Health care reform that includes universal coverage could lower a major barrier to care for people of color and ethnic minorities—the inability to pay for care. But universal coverage alone, even with comparable fee-for-service payment or appropriately risk-adjusted capitated reimbursement, will not eradicate the racial and ethnic inequities in health care delivery. Restrictive admissions practices, geographic inaccessibility, culture, racial stereotypes, and the failure to employ minority health care professionals will still create barriers to minority health care. In addition to universal (...) financing, health care reform should include new civil rights legislation to address and reduce these noneconomic barriers to minority health care. (shrink)

Health care reform that includes universal coverage could lower a major barrier to care for people of color and ethnic minorities—the inability to pay for care. But universal coverage alone, even with comparable fee-for-service payment or appropriately risk-adjusted capitated reimbursement, will not eradicate the racial and ethnic inequities in health care delivery. Restrictive admissions practices, geographic inaccessibility, culture, racial stereotypes, and the failure to employ minority health care professionals will still create barriers to minority health care. In addition to universal (...) financing, health care reform should include new civil rights legislation to address and reduce these noneconomic barriers to minority health care. (shrink)

Work requirements are the centerpiece of HHS's Trump Administration strategy to undo the ACA expansion for low income working age adults. This article examines the June 29, 2018 trial court opinion in Stewart v. Azar which held that HHS's approval of Kentucky's Section 1115 work demonstration was “arbitrary and capricious.” The purpose of Medicaid is to provide health coverage and HHS may not ignore the loss of coverage that will result from a work requirement.

The Affordable Care Act1 promises to improve access to coverage and care for two vulnerable groups: low-income persons who are excluded by a lack of resources and chronically ill and disabled people who are excluded by the dysfunction of our existing insurance and care delivery systems. ACA’s sprawling provisions raise a wealth of implementation challenges that are exacerbated by the compromises required to move reform through Congress. In particular, the compromise between regulatory/public program advocates and advocates for private, market-driven programs (...) requires thoughtful regulatory coordination between public and private health systems. (shrink)

The Affordable Care Act1 promises to improve access to coverage and care for two vulnerable groups: low-income persons who are excluded by a lack of resources and chronically ill and disabled people who are excluded by the dysfunction of our existing insurance and care delivery systems. ACA’s sprawling provisions raise a wealth of implementation challenges that are exacerbated by the compromises required to move reform through Congress. In particular, the compromise between regulatory/public program advocates and advocates for private, market-driven programs (...) requires thoughtful regulatory coordination between public and private health systems. (shrink)

Medicaid is uniquely equipped to serve low-income populations. We identify four features that form the “soul” of Medicaid, explain how the administration is testing them, and explore challenges in accountability contributing to this struggle. We highlight the work of watchdogs acting to protect Medicaid and conclude with considerations for future health reform.

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

The new edition of this highly successful text will once again provide the ideal introduction to free will. This volume brings together some of the most influential contributions to the topic of free will during the past 50 years, as well as some notable recent work.

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

Only by inhabiting Dao (the Way of Nature) and dwelling in its unity can humankind achieve true happiness and freedom, in both life and death. This is Daoist philosophy's central tenet, espoused by the person--or group of people--known as Zhuangzi (369?-286? BCE) in a text by the same name. To be free, individuals must discard rigid distinctions between right and wrong, and follow a course of action not motivated by gain or striving. When one ceases to judge events as good (...) or bad, man-made suffering disappears, and natural suffering is embraced as part of life. Zhuangzi elucidates this mystical philosophy through humor, parable, and anecdote, using non sequitur and even nonsense to illuminate truths beyond the boundaries of ordinary logic. Boldly imaginative and inventively written, the _Zhuangzi_ floats free of its historical period and society, addressing the spiritual nourishment of all people across time. One of the most justly celebrated texts of the Chinese tradition, the _Zhuangzi_ is read by thousands of English-language scholars each year, yet, until now, only in the Wade-Giles romanization. Burton Watson's conversion to pinyin in this book brings the text in line with how Chinese scholars, and an increasing number of other scholars, read it. (shrink)

