ORCID Profile
0000-0001-7701-8995
Current Organisation
University of Reading
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X21001825
Abstract: The idea that consciousness and complexity are closely related has been a major driver of the popularity of integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness, despite its major formal, phenomenological, and neuroscientific shortcomings. Here, I argue that we can recover this intuition by replacing its biologically neutral notion of complexity with an evolutionary one that I shall dub “pathological complexity.”
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-05-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S40592-021-00129-1
Abstract: In recent years, bioethical discourse around the topic of ‘genetic enhancement’ has become increasingly politicized. We fear there is too much focus on the semantic question of whether we should call particular practices and emerging bio-technologies such as CRISPR ‘eugenics’, rather than the more important question of how we should view them from the perspective of ethics and policy. Here, we address the question of whether ‘eugenics’ can be defended and how proponents and critics of enhancement should engage with each other.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-01-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-11-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-05-2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 21-12-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 28-10-2021
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 17-04-2021
DOI: 10.3390/ANI11041148
Abstract: The keeping of captive animals in zoos and aquariums has long been controversial. Many take freedom to be a crucial part of animal welfare and, on these grounds, criticise all forms of animal captivity as harmful to animal welfare, regardless of their provisions. Here, we analyse what it might mean for freedom to matter to welfare, distinguishing between the role of freedom as an intrinsic good, valued for its own sake and an instrumental good, its value arising from the increased ability to provide other important resources. Too often, this debate is conducted through trading intuitions about what matters for animals. We argue for the need for the collection of comparative welfare data about wild and captive animals in order to settle the issue. Discovering more about the links between freedom and animal welfare will then allow for more empirically informed ethical decisions regarding captive animals.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-05-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S11017-021-09550-3
Abstract: If one had to identify the biggest change within the philosophical tradition in the twenty-first century, it would certainly be the rapid rise of experimental philosophy to address differences in intuitions about concepts. It is, therefore, surprising that the philosophy of medicine has so far not drawn on the tools of experimental philosophy in the context of a particular conceptual debate that has overshadowed all others in the field: the long-standing dispute between so-called naturalists and normativists about the concepts of health and disease. In this paper, I defend and advocate the use of empirical methods to inform and advance this and other debates within the philosophy of medicine.
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-04-2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X22001923
Abstract: In order to address why the number of patients suffering from anxiety and depression are seemingly exploding in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries, it is sensible to look at the evolution of human fearfulness responses. Here, we draw on Veit's pathological complexity framework to advance Grossmann's goal of re-characterizing human fearfulness as an adaptive trait.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X22000115
Abstract: There has been much criticism of the idea that Friston's free-energy principle can unite the life and mind sciences. Here, we argue that perhaps the greatest problem for the totalizing ambitions of its proponents is a failure to recognize the importance of evolutionary dynamics and to provide a convincing adaptive story relating free-energy minimization to organismal fitness.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X20000771
Abstract: Phillips et al. make a compelling case for a reversal in the current paradigm in “other minds” research by considering the representation of other people's knowledge more basic than the attribution of belief. Unfortunately, they only discuss primates. In this commentary, I argue that the representation of others' knowledge is an evolutionary ancient trait, first appearing during the Cambrian explosion.
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-04-2023
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-04-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-04-2019
DOI: 10.1007/S10539-019-9688-9
Abstract: For decades Darwinian processes were framed in the form of the Lewontin conditions: reproduction, variation and differential reproductive success were taken to be sufficient and necessary. Since Buss (The evolution of in iduality, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1987) and the work of Maynard Smith and Szathmary (The major transitions in evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995) biologists were eager to explain the major transitions from in iduals to groups forming new in iduals subject to Darwinian mechanisms themselves. Explanations that seek to explain the emergence of a new level of selection, however, cannot employ properties that would already have to exist on that level for selection to take place. Recently, Hammerschmidt et al. (Nature 515:75–79, 2014) provided a ‘bottom-up’ experiment corroborating much of the theoretical work Paul Rainey has done since 2003 on how cheats can play an important role in the emergence of new Darwinian in iduals on a multicellular level. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, I argue for a conceptual shift in perspective from seeing cheats as (1) a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved for multi-cellularity to evolve to (2) the very ‘key’ for the evolution of multicellularity. Secondly, I illustrate the consequences of this shift for both theoretical and experimental work, arguing for a more prominent role of ecology and the multi-level selection framework within the debate then they currently occupy.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 05-05-2020
DOI: 10.3390/ANI10050799
Abstract: One of the biggest ethical issues in animal agriculture is that of the welfare of animals at the end of their lives, during the process of slaughter. Much work in animal welfare science is focussed on finding humane ways to transport and slaughter animals, to minimise the harm done during this process. In this paper, we take a philosophical look at what it means to perform slaughter humanely, beyond simply reducing pain and suffering during the slaughter process. In particular, we will examine the issue of the harms of deprivation inflicted in ending life prematurely, as well as shape of life concerns and the ethical implications of inflicting these harms at the end of life, without the potential for future offsetting through positive experiences. We will argue that though these considerations may mean that no slaughter is in a deep sense truly ‘humane’, this should not undermine the importance of further research and development to ensure that while the practice continues, animal welfare harms are minimised as far as possible.
