Veranstaltungen | Prof. Heinzelmann
English version 
NÄCHSTE VERANSTALTUNGEN
KOLLOQUIUM ON INTERDISIPLINARY PHILOSOPHY
"Authority and Control"
by Daniel Viehoff (Berkeley)
| Freitag, 18. Juli 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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In this talk, I develop a deflationary account of practical authority, according to which it is centrally a matter of one person’s controlling another’s actions by mere say-so. I show how this focus on (a distinctive type of) control over another’s actions sheds light on three questions central to any philosophical account of authority: What does authority consist in? (Conceptual question.) What justifies one person’s having authority over another? (Justificatory question.) What makes authority relations distinctly morally problematic, and how can the associated problems be solved? (Moral question.)
About: Daniel Viehoff is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His research lies at the intersection of political and legal philosophy, ethics, and social philosophy, with particular focus on political authority and legitimacy, democracy, equality, and the private law theory. Before joining the UC Berkeley, he held a prior positon at the NYU. He received a PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University and a JD from Yale Law School. His work has been published in outlets such as Ethics, Journal of Political Philosophy and Philosophy and Public Affairs.
https://philosophy.berkeley.edu/people/detail/644
INVITED TALK: "AKRASIA AND DELAY DISCOUNTING: PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE"
Thomas Fuchs' colloquium, Heidelberg
| 23. Juli 2025 |
LUNCHTALK-REIHE (ZOOM)
des Netzwerks "Methoden Praktischer Ethik" (DFG gefördert)
Gäste sind herzlich willkommen!
AUFNAHMEN VON VORTRÄGEN
|
Gregor Betz | Reflective Equilibration solves the Paradox of diachronic AI Safety |
Juan Piñeros Glasscock | Plain Intentions |
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Philippe Tobler | Decomposing Motivation |
Kristina Musholt | Agency, Mindshaping and the Role of the Emotions |
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Jan Rummel | Involuntary Inattention: Cognitive Failure or rational Behavior |
Nadja Primc | Trustworthy AI in the Context of Healthcare ... |
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Sam Fletcher | Quantum Biology |
Shmulik Nilli | The unthinkable sword? Democracy, morality, and violence across borders? |
VERGANGENE VERANSTALTUNGEN SOMMERSEMESTER 2025
"The unthinkable sword? Democracy, morality, and violence across borders?"
by Shmulik Nilli (Northwestern)
| Freitag,11. Juli 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Abstract: This book project explores the idea of “the unthinkable,” as a means of enhancing our normative grasp of various pathologies in contemporary democratic politics. The book focuses on the relationship between democracy and violence, as this relationship unfolds across international borders. I try to illuminate this relationship through a unified normative account of the phenomenological, predictive, and prescriptive aspects of the unthinkable. I articulate a communal conception of the unthinkable, according to which unthinkable attitudes and actions entail the self-removal of the agents who adopt them from relevant communities. At the phenomenological level, I argue that this link between the unthinkable and self-removal from community powerfully captures the lived experience of unthinkable developments in democratic communities across the western world. At the predictive level, I try to show that the same link grounds a novel interpretation of democratic peace theory, re-orienting the theory towards the future.
Finally, the link between the unthinkable and self-removal from community has wide-ranging prescriptive implications. It explains why, by undertaking unthinkable actions or adopting unthinkable attitudes, democratic polities remove themselves from the international community of democratic nations, and thus forfeit important moral claims to solidarity assistance from fellow democracies. This forfeiture, in turn, bears on the morality of cross-border efforts to contain violent threats to democracy - whether these originate with authoritarian invaders, with domestic military officers, or with civilian politicians who clearly regard the resort to unconstitutional violence as a thinkable means of securing power.
About: Shmuel Nili is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. His research deals with foundational and applied questions in political philosophy, spanning meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University in 2016. He has published four books with Oxford University Press on applied topics such as rethinking fundamental assumptions in political philosophy in the face of pervasive political violence. His journal articles appear in top venues including Ethics, The American Political Science Review, and The American Journal of Political Science.
https://polisci.northwestern.edu/people/core-faculty/shmulik-nili.html
"Assessing the Prudential Companions in Guilt Argument"
by Jesse Hambly (Heidelberg)
| Freitag, 4. Juli 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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The prudential companions in guilt argument contends that, if arguments for the moral error theory are sufficient to establish that there are no moral truths, then analogues of those arguments are sufficient to establish that there are no truths concerning what makes people's lives go better or worse for them (i.e., prudential error theory). In this paper I examine whether the prudential companions in guilt argument succeeds with respect to the most popular argument for the moral error theory in contemporary analytic philosophy: the argument from reasons. According to the argument from reasons, if there are moral truths there are reasons of type S, but no reasons of type S exist. I argue that whether a prudential analogue of the argument from reasons succeeds depends on which type of reasons is claimed to be the problematic commitment of moral truths. I conclude by considering the costs of embracing a prudential error theory.
About: Jesse Hambly is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Philosophy at Heidelberg University, specializing in metaethics and moral philosophy. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from the Australian National University in 2020. His research critically examines the metaphysical and epistemological foundations of normativity. Jesse Hambly's work has been published in leading journals such as The Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, and the Journal of the American Philosophical Association.
https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/fakultaeten/philosophie/philsem/personal/hambly.html
"Quantum Biology"
by Sam Fletcher (Oxford)
| Freitag,27. Juni 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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The transdisciplinary field of quantum biology applies models and concepts from quantum mechanics to explain biological phenomena. After a nontechnical review of some key topics in this field where these quantum theoretical resources are deemed indispensable, I address the question of what, exactly, makes them so. I then draw implications for scientific explanation and the relations between disciplines and levels of reality, among other things.
About: Sam Fletcher is Professor of Philosophy of Physics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Merton College. His research explores the foundations of physics and statistics, examining how these domains intersect with broader issues in the philosophy of science. He also works on the conceptual and physical foundations of computation, metaphilosophy, and the history of physics and philosophy of science. Previously, he worked at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, with which he is still associated as principal investigator of the project: A Modern Philosophy for Classical Statistical Testing and Estimation. His work is featured in journals like Synthese and Foundations of Physics.
"Trustworthy AI in the Context of Healthcare - conceptual Confusion or therapeutic Principle"
by Nadia Primc (Heidelberg)
| Freitag, 20. Juni 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Dr. Nadia Primc is Assistant Professor at the Institute of History and Ethics of Medicine at Heidelberg University, where she is also a member of the Clinical Ethics Committee and the Clinical Ethics Advisory Service of the Heidelberg University Hospital. Her research spans medical ethics, nursing ethics, and the ethical dimensions of healthcare digitalization, organ transplantation, and distributive justice. She completed her PhD in philosophy in Heidelberg in 2010. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Bioethics, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, and BMC Medical Ethics.
https://www.medizinische-fakultaet-hd.uni-heidelberg.de/personen/pd-dr-phil-habil-nadia-primc-5807
"It’s about Sex: Queerness as a Radical Political Notion"
by Nico Orlandi, Philosophy, University of California at Santa Cruz
| Freitag, 13. Juni 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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The term "queer" is often used overly promiscuously in the Global North to refer to any type of counterculture. This understanding of the term "queer" is problematically trivializing. If queerness is robbed of its specifically subversive sexual aspects, it fails to recognize the struggle of communities formed in the face of ongoing sexual oppression. A primary function of the term "queer" is to recognize identities that are marginalized because of the subversion of the (white) heteropatriarchy. Accordingly, we propose to understand being queer as centrally about subverting (white) patriarchal gender norms that pertain specifically to sexual desire and behavior. Some countercultures do no subvert norms of this kind at all. The focus on sexuality is of special importance. Patriarchal norms dictate the presence of a (racialized) hierarchy based on biological sex where cis (white) men's interests, and the preservation of their power, are of paramount importance. Being queer means subverting this status quo.
