This study examines the outcomes of a four-year faculty learning community (FLC) that aimed to transform departmental ethics curriculum by supporting Earth Sciences faculty members as they ethically inquired into their teaching of ethics and refined existing courses in alignment with an Integrated Community-Engaged Learning and Ethical Reflection (ICELER) framework. We present ethnographic case studies that unpack processes through which three faculty members transformed undergraduate courses. We assembled case studies by triangulating interview data, course artifacts, and faculty reflections. We examine (...) how faculty (1) built awareness around teaching ethics, (2) took responsibility for and made judgments about teaching ethics, (3) experimented by designing and implementing ICELER-inspired courses, and (4) interrogated the outcomes of their ethics teaching, utilizing findings to enhance awareness and revise courses. The paper closes by introducing a model detailing how instructors inquire into ethics teaching and how model components might inspire future educational practice and research. (shrink)

The integration of biomedical terminologies is indispensable to the process of information integration. When terminologies are linked merely through the alignment of their leaf terms, however, differences in context and ontological structure are ignored. Making use of the SNAP and SPAN ontologies, we show how three reference domain ontologies can be integrated at a higher level, through what we shall call the OBR framework (for: Ontology of Biomedical Reality). OBR is designed to facilitate inference across the boundaries of domain ontologies (...) in anatomy, physiology and pathology. (shrink)

Contemporary organismic and bio-social accounts of human behavior consider physical and psychological concepts as alternative or complementary linguistic descriptions of the same subject matter. The notion of complementarity is an important part of the organismic physicalistic synthesis which replaces the old duels between mechanism and vitalism, between physiology and psychology. The concept of complementarity comes from Bohr's solution for the difficulty of reconciling classical mechanics with quantum mechanics. He suggested that they are parallel and complementary rather than contradictory ways of (...) looking at the universe. The continuity of the energy transfer according to the electromagnetic theory and the atomicity of light effects are “complementary aspects of one reality in the sense that each expresses an important feature of the phenomena of light, which, although irreconcilable from a mechanical point of view, can never be in direct contradiction, since a closer analysis of one or the other feature in mechanical terms would demand mutually exclusive experimental arrangements”. (shrink)

The present study examined gender and attitude toward science in fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States and also assessed to what extent the relationship between science attitude and science achievement differed by gender. Results showed that both fourth- and eighth-grade boys demonstrated more confidence in science than girls, while eighth-grade boys also showed greater liking for science than girls. Additionally, gender moderated the relationship between science achievement and (a) liking science (for fourth-grade students) and (b) confidence in science (...) (eighth-grade students). Results are discussed in terms of addressing gender inequities in science education and career opportunities. (shrink)

The following statement from James’ 1884 essay in Mind is repeated in his later work and appears often in secondary sources as a summary of his celebrated theory of the emotions:Our natural way of thinking about these standard emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the Perception (...) of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry, and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily manifestation must first be interposed between, and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful as the case may be. Without the bodily states following on the perception the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it right to strike, but we would not actually feel afraid or angry. (shrink)

In a 1959 essay written in honor of the Dewey Centennial Charles L. Stevenson stated.

The value of any kind of data is greatly enhanced when it exists in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data. One approach to integration is through the annotation of multiple bodies of data using common controlled vocabularies or ‘ontologies’. Unfortunately, the very success of this approach has led to a proliferation of ontologies which itself creates obstacles to integration. The Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) consortium has set in train a strategy to overcome this problem. Existing (...) OBO ontologies, including the Gene Ontology, are undergoing a process of coordinated reform and new ontologies being created on the basis of an evolving set of shared principles governing ontology development. The result is an expanding family of ontologies designed to be interoperable, logically well-formed, and to incorporate accurate representations of biological reality. We describe the OBO Foundry initiative, and provide guidelines for those who might wish to become involved. (shrink)

Cette étude veut montrer que le contraste tranché entre connaissance et évaluation, fort répandu dans la pensée philosophique, d’après lequel on soutient que la connaissance atteint la réalité, tandis que, dit-on, l’évaluation n’exprime que le moi, est une thèse impossible à défendre en raison des ressemblances significatives et importantes que l’on peut trouver entre connaissance et évaluation. Bien que connaissance et évaluation ne soient pas identifiées, l’on soutient que l’évaluation n’est pas moins en contact avec son ordre de réalité que (...) ne l’est la connaissance avec le type de réalité qui lui est propre. (shrink)