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 16-02-2021
DOI: 10.1136/MEDETHICS-2020-107034
Abstract: This paper is a response to a recent paper by Bobier and Omelianchuk in which they argue that the critics of Giubilini and Minerva’s defence of infanticide fail to adequately justify a moral difference at birth. They argue that such arguments would lead to an intuitively less plausible position: that late-term abortions are permissible, thus creating a dilemma for those who seek to argue that birth matters. I argue that the only way to resolve this dilemma, is to bite the naturalist bullet and accept that the intuitively plausible idea that birth constitutes a morally relevant event is simply mistaken and biologically misinformed.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X22001595
Abstract: Why is it that people simultaneously treat social robots as mere designed artefacts, yet show willingness to interact with them as if they were real agents? Here, we argue that Dennett's distinction between the intentional stance and the design stance can help us to resolve this puzzle, allowing us to further our understanding of social robots as interactive depictions.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-05-2022
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X22001273
Abstract: In this commentary we advance Jagiello et al.'s proposal by zooming in on the possible evolutionary origins of the “bifocal stance” that may have enabled a major transition in human cultural evolution, arguing that the evolution of the bifocal stance was driven by an explosion in cultural complexity arising from cooperative foraging, which led to a feedback loop between the ritual and instrumental stances.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S10539-021-09781-7
Abstract: In this essay, we discuss Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka’s The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul from an interdisciplinary perspective. Constituting perhaps the longest treatise on the evolution of consciousness, Ginsburg and Jablonka unite their expertise in neuroscience and biology to develop a beautifully Darwinian account of the dawning of subjective experience. Though it would be impossible to cover all its content in a short book review, here we provide a critical evaluation of their two key ideas—the role of Unlimited Associative Learning in the evolution of, and detection of, consciousness and a metaphysical claim about consciousness as a mode of being—in a manner that will hopefully overcome some of the initial resistance of potential readers to tackle a book of this length.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-04-2023
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-04-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-12-2020
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 21-04-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-11-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S41649-022-00230-5
Abstract: I applaud recent improvements upon previous guidelines for the assessment of pain in non-human species and the application of their framework towards decapod crustaceans. Rather than constituting a mere intermediate solution between the scientific difficulty of settling questions of animal consciousness and the need for a framework for the purposes of animal welfare legislation, I will argue that the longer lists of criteria for animal sentience should make us realize that animal sentience is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that must be studied with a plethora of methods in order to assess its ersity across the tree of life.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-08-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13752-022-00408-Y
Abstract: The goal of this article is to break down the dimensions of consciousness, attempt to reverse engineer their evolutionary function, and make sense of the origins of consciousness by breaking off those dimensions that are more likely to have arisen later. A Darwinian approach will allow us to revise the philosopher’s concept of consciousness away from a single “thing,” an all-or-nothing quality, and towards a concept of phenomenological complexity that arose out of simple valenced states. Finally, I will offer support for an evaluation-first view of consciousness by drawing on recent work in experimental philosophy of mind.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-03-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-01-2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-10-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X21002211
Abstract: Dubourg and Baumard mention a potential role for the human drive to systemise as a factor motivating interest in imaginary worlds. Given that hyperexpression of this trait has been linked with autism (Baron-Cohen, 2002, 2006), we think this raises interesting implications for how those on the autism spectrum may differ from the neurotypical population in their engagement with imaginary worlds.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 13-06-2022
DOI: 10.1017/PSA.2022.26
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-08-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-07-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-11-2020
DOI: 10.1007/S13194-020-00322-9
Abstract: Animal welfare has a long history of disregard. While in recent decades the study of animal welfare has become a scientific discipline of its own, the difficulty of measuring animal welfare can still be vastly underestimated. There are three primary theories, or perspectives, on animal welfare - biological functioning, natural living and affective state. These come with their own erse methods of measurement, each providing a limited perspective on an aspect of welfare. This paper describes a perspectival pluralist account of animal welfare, in which all three theoretical perspectives and their multiple measures are necessary to understand this complex phenomenon and provide a full picture of animal welfare. This in turn will offer us a better understanding of perspectivism and pluralism itself.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-12-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-03-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S41649-023-00244-7
Abstract: While animal sentience research has flourished in the last decade, scepticism about our ability to accurately measure animal feelings has unfortunately remained fairly common. Here, we argue that evolutionary considerations about the functions of feelings will give us more reason for optimism and outline a method for how this might be achieved.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1017/AWF.2023.33
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-04-2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2022
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X22000498
Abstract: Benenson et al. provide a compelling case for treating greater investment into self-protection among females as an adaptive strategy. Here, we wish to expand their proposed adaptive explanation by placing it squarely in modern state-based and behavioural life-history theory, drawing on Veit's pathological complexity framework. This allows us to make sense of alternative “lifestyle” strategies, rather than pathologizing them.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-04-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-12-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S11229-022-03998-Z
Abstract: The goal of this programmatic paper is to highlight a close connection between the core problem in the philosophy of medicine, i.e. the concept of health, and the core problem of the philosophy of mind, i.e. the concept of consciousness. I show when we look at these phenomena together, taking the evolutionary perspective of modern state-based behavioural and life-history theory used as the teleonomic tool to Darwinize the agent- and subject-side of organisms, we will be in a better position to make sense of them both as natural phenomena.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X2200070X
Abstract: Heintz & Scott-Phillips provide a useful synthesis for constructing a bridge between work by both cognitive scientists and evolutionary biologists studying the ersity of human communication. Here, we aim to strengthen their bridge from the side of evolutionary biology, to argue that we can best understand ostensive communication as a scaffold for more complex forms of intentional expressions.