About: Nico Orlandi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Their research focuses on philosophy of mind and cognitive science, drawing on cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and computer science. Orlandi currently works on the nature and acquisition of concepts, especially social categories. They are also affiliated with the Feminist Studies department at Santa Cruz. They received their Ph.D. in 2007 and held prior positions at Rice University and the Stanford Humanities Center. Orlandi has been a visiting researcher in Tokyo, Paris, and Ontario, and their work appears in leading journals like Synthese, Noûs or Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. https://norlandi.sites.ucsc.edu/
https://norlandi.sites.ucsc.edu/
"Involuntary Inattention: Cognitive Failure or Rational Behavior"
by Professor Jan Rummel (Psychology, Heidelberg)
| Freitag, 6. Juni 2025, 14:00 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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In our daily lives, our thoughts tend to drift away from the here-and-now from time to time towards inner thoughts and feelings. Sometimes we are aware of our own inattention but sometimes we do not realize that we are mentally “somewhere else” until someone asks us where our thoughts are. Previous research has shown that allowing our minds to wander can detrimentally affect performance in currently ongoing tasks, not only cognitively demanding tasks but also everyday activities such as reading, listening, or driving. However, given that mind wandering is such a common phenomenon, we - and also other researchers - hypothesize that mind wandering can also be considered a rational behavior. Functional mind wandering may allow us to better plan for the future, to solve pending complex or creative problems, or to regulate our emotions. In this talk, I propose and provide evidence in favor of a cognitive flexibility view on mind wandering which assumes that mind wandering, when being adjusted appropriately to situational demands, may be a feature and not (only) a bug of our cognitive system.
About: Jan Rummel is Professor of General Psychology and Cognitive Self Regulation at Heidelberg University. Rummel’s research focuses on future oriented cognition, metacognition, remembering and forgetting, mind wandering, and the psychology of climate action. He received his PhD in Psychology from Marburg in 2011, held post doctoral and pre doctoral posts at the universities of Mannheim and Marburg, including a visiting fellowship at Furman University, and directed the Heidelberg junior research group “Cognition and Attention Regulation”. His work appears in outlets such as Journal of Memory and Language, Review of General Psychology, and Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
https://www.psychologie.uni-heidelberg.de/person/jan-rummel
Invited talk: "The metaphysics and politics of xenophobia"
LMU/Berkeley conference "Metaphysics and politics throughout the history of philosophy", LMU Munich
| 30. Mai 2025 |
Talk: "The Prudential Companions in Guilt Argument: Moral and Prudential Disagreement"
with Jesse Hambly
Heidelberg University/Saarland University Workshop in Practical Philosophy, Heidelberg
| 25. Mai 2025 |
"Assessment or Attribution of Consciousness in AI Systems?"
by Professor Tobias Schlicht (Philosophy, Bochum)
| Freitag, 23. Mai 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Butlin et al (2023) outline a research program for assessing consciousness in AI. They assume computational functionalism as a working hypothesis since it allows for conscious AI in principle and claim that well supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness can help us to assess consciousness in AI. First, I scrutinize both computationalism and functionalism separately as different assumptions.Computationalism requires medium independence (Haugeland 1997) which is stronger than multiple realizability. Second, I argue that computationalism is not empirically supported and it is difficult to see how, for any neuroscientific theory, a computationalist interpretation could be better supported than its biological alternative. Neuroscientific theories determine neuronal signatures of consciousness which involve biochemical details that may be crucial for consciousness in human brains. Derivations of computational models which could be implemented artificially and used for the assessment of consciousness in AI require abstraction from such details and idealizations introducing falsehoods. We face significant epistemic limitations regarding an evaluation whether computationalism is true or if the biochemical details of implementations matter. While digital computation may be medium independent, neural computation may be not. Relying on prior work by Chirimuuta (2022), Cao (2022) and Block (2005), I make a case for the medium dependence of neural processing. The appeal to neuroscientific theories does not render their computationalist interpretations empirically plausible. Since neurophysiological markers are absent in AI systems, and other markers of consciousness are unreliable (Bayne et al. 2024) - such as report (cf. the outputs of Large Language Models) - we can only attribute consciousness from the intentional stance (Dennett 1987) rather than assess it in AI systems.
