But they can also be affectively distant, for example when they are related to each other by no special ties of family or friendship or community. Intuitively, we have stronger moral obligations to those who are physically or affectively near than to those who are physically or affectively remote. Distance seems to set moral boundaries, and distant strangers seem to be of minimal moral concern. The present issue of The Monist is devoted to the question of how we are to gauge the moral significance of physical or affective distance. Contributions are invited which seek answers to questions such as these in ways which will throw light on the concepts of moral distance and moral boundaries.
Works of art are cognitive devices aimed at the production of rich cognitive effects.
Thus it can be argued, in the light of what is known about human cognition, that aesthetic experience is a by-product of the exercise of more fundamental cognitive faculties such as perception and imagination. Works of art, on this view, are never grasped directly. Theories of art should thus address questions about the interplay of the cognitive faculties. Papers are invited on all aspects of the relation between perception, imagination, the emotions, and aesthetic experience, and on the way in which findings in cognitive science can shed new light on art, its appreciation, and its evaluation. The concept is related to the notion of the purpose of an artifact, but also to associated notions of the ends or purposes of human action, and thus to the concepts of intentionality and normativity.