The first part of the essay explores the relations between the will and practical reason or judgement. The second part takes up decision in the realm of belief, i.e. deciding that such and such is so. This phenomenon raises two questions. Since we decide that as well as to, should we speak of a doxastic will? Secondly, should we regard ourselves as active in the formation of our judgements as in the formation of our intentions? The author's answer to these (...) two further questions is ‘no’ and ‘yes’, respectively: the boundaries between the active and the passive are not marked by the will. (shrink)

Compiled by disciples of Confucius in the centuries following his death in 479 B.C.E., _The Analects of Confucius_ is a collection of aphorisms and historical anecdotes embodying the basic values of the Confucian tradition: learning, morality, ritual decorum, and filial piety. Reflecting the model eras of Chinese antiquity, the Analects offers valuable insights into successful governance and the ideal organization of society. Filled with humor and sarcasm, it reads like a casual conversation between teacher and student, emphasizing the role of (...) the individual in the attainment of knowledge and the value of using historical events and people to illuminate moral and political concepts. Confucius's teachings focus on cultural and peaceful pursuits and the characteristics of benevolent and culturally distinguished government. He also discusses ancestor worship and other rites performed for the spirits of the dead. The single most influential philosophical work in all of Chinese history, _The Analects of Confucius_ has shaped the thought and customs of China and neighboring countries for centuries. Burton Watson's concise translation uses the pinyin romanization system and keeps explanatory notes to a minimum, yet his intimate knowledge of the Confucian tradition and precise attention to linguistic detail capture the original text's elegance, cogency, and wit. (shrink)

Xunzi asserted that the original nature of man is evil, differing on this point from Mencius, his famous predecessor in the Confucian school. In the most complete, well-ordered philosophical system of his day, Xunzi advocated the counteraction of man's evil through self-improvement, the pursuit of learning, the avoidance of obsession, and observance of ritual in life. Readers familiar with Xunzi's work will find that Burton Watson's lucid translation breathes new life into this classic. Those new to Xunzi will find (...) his ideas on government, language, and order and safety in society surprisingly close to concerns of our own age. (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

The Architectonics of Meaning is a lucid demonstration of the purposes, methods, and implications of philosophical semantics that both supports and builds on Richard McKeon's and other noted pluralists' convictions that multiple philosophical approaches are viable. Watson ingeniously explores ways to systematize these approaches, and the result is a well-structured instrument for understanding texts. This book exemplifies both general and particular aspects of systematic pluralism, reorienting our understanding of the realms of knowing, doing, and making.

The New Transnational Activism shows how even the most prosaic activities can assume broader political meanings when they provide ordinary people with the experience of crossing transnational space. This means that we cannot be satisfied with defining transnational activists through the ways they think. The defining feature of transnationalism in this book is relational, and not cognitive. This emphasis on activism's relational structure means that even as they make transnational claims, transnational activists draw on the resources, the networks, and the (...) opportunities in which they are embedded, and only then - if at all - on more distant transnational links. But we can no more sharply draw a line between domestic and international politics in studying transnational activism than we could ignore local politics in studying its national equivalent. Understanding the processes that link the local, the national and the international is the major undertaking of the book. (shrink)

In this paper I will focus on what might be meant by fairness in a democratic regime. There may be more general fairness criteria applicable to any political system, democratic or authoritarian, but fairness in relation to political decisions is especially central in a democracy. Democratic regimes are supposed to be run by the citizenry, or at least the citizenry ought to be the ultimate authority. Democracies depend on legitimacy to function effectively; only when a regime is considered legitimate can (...) it rule by consent rather than coercion. Democratic regimes cannot rely on coercion to govern and long remain democratic. Thus, public acceptance is important. This also explains why the public determination of what is fair, both as a matter of principle and in the evaluation of particular actions of particular governments, is central in democratic rule. (shrink)