About: Tobias Schlicht is a Lichtenberg Professor of Philosophy of Consciousness and Cognition at the Institute of Philosophy, Ruhr University Bochum. His research focuses on the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, with a special focus on the nature of phenomenal consciousness, nonconceptual content, and the role of perception in predictive processing. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cologne in 2005. His postdoctoral appointments included a fellowship at the Institute in Bochum and the leadership of a junior research group in neurophilosophy at the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience in Tübingen. His work has appeared in leading journals such as Consciousness and Cognition, Philosophical Studies, or Behavioral and Brain Sciences and his monographs include Philosophy of Social Cognition.
https://www.tobiasschlicht.com/
Invited pre-read paper entitled "Weakness of will"
with Milana Smirnow
Herman Crüwell's seminar on akrasia, Heidelberg
| 21. Mai 2025 |
"The neurocomputational mechanisms of learning about others’ cooperative and competitive intentions under ambiguity"
by Christoph Korn (with Sihui Zhang)
| 16. Mai 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Adequately navigating social interactions requires learning about others’ intentions, i.e., whether they intend to cooperate or compete. However, in many contexts, individuals can only observe others’ outcomes, leaving the information about their intentions, goals, and capacities ambiguous and incomplete. One motivation to develop a task that captures intention learning under such ambiguous situations is that this learning becomes even more challenging for people with personality disorders, as they already have difficulties in inferring others’ internal mental states. Here, we tested healthy participants in a set of studies (3 behavioral experiments, N = 99 in total; one fMRI experiment, N = 32). We designed variants of sequential social decision-making tasks to investigate how individuals navigate ambiguous situations in which others’ internal intentions and the influence of the external environment are congruent or incongruent. That is, participants need to infer whether the observed outcomes are determined by the external environment or the inherent intentions of others. Our results revealed a negativity bias: participants learned competitive intentions better than cooperative intentions in incongruent conditions. Variants of Rescorla-Wagner models and Bayesian learning frameworks described the intention learning process. The bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction were involved in the interaction of ambiguity, intention and outcome. Taken together, our results underscore the challenges of deciphering different intentions in ambiguous environments and the critical role of a negativity bias. Our task is promising as a tool to test and understand social dysfunctions, for example in patients with personality disorders.
About: Christoph Korn specializes in social neuroscience and systems neuroscience. He is currently Assistant Professor of Social Neuroscience and Principal Investigator of an Emmy Noether research group in the Department of General Adult Psychiatry at Heidelberg University Hospital. Christoph earned his Dr. phil. in Psychology summa cum laude from Freie Universität Berlin in 2013. His postdoctoral work took place at Hamburg-Eppendorf (2016–2018) within the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre SFB TRR 169 Crossmodal Learning and at the Zurich University Hospital for Psychiatry (2013–2016). He has also completed research stays at Harvard University and published in outlets such as Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, Current Biology and Psychological Medicine.
Invited talk: "Moral judgements in social interaction"
Alfred Weber Institute of Economics, Heidelberg
| 14. Mai 2025 |
Pre-read paper entitled "Assessing the Prudential Companions in Guilt Argument”
with Jesse Hambly
Professor Jochen Briesen’s colloquium, Heidelberg
| 12. und 19. Mai 2025 |
Invited talk: "Was soll ich tun, wenn ich etwas nicht hätte tun sollen? Über Wiedergutmachungsverpflichtung" ("What ought I do if I did what I ought not have done? On remedial obligation")"
Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice, LMU Munich
| 12. Mai 2025 |
Pre-read paper entitled "Normativity and Standards"
with Jesse Hambly
Professor Susanne Mantel’s colloquium, Heidelberg
| 6. Mai 2025 |
"Agency, Mindshaping and the Role of the Emotions"
by Kristina Musholt (Philosophy, Leipzig)
| 9. Mai 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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The talk will discuss the importance of affective-laden interactions with others for the development of our ability for autonomous agency in childhood and beyond. I will explore, first, how affective encounters with others enable reasons-responsive agency by introducing us into the space of reasons and by providing us with interpretive frameworks of perceiving the world relative to our aims, concerns, and values. However, as I will show in the second part of the talk, the very same mindshaping processes that enable agency in the sense of reasons-responsiveness also make us susceptible to agency-undermining social practices. Yet, as I will argue in the final part of the talk, the proper response to these threats to our agency should not be seen in a turn towards introspection and a retreat from sociality or the emotions. Rather, we should harness and foster our social and emotional abilities in the service of cultivating our skills of autonomy competence.
About Kristina Musholt: Kristina Musholt is specialised in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. She is currently Professor of Cognitive Anthropology at the University of Leipzig, where she also co-leads the Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development and teaches across all philosophy programmes. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Humboldt University Berlin in 2011, served as Junior Professor of Neurophilosophy at Magdeburg University, and was a Fellow at the London School of Economics and Politics. Her work on self-consciousness and social cognition has appeared in outlets such as Consciousness and Cognition, Grazer Philosophische Studien, MIT Press and Philosophical Studies.
Debating Biotechnology
| Start: 24. April 2025 |
Ort: Marsilius-Kolleg
Peer-reviewed talk: "The ethics and moral psychology of vaccination: the case of HPV"
with Alejandra Petino Zappala, Andrea Quint, and Phuc Nguyen
German Society for Philosophy of Science, FAU Erlangen
| 25. März 2025 |
VERANSTALTUNGEN DES WINTERSEMSESTERS 2024/25
Januar 2024
"Self-regulation Training in Primary Schools and Academic Achievements: Evidence from a randomized controlled Trial"
by Daniel Schunk (Economics, Mainz)
| 7. Februar 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Children’s self-regulation abilities are key predictors of educational success and other life outcomes such as income and health. However, self-regulation is not a school subject, and knowledge about how to generate lasting improvements in self-regulation and academic achievements with easily scalable, low-cost interventions is still limited. I present the design and results of a randomized controlled field study which integrates a short self-regulation teaching unit based on the concept of mental contrasting with implementation intentions into the school curriculum of first graders. We discuss the effects of the training on academic achievements and show that the self-regulation unit can be integrated into the regular school curriculum at low cost and is easily scalable. The presentation will also include the design of a replication study of the self-regulation intervention.
"N. N."
by Christian Kietzmann (Philosophy, Leipzig)
| 31. Januar 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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"Promoting the ethical and trustworthy governance of AI in healthcare"
by Kellie Owens (Population Health, New York University)
| 24. Januar 2025, 15:00-16:15 Uhr |
Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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This talk explores ethical considerations that arise in the development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in healthcare, including bias, equity, privacy, safety, and transparency. Presenting findings from two different empirical bioethics research projects, I first explore how to ethically and effectively govern AI systems and models in healthcare settings based on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders including data scientists, clinicians, and regulators. Second, I examine how patient-facing generative AI tools such as automated clinical documentation and AI-drafted patient messaging in online health portals may affect trust and empathy between clinicians and patients. Both projects seek to guide healthcare systems in navigating the ethical complexities of adopting new technologies, ensuring that advancements in AI serve to strengthen, rather than erode, the foundational trust in our healthcare systems and patient-clinician relationships.
About Kellie Owens:
Dr. Kellie Owens is a medical sociologist and empirical bioethicist with a PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on the ethical implications of health information technologies, particularly in genomics and artificial intelligence. Dr. Owens explores how new technologies impact health inequities and addresses the need for improved social and technical infrastructures to support AI/ML tools in healthcare. She holds an early career award from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and has received recognition from the American Sociological Association and other prominent organizations.
"What does it mean to be healthy? It’s complicated …"
by Pascale Willemsen (Philosophy, University of Zürich)
| 17. Januar 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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What does it mean for an organism to be healthy? Over the past five decades, philosophers of medicine and medical professionals have engaged in considerable debate regarding the definition of “health.” Traditionally, there have been two main positions: 1.) negativism, which defines health as the absence of disease; and 2.) positivism claims that health is the presence of some additional positive state or ability. It has been pointed out that the debate has reached somewhat of a stalemate and that there has been little to no progress with traditional philosophical methods, such as conceptual analysis, explicature, and the method of cases. In addition, the concept of health might be in flux and subject to change, and different groups of speakers may mean different things when they call someone or something healthy. In reaction to the methodological challenge, some scholars have suggested supplementing our traditional toolkit with empirical methods to make progress. Some first empirical investigations already suggest that the term health is strongly associated with leading a healthy lifestyle – an understanding that is orthogonal to both negativism and positivism.