Después de haber subrayado las tres dificultades de la definición aristotélica de virtud --el oxímoron hexisproairetiké como aporía central, el equilibrio difícil entre phrórimos y lagos, y la impresión enigmática de ese "en cuanto a nosotros" en relación con el cual todo se juega- el A. muestra que su elucidación otorga asimismo su pleno sentido al proyecto de autonomía que está en el corazón de su obra. Este proyecto, como cualquier otro proyecto filosófico, no podría fundamentarse ni legitimarse a priori. (...) Pero es el único que abre la libertad humana a su dimensión verdadera: a saber, la posición /aceptación de formas nuevas. Lo que no exime de examinar su coherencia interna ni de buscar sus portadores reales en la sociedad. (shrink)

This article discusses the work of Cornelius Castoriadis, an important political thinker and theorist of democracy. Castoriadis developed not one but two theories of democracy based on two distinct understandings of autonomy. The first is compatible with the key features of representative government; the second is not. Unfortunately, Castoriadis models his interpretation of the idea of popular sovereignty on the second view, thereby concluding, like Rousseau before him, that it is incompatible with representative government. This article discusses both approaches (...) and presents a reinterpretation of political representation and of the idea of popular sovereignty in order to show how they can be made compatible. I argue that the discourse of popular sovereignty and the modern principles of representative government entail one another. (shrink)

jild-i 1. Āzādī va marzʹhāyash -- jild-i 2. Istiqlāl (farhangī).

Recent preclinical studies have shown the feasibility of specific variants of nuclear transfer to prevent mitochondrial DNA disorders. Nuclear transfer could be a valuable reproductive option for carriers of mitochondrial mutations. A clinical application of nuclear transfer, however, would entail germ-line modification, more specifically a germ-line modification of the mitochondrial genome. One of the most prominent objections against germ-line modification is the fear that it would become possible to alter ‘essential characteristics’ of a future person, thereby possibly violating the child's (...) right to an open future. As only the nuclear DNA would contain the ingredients for individual characteristics, modification of the mtDNA is often considered less controversial than modification of the nuclear DNA. This paper discusses the tenability of this dichotomy. After having clarified the concept of germ-line modification, it argues that modification of the mtDNA is not substantively different from modification of the nuclear DNA in terms of its effects on the identity of the future person. Subsequently the paper assesses how this conclusion affects the moral evaluation of nuclear transfer to prevent mtDNA disorders. It concludes that the moral acceptability of germ-line modification does not depend on whether it alters the identity of the future child—all germ-line modifications do—but on whether it safeguards the child's right to an open future. If nuclear transfer to prevent mtDNA disorders becomes safe and effective, then dismissing it because it involves germ-line modification is unjustified. (shrink)

This paper explores the use of an ethics framework based on the Public Health Code of Ethics to guide rationing decisions during a pandemic flu crisis involving a shortage of ventilators. While the law provides public health officials with authority to act, public health officials, as community leaders and health department managers, must address complex questions about how they should use their legal authority, how they can ethically justify a particular action, how they should engage community stakeholders in decision making, (...) and how the process of public justification should take place. Recognising the need for a tool that could help public health officials manage ethical tensions in practice, such as allocation of scarce resources, the Public Health Leadership Society led efforts to develop a Public Health Code of Ethics. The 12 Principles in the Code were written to express the general norms implicit in the practice of public health professionals. The Code offers no hierarchical weighting of the different principles and anticipates that weights and specification of the principles would take place in the context of each community through a process of engagement between public health officials and community stakeholders about specific cases. We describe how public health officials can use the Code to guide deliberation in helping communities prepare to address the tragic choices when allocating scarce ventilators in an influenza pandemic. (shrink)

В книге продолжается обсуждение тем, представленных в труде "Психология нравственности", изданном в 2010 году. Авторы обсуждают пути решения проблем и преодоления переживаемого нашим обществом глубокого нравственного кризиса.

Издание содержит: теоретические основания субъектного подхода в психологии; основные направления психологического анализа; экспериментальные исследования психологии субъекта и др.

Discussion of the concept of evil in Indian philosophy.