The reference of the postmodern task of thinking is Auschwitz, the abyss and discontinuity separating us from the world of our ancestors. As inhabitants of Planet Auschwitz our point of reference lacks all transcendental warrants; it is not a non-referable reference which constitutes the abyss we must enter, endure, and in which our intellectual and cultural tradition must be transformed. The private/public transformations which constitute the texts of this book attempt to depart from the dystopic individuality and public life resulting (...) from business-as-usual after Auschwitz. The three parts of the book are progressive reworkings of traditional metaphysics as adapted and modified by a modernism that refuses to grapple with its complicity. It is precisely that complicity which postmodern thinking takes up in its attempt to signify otherwise than the easy modernist translations and images of tradition. Thus it is a series of uneasy images imaging otherwise but never apart from modernity that take us away from complicity toward a transformed tradition. The uneasy images of this book are photogrammic combinations of photographs and texts, mutual supplements, pulling tradition through the Event against the persistent and murderous forces of contemporary idolatry and repression. (shrink)

Compiling in one volume the basic writings of these three seminal thinkers of ancient China, each from a different philosophical school, this book reveals the richness and diversity of the ancient Chinese intellectual world.

This collection addresses whether ethicists, like authorities in other fields, can speak as experts in their subject matter. Though ethics consultation is a growing practice in medical contexts, there remain difficult questions about the role of ethicists in professional decision-making. Contributors examine the nature and plausibility of moral expertise, the relationship between character and expertise, the nature and limits of moral authority, how one might become a moral expert, and the trustworthiness of moral testimony. This volume engages with the growing (...) literature in these debates and offers new perspectives from both academics and practitioners. The readings will be of particular interest to bioethicists, clinicians, ethics committees, and students of social epistemology. These new essays promise to advance discussions in the professionalization and accreditation of ethics consultation. (shrink)

Development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa propose to alleviate hunger in rural areas by introducing new agricultural practices and technologies, yet there is limited empirical evidence of how an agricultural intervention can lead farming households to transition to food security. Research on food security pathways considers agricultural interventions that increase farmers’ income to be particularly effective for reducing food insecurity. Consistent with this stance, Malawian agricultural policy aims to address hunger by encouraging smallholder farmers to intensify and commercialize maize production. This (...) paper explores if smallholders’ market and livelihood orientations do indeed lead them to favor an income pathway to food security. Qualitative analysis of 60 smallholder farmer interviews in Malawi found that, upon achieving improvements in production yields and diversity, rather than commercialize, many farmers re-organized their production and consumption to reduce market dependency. Farmers deployed this strategy to increase their food security, explaining that the choice to self-provision food and farming inputs was both an expression of farming identity and a lived understanding of their marginal position in commodity markets. The author finds that, in failing to consider how production relations affect food access, scholarship inadequately theorizes farm-level food security transitions and reproduces discursive framings of hunger. Food sovereignty narratives more accurately captured what mattered for Malawian smallholders’ food security, suggesting that engagement with this concept could improve scientific understandings of food security transitions. (shrink)

This article attempts to determine whether there exists a coherent, plausible, and ultimately compelling explication of what it is to act neutrally. I argue that there is – an account I label neutrality of volition, and according to which an actor acts non-neutrally where she either acts for the purpose of differentially helping or hindering a particular party in a given contest, or acts or in the belief that there is a substantial likelihood that her action will have this effect. (...) Along the way, I suggest that political philosophers concerned with whether justice requires that the state’s laws and policies be publicly justifiable, as well as legal commentators who note that oftentimes laws of general application have disparate impacts, would do well to cease framing their arguments in the language of neutrality. I conclude by arguing that debate over the proper interpretation of neutrality is not merely a matter of semantics. Having identified an account of neutrality that aligns with our ordinary understanding of the concept, and which is also internally consistent, we have access to a conceptual tool that we can use to make better sense of a wide array of actions in the political sphere and beyond, while also avoiding an unhelpful conflation of neutrality with distinct concepts such as fairness, public justifiability, anti-perfectionism, equal impact, and non-discrimination. (shrink)

What is the right thing to do? -- "You have nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong" -- Between culpable and blameless -- Are all mistakes equal? -- Report, disclose, protect, learn -- A just culture in your organization -- The criminalization of human error -- Is criminalization bad for safety? -- Without prosecutors, there would be no crime -- Three questions for your just culture -- Why do we blame?

