In this paper, the author shows how research ethics committees must deal with illegality in the research protocol. He defines their legal duty by reference to the 2001 Clinical Trials Directive, and especially in the key areas of insurance, indemnity and no-fault compensation. The author is critical of the current GAfREC and recent guidelines issued by the Royal College of Physicians. He concludes that new rules are needed to replace the 2001 edition of GAfREC.

This article is a response to the public consultation on the draft Code of Practice issued by the Human Tissue Authority on the import and export of human bodies, body parts and tissue. The question is whether the Draft Code and the Human Tissue Act go far enough to prevent the unethical acquisition and movement of human tissue. I conclude that the answer to this question is ‘no’ and go on to demonstrate how the identified deficiencies can be remedied.

In this paper the author argues that the Academy of Medical Sciences's ‘Review of the regulation and governance of medical research’ has produced a set of muddled recommendations that could increase complexity and uncertainty in research governance rather than reduce it. Issues discussed in the paper include the additional legal burden placed upon the newly proposed Health Research Agency by the plan for a National Research Governance Service and its system of centralized permissions, the consequences that this may have for (...) the research ethics committees in the discharge of their legal duty, and the unanswered questions surrounding the TGN1412 incident. (shrink)

In this article, the author contends that the current indemnity provided to REC members is unfair and is so badly drafted that it cannot be described as an indemnity at all. He contends that the Appointing Authorities should give guidance to clarify the scope of the indemnity or replace it. The author discusses potential legal claims by REC members against their Appointing Authority if this is not provided. The legal liability of REC members for negligence and other claims is also (...) discussed. The author provides a solution in a simpler form of indemnity framed by reference to actual claims that can be made against a REC member. (shrink)

In the summer of 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, an event which led to the horror of World War I and which many historians suggest marked the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1992, Sarajevo again lurched into prominence as the focal point of one of the century’s bloodiest civil wars. Yet Sarajevo at one point epitomized the dreams of the Enlightenment, a city where Christians, Jews, and Muslims peacefully coexisted. In the midst of Sarajevo’s recent decline (...) into chaos and destruction, Susan Sontag decided to produce Act I of Waiting for Godot, which, despite ever-looming danger, played to packed houses. Why? Why did this city of hope lie crushed at the end of the twentieth century? Why did Sontag stage an artistic production in the middle of such overwhelming tragedy? Why Waiting for Godot ? And, most important, why the appreciative, silent tears of audience members who risked their lives to attend a play in the middle of a war?These are the questions that guide David Toole’s theological reflections in Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo, where he seeks to come to terms with what it means to live a life of dignity in a world of undeniable suffering. Toole skillfully weaves together Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on nihilism with Michel Foucