higher CRT) individuals would tend to moralize selectively — treating only intrinsically harmful acts as genuinely morally wrong — whereas less reflective (lower CRT) individuals would moralize more indiscriminately. We found clear support for this hypothesis in a large and ideologically diverse sample of American adults. The predicted associations were not fully accounted for by the subjects’ political orientation, sensitivity to gut feelings, gender, age, educational attainment, or their placement on a sexual morals-specific measure of social conservatism. Our studies are the first to demonstrate that, in addition to modulating the intensity of moral condemnation, reflection may also play a key role in setting the boundaries of the moral domain as such.

The paper critically reexamines the well-known “Julie and Mark” vignette, a stylized account of two college-age siblings opting to engage in protected sex while vacationing abroad (e.g., Haidt, 2001). Since its inception, the story has been viewed as a rhetorically powerful validation of Hume’s “sentimentalist” dictum that moral judgments are not rationally deduced but arise directly from feelings of pleasure or displeasure (e.g., disgust). People’s typical reactions to the vignette are alleged to support this view by demonstrating that individuals are prone to become morally dumbfounded (Haidt, 2001; Haidt, Bjorklund, & Murphy, 2000), i.e., they tend to “stubbornly” maintain their disapproval of the act without supporting reasons. In what follows, we critically reassess the traditional account, predicated on the notion that, among other things, most subjects simply fail to be convinced that the siblings’ actions are truly harm-free, thus having excellent reasons to disapprove of these acts. In line with this critique, 3 studies found that subjects 1) tended not to believe that the siblings’ actions were in fact harmless; 2) notwithstanding that, and in spite of holding a number of “counterargument-immune” reasons, subjects could be effectively maneuvered into exhibiting all the trademark signs of a morally dumbfounded state (which they subsequently recanted), and 3) with subjects’ beliefs about harm and standards of normative evaluation properly factored in, a more rigorous assessment procedure yielded a dumbfounding estimate of about 0. Based on these and related results, we contend that subjects’ reactions are wholly in line with the rationalist model of moral judgment and that their use in support of claims of moral arationalism should be reevaluated.

We investigate C-sets in almost zero-dimensional spaces, showing that closed $\sigma $ C-sets are C-sets. As corollaries, we prove that every rim- $\sigma $ -compact almost zero-dimensional space is zero-dimensional and that each cohesive almost zero-dimensional space is nowhere rational. To show that these results are sharp, we construct a rim-discrete connected set with an explosion point. We also show that every cohesive almost zero-dimensional subspace of $($ Cantor set $)\!\times \mathbb R$ is nowhere dense.

Animalism, according to its strongest proponents, is the view that human beings are ‘essentially or most fundamentally animals’. Specifically, ‘we are essentially animals if we couldn't possibly exist without being animals’ (Olson 2008). Although contemporary animalism offers an account superior to its Lockean competitors, Olson's ‘biological approach’ has certain limitations, particularly in its denial of any psychological continuity whatsoever as either necessary or sufficient for individual persistence through time. I propose a number of amendments towards a Thomistic variety of animalism that avoids these difficulties. Although prone to misinterpretation, animalism understood properly is compatible with Aquinas's theory of subsistent intellect. Against recent challenges, I defend the view that Thomistic animalism not only is intelligible, but is indeed crucial for understanding Aquinas's view of human nature and rationality.

This essay discusses two ways in which an agent can make progress with respect to value: self-cultivation and aspiration. The self-cultivator becomes a more coherent version of the person she was before, acquiring beliefs or desires or habits or skills that serve her antecedent valuational condition. The aspirant, by contrast, acquires new values. The existence of aspiration is under pressure from those who would assimilate it either to self-cultivation, or to a change in value that is done to a person rather than a change that is her own work. I show that those two options cannot be exhaustive by discussing liberal arts education; it is, I argue, paradigmatically aspirational.

We prove the following theorem characterizing Du Bois singularities. Suppose that $Y$ is smooth and that $X$ is a reduced closed subscheme. Let $\pi : \tilde{Y} \rightarrow Y$ be a log resolution of $X$ in $Y$ that is an isomorphism outside of $X$. If $E$ is the reduced pre-image of $X$ in $\tilde{Y}$, then $X$ has Du Bois singularities if and only if the natural map $\mathcal{O}_X \rightarrow R \pi_* \mathcal{O}_E$ is a quasi-isomorphism. We also deduce Kollár's conjecture that log canonical singularities are Du Bois in the special case of a local complete intersection and prove other results related to adjunction.

Kollár's conjecture, that log canonical singularities are Du Bois, is proved in the case of Cohen–Macaulay 3-folds. This in turn is used to derive Kodaira vanishing for this class of varieties. Finally it is proved that small deformations of Du Bois singularities are again Du Bois.

Let X be a proper complex variety with Du Bois singularities. Then H(X,C)→ H(X,${\mathcal O}$) is surjective for all i. This property makes this class of singularities behave well with regard to Kodaira type vanishing theorems. Steenbrink conjectured that rational singularities are Du Bois and Kollár conjectured that log canonical singularities are Du Bois. Kollár also conjectured that under some reasonable extra conditions Du Bois singularities are log canonical. In this article Steenbrink‘s conjecture is proved in its full generality, Kollár‘s first conjecture is proved under some extra conditions and Kollár‘s second conjecture is proved under a set of reasonable conditions, and shown that these conditions cannot be relaxed.

New chemotherapies are urgently needed for the parasitic infections of animals and for the tropical diseases of man. Rational molecular design approaches to attempt to discover such products require a massive investment of resources up-front of actual chemical synthesis. However, such investment is justified, since chemical synthesis itself is highly resource-consuming. The fact that few targets have yet been validated to justify a rational approach is an argument only to get on and validate more. Not all the components of molecular design can yet be done totally rationally, but this is not an argument against applying this approach where it is possible. Absence of a successful track record is inevitable for any newly emerging technology. It is too early to draw conclusions about the relative costs of rational design versus empirical synthesis, since the former is only now beginning to become reality and the latter is in the middle of a (combinatorial) revolution. Similarly, it is too soon to predict with certainty which of these two approaches will prevail in the long run. However, they lend themselves to parallel tracks, so both may well continue for the foreseeable future. Current concerns about who would develop successful discoveries are not reasons for stopping discovery research. Indeed, a string of putative products held at the discovery/development interface would be useful ammunition to those trying to develop partnerships such as a Tropical Diseases R&D Alliance aimed at carrying out such work and sharing costs.