Publisher: Institute of Philosophy in Zagreb, Croatia
Date: 06-05-2023
DOI: 10.52685/CJP.23.67.2
Abstract: Interdisciplinary research is becoming more and more popular. Many funding bodies encourage interdisciplinarity, as a criterion that promises scientific progress. Traditionally this has been linked to the idea of integrating or unifying disciplines. Using evolutionary game theory as a case study, Till Grüne-Yanoff (2016) argued that there is no such necessary link between interdisciplinary success and integration. Contrary to this, this paper argues that evolutionary game theory is a genuine case of successful integration between economics and biology, shedding lights on the many dimensions along which integration can take place.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-11-2018
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-08-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-07-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-10-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-03-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S10539-023-09901-5
Abstract: With increasing attention given to wild animal welfare and ethics, it has become common to depict animals in the wild as existing in a state dominated by suffering. This assumption is now taken on board by many and frames much of the current discussion but needs a more critical assessment, both theoretically and empirically. In this paper, we challenge the primary lines of evidence employed in support of wild animal suffering, to provide an alternative picture in which wild animals may often have lives that are far more positive than is commonly assumed. Nevertheless, while it is useful to have an alternative model to challenge unexamined assumptions, our real emphasis in this paper is the need for the development of effective methods for applying animal welfare science in the wild, including new means of data collection, the ability to determine the extent and scope of welfare challenges and opportunities, and their effects on welfare. Until such methods are developed, discussions of wild animal welfare cannot go beyond trading of intuitions, which as we show here can just as easily go in either direction.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X19002164
Abstract: While we agree in broad strokes with the characterisation of rationalization as a “useful fiction,” we think that Fiery Cushman's claim remains ambiguous in two crucial respects: (1) the reality of beliefs and desires, that is, the fictional status of folk-psychological entities and (2) the degree to which they should be understood as useful. Our aim is to clarify both points and explicate the rationale of rationalization.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-2020
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X20001041
Abstract: The broad spectrum revolution brought greater dependence on skill and knowledge, and more demanding, often social, choices. We adopt Sterelny's account of how cooperative foraging paid the costs associated with longer dependency, and transformed the problem of skill learning. Scaffolded learning can facilitate cognitive control including suppression, whereas scaffolded exchange and trade, including inter-temporal exchange, can help develop resolve.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-10-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 21-12-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-08-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13752-022-00409-X
Abstract: In order to develop a true biological science of consciousness, we have to remove humans from the center of reference and develop a bottom-up comparative study of animal minds, as Donald Griffin intended with his call for a “cognitive ethology.” In this article, I make use of the pathological complexity thesis (Veit 2022a, b, c) to show that we can firmly ground a comparative study of animal consciousness by drawing on the resources of state-based behavioral life history theory. By comparing the different life histories of gastropods and arthropods, we will be able to make better sense of the possible origins of consciousness and its function for organisms in their natural environments.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-09-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13752-022-00407-Z
Abstract: This article introduces and defends the “pathological complexity thesis” as a hypothesis about the evolutionary origins of minimal consciousness, or sentience, that connects the study of animal consciousness closely with work in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. I argue that consciousness is an adaptive solution to a design problem that led to the extinction of complex multicellular animal life following the Avalon explosion and that was subsequently solved during the Cambrian explosion. This is the economic trade-off problem of having to deal with a complex body with high degrees of freedom, what I call “pathological complexity.” By modeling the explosion of this computational complexity using the resources of state-based behavioral and life history theory we will be able to provide an evolutionary bottom-up framework to make sense of subjective experience and its function in nature by paying close attention to the ecological lifestyles of different animals.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-12-2019
Publisher: White Horse Press
Date: 02-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 16-12-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-02-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S13752-023-00430-8
Abstract: In this article, I respond to commentaries by Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg and by David Spurrett on my target article “Complexity and the Evolution of Consciousness,” in which I have offered the first extended articulation of my pathological complexity thesis as a hypothesis about the evolutionary origins and function of consciousness. My reply is structured by the arguments raised rather than by author and will offer a more detailed explication of some aspects of the pathological complexity thesis.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Walter Veit.