In this talk, I present a systematic, experimental investigation into the folk concept of health. Data from four experimental studies suggest that neither negativism nor positivism is correct – and also the newly-established lifestyle view does not get it entirely right. Instead, the folk concept of health seems to have multiple senses, one of which is related to the absence of diseases, the other to leading a healthy lifestyle. What unites these different senses is that “being healthy” is not an objective fact, but a highly evaluative judgment. These findings challenge traditional definitions of health and raise a series of practical issues: How can we make sure that philosophers of medicine, medical professionals and ordinary people speak the same language when they talk about health?
Dezember 2024
"Decomposing motivation"
by Philippe Tobler (Neuroscience, University of Zürich)
| 20. Dezember 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Humans and other animals approach reward and avoid punishment and pay attention to cues predicting these events. Such motivated behavior thus appears to be guided by value, which directs behavior towards or away from positively or negatively valenced outcomes. Moreover, it is facilitated by (top-down) salience, which enhances attention to behaviorally relevant learned cues predicting the occurrence of valenced outcomes. Using human neuroimaging, we recently separated value (ventral striatum, posterior ventromedial prefrontal cortex) from salience (anterior ventromedial cortex, occipital cortex) in the domain of liquid reward and punishment. Moreover, we investigated potential drivers of learned salience: the probability and uncertainty with which valenced and non-valenced outcomes occur. We find that the brain dissociates valenced from non-valenced probability and uncertainty, which indicates that reinforcement matters for the brain, in addition to information provided by probability and uncertainty alone, regardless of valence. Finally, we assessed learning signals (unsigned prediction errors) that may underpin the acquisition of salience. Particularly the insula appears to be central for this function, encoding a subjective salience prediction error, similarly at the time of positively and negatively valenced outcomes. However, it appears to employ domain-specific time constants, leading to stronger salience signals in the aversive than the appetitive domain at the time of cues. These findings explain why previous research associated the insula with both valence-independent salience processing and with preferential encoding of the aversive domain. More generally, the distinction of value and salience appears to provide a useful framework for capturing the neural basis of motivated behavior.
About Philippe Tobler:
https://www.econ.uzh.ch/en/people/faculty/tobler.html
"A Method for Philosophy: AI Philosophy"
by Vincent C. Müller (Philosophy, FAU Erlangen Nürnberg)
with Guido Löhr (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
| 13. Dezember 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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On the background of the general problem of philosophical methodology, we identify a new tool for the philosophical toolbox: AI. We propose that not only can AI learn from philosophy, but philosophy can learn from AI, too: It is both ways. This applies particularly to conceptual analysis, which can be advanced by asking what would be required for an AI system to fall under the concept we are discussing; call this “AI Philosophy”. This method would allow progress in the philosophy of AI, rather than mere application, and in general philosophy it avoids anthropocentrism, and gives us access to a testable environment for our philosophical argumentation. Given the wide range of features we can consider for AI systems, this method allows us to cover a wide range of philosophical issues, especially in the philosophy of mind, language, epistemology, and ethics.
About Vincent C. Müller:
Invited Talk: "Neurocorrelates of value judgements"
Max Planck Cognition Academy, Berlin
| 4. Dezember 2024 |
November 2024
"Emerging Biotechnologies & Ethics"
An interdisciplinary Conference with Perspectives from Sciences and Humanities
| 28.-30. November 2024 |
Location: Neue Universität (28 Nov) and Marsilius Kolleg (29/30 Nov)
More information and registration: Marsilius Kolleg
The workshop seeks to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue between life sciences researchers and scholars engaged in ethical, philosophical, and social reflection on these advancements. It is a joint venture between the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials (IMSEAM), the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (MPImR), and the Marsilius-Kolleg.