John Dewey and the spirit of pragmatism, by H. M. Kallen.--Dewey and art, by I. Edman.--Instrumantalism and the history of philosophy, by G. Boas.--Culture and personality, by L. K. Frank.--Social inquiry and social doctrine, by H. L. Friess.--Dewey's theories of legal reasoning and valuation, by S. Ratner.--John Dewey and education, by J. L. Childs.--Dewey's revision of Jefferson, by M. R. Konvitz.--Laity and prelacy in American democracy, by H. W. Schneider.--Organized labor and the Dewey philosophy, by M. Starr.--The desirable and emotive (...) in Dewey's ethics, by S. Hook.--John Dewey's theory of inquiry, by F. Kaufman.--Dewey's theory of natural science, by E. Nagel.--Concerning a certain Deweyan conception of metaphysics, by A. Hofstadter.--Dewey's theory of language and meaning, by P. D. Wienpahl.--Language, rules, and behavior, by W. Sellars.--The analytic and the synthetic: an untenable dualism, by M. G. White.--John Dewey and Karl Marx, by J. Cork.--Dewey in Mexico, by J. T. Farrell. (shrink)

Ethical issues are pivotal to the practice of psychiatry. Anyone involved in psychiatric practice and mental healthcare has to be aware of the range of ethical issues relevant to their profession. An increased professional commitment to accountability, in parallel with a growing "consumer" movement has paved the way for a creative engagement with the ethical movement. The bestselling 'Psychiatric Ethics' has carved out a niche for itself as the major comprehensive text and core reference in the field, covering a range (...) of complex ethical dilemmas which face clinicians and researchers in their everyday practice. This new edition takes a fresh look at recent trends and developments at the interface between ethics and psychiatric practice. Coming ten years after the third edition, the editors have observed several emerging aspects of psychiatric practice requiring coverage, as a result, 5 new chapters have been added, including cutting edge topics - such as neuroethics. All other chapters have been fully revised and updated. The book will continue to be essential reading for psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, and bioethicists, as well as of interest to policy makers, managers and lawyers. (shrink)

Physics, the fundamental science of matter and energy, encompasses all levels of nature from the subatomic to the cosmic, and underlies much of the technology around us. Understanding the physics of our universe is an essential aspect of humanity's quest to understand our environment and our place within it. Doing physics enables us to explore the interaction between environment and human society, and can help us to work towards the future sustainability of the planet. This Very Short Introduction provides an (...) overview of how this pervasive science came to be and how it works: who funds it, how physicists are trained and how they think, and how physics supports the technology we all use. Sidney Perkowitz presents the theories and outcomes of pure and applied physics from ideas of the Greek natural philosophers to modern quantum mechanics, cosmology, digital electronics and energy production. Considering its most consequential experiments, including recent results in elementary particles, gravitational waves and materials science, he also discusses outside the lab, the effects of physics on society, culture, and humanity's vision of its place in the universe. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

In the rationalist tradition in ethics, the emotions are morally suspect. In a corrective swing of the pendulum, burgeoning philosophical interest is “rehabilitating” the emotions in ethical decisionmaking. The emotions and reason should be mutually correcting resources in moral reflection.

Philosophical discussions of psychopathy have been framed primarily in terms of psychopaths' conspicuous moral shortcomings. But despite their vaunted ‘egocentricity’, another prominent trait in the standard psychopathic profile is a characteristic failure to look after themselves; in an important way, psychopaths appear to be as careless of themselves as they are of others. Assuming that the standard profile is largely correct, the question is how these moral and prudential deficits are related. Are they linked in some non‐accidental way? This paper (...) is a sympathetic exploration and articulation of the hypothesis that psychopathy involves an incapacity for critical distance from from one's own impulses and inclinations, an incapacity that would explain the lack of both prudential and moral regard. (shrink)