The event will open with a public panel discussion at the Neue Aula of Heidelberg University on Thursday (November 28th) on the topic of brain organoids, followed by two days of talks and in-depth discussions.
The majority of speakers will be drawn from Heidelberg University and its renowned local research institutions, including the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), and Heidelberg University Hospital as well as the IMSEAM and the MPImR themselves. The workshop will also feature S. Matthew Liao, Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics at the School of Global Public Health at New York University (NYU), as the keynote speaker, adding an internationally recognized voice to the ethical debates surrounding emerging biotechnologies.
Invited Talk: "Norms, facts, and acts: bridging philosophy and science to investigate emerging technologies"
Conference "Emerging Biotechnologies and ethics", Marsilius Kolleg, Heidelberg
| 29. November 2024 |
"Gender differences in career-related decision making–biases we need to cure, or rational behavior?"
by Christiane Schwieren (Economics, Heidelberg)
| 22. November 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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About Christiane Schwieren:
"Neutral by choice"
by Verena Wagner (Philosophy, Humboldt University, Berlin)
with Yulia Oganian (Tübingen) and Christoph Korn (Heidelberg)
| 15. November 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
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Cognitive Neuroscience meets Philosophy of Mind - The general aim of the project is to provide an empirically informed theory of cognitive neutrality which can account for distinct mental phenomena such as mere indecision and various forms of suspension of judgement. States of neutrality are systematically underrepresented in contemporary philosophical theories as well as in cognitive neuroscience. In both cases, neglecting their existence is the result of reducing the complexity of decision-making. In experimental approaches, neutral outcomes are standardly avoided by using the method of forced choice alternatives. This project is an attempt to bring the lost complexity back and gain a more naturalistic understanding of decision-making, which includes the option of being neutral by choice. We will start with a provisional philosophical framework that describes various intuitive forms of cognitive neutrality. This framework will be translated into empirically assessable parameters, and we will develop new methods for measuring different forms of abstention in two central human decision-making settings: sensory perception and human cooperation scenarios. Based on the resulting empirical insights, the philosophical framework will be continuously revised and refined.
Committing to Indecision - A Taxonomy of Suspension of Judgment:
The talk will refer to this paper. It is recommended to read the paper, especially pages 1-4 and pages 7-12.
Note that talks but not Q&A may be recorded.
About Verena Wagner:
Prof. Dr. Verena Wagner is a Professor of Philosophy of Mind at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. Her research explores the intersection of philosophy of mind and epistemology, focusing on cognitive neutrality, mental states, and inquiry. Her work has been published in prominent journals, including Philosophical Studies.
"Reflective Equilibration Solves The Paradox of Diachronic AI Safety"
by Gregor Betz (Philosophy, KIT, Karlsruhe)
| 8. November 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
Hybrid event - join here
The dynamic nature of our factual knowledge of, and our normative outlook on the world give rise to two conflicting safety requirements of advanced AI systems: (i) adaptability and (ii) resilience. The case for adaptability is straightforward: Safe AI systems must be able to learn novel facts and correct outdated or erroneous beliefs: acting on false information is likely to lead to bad outcomes. In addition, it’s an important safety feature that AI systems be able to continuously learn from human feedback, e.g. by adjusting the way they interpret and apply general principles of helpfulness or harm avoidance. The case for resilience seems, however, equally strong: It would be highly problematic for AI systems to autonomously modify, or even entirely drop basic normative tenets they have been initially designed to follow. Moreover and more specifically, safe AI systems must be able to resist manipulation attempts such as adversarial model editing or malicious prompt hacking, which typically try to "fool" the model into accepting presumably novel facts. I will argue that this paradoxical situation, where safety requirements pull in opposite directions, can be eased by stipulating that dynamic AI learning be guided by reason. To this end, I present and discuss two computational studies on rational belief revision of LLMs through reflective equilibration.
Note that talks but not Q&A may be recorded.
About Gregor Betz:
* Betz G, K Richardson 2023. Probabilistic coherence, logical consistency, and Bayesian learning: Neural language models as epistemic agents. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281372
Oktober 2024
"Preimplantation polygenic testing: a comeback of determinism and eugenics?"
by Alejandra Petino Zappala (German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg)
| 25. Oktober 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Location:Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
Hybrid event - join here
Since the Human Genome Project, the role of genetic information in our lives has changed dramatically. Genetic testing, originally used to detect or prevent congenital, often deadly or incapacitating diseases, has shifted to the management of risk for common adult conditions in the general population, and even to health optimization. Polygenic genetic testing, now available to clients via the Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) market, promises to estimate traits like weight or physical endurance, or the risk of complex conditions like diabetes or hypercholesterolemia. As these traits are affected by the interaction of several genomic variants and environmental factors, companies offering these tests promise to guide consumers toward a healthier lifestyle tailored to their genome. These genomic technologies have recently expanded to the assessment of embryos in the context of In Vitro Fertilization with the launch of preimplantation polygenic testing (PGT-P). PGT-P companies promise parents undergoing fertility treatments to use their embryos’ genomic information to predict their risk of developing common, multifactorial diseases like diabetes or psychiatric disorders in adulthood. This information results in a ‘ranking’ of the embryos, to help prioritize the “best” for transfer and obtaining “the healthiest child possible”. Moreover, these companies have raised the possibility of offering predictions on IQ, height, or skin color in the future if such tests become socially acceptable. In this talk, I will show that, despite being based on the same technology as the DTC tests offered to adults, the discourse of the companies offering PGT-P downplays the importance of the environment and one’s own agency in health outcomes. This marks a return to genetic determinism, previously relaxed by the ideas of agency and risk management typical of neoliberal biopolitics. I will also argue that the discourse on PGT-P has reinvigorated eugenicist ideas in the public sphere. These dynamics are sustained by an unwarranted expansion of the concept of ‘eugenics’, coupled with misleading analogies between embryo selection and individual or public health interventions, such as vaccination or sanitation. As a result, the idea of embryo selection is first equated to other kinds of reproductive or life choices and then presented as an ethical obligation both for parents and the whole of society.
About Alejandra Petino Zappala:
https://www.life-science-lab.org/cms/index.php/1649.html
"Coherence and Incoherence"
by Daniel Fogal (Philosophy, New York University)
with Olle Risberg (Uppsala)
| 22. Oktober 2024, 18:00-20:00 Uhr c.t. |
Location: Hegelsaal, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
In the recent literature on coherence and structural rationality, it is widely assumed that sets of attitudes are coherent just in case they are not incoherent. In particular, the two most popular kinds of views of incoherence—those centered around wide scope rational requirements and those centered around guaranteed failures of some normatively significant kind—rely on this assumption. We argue that this assumption should be rejected because it fails to capture the difference between positively coherent attitudes and random unrelated ones. We also formulate and defend an alternative support-centric view of coherence and incoherence which captures this difference and has several additional advantages.
In case of interest (pre-read not required), the full draft is available here (under review; please treat confidentially)
About Daniel Fogal:
Invited Talk: "Norms, facts, and acts: bridging philosophy and science to investigate emerging technologies"
by Max Planck Institute for Medical research, Heidelberg
| 21. Oktober 2024 |
"Interventions to reduce the spread of misinformation: Two online experiments"
by Natalie Gold (Philosophy, London School of Economics, and Head of Trials, Verian)
| 18. Oktober 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |
Screening: at Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg
Join remotely: here
Misinformation can have a profound detrimental impact on populations’ wellbeing. While previous experiments testing interventions have used perception- or intention-based outcome measures, in these two online experiments we presented participants with real-life misinformation posts in a social media platform simulation and measured their engagement, a more ecologically valid approach. The first is a large UK-based online experiment (n = 2430), where we assessed the performance of false tag and inoculation interventions in protecting against different forms of misinformation. Our pre-registered mixed-effects models indicated that both interventions reduced engagement with misinformation, but inoculation was most effective. The second is a pilot with n = 1000 Singaporean citizens and permanent residents, where we assessed the performance of two different inoculation interventions: a carousel and a video. We found that the carousel reduced positive reactions to misinformation posts, while the video increased discernment of disinformation (measured using the signal detection index d-prime).
About Natalie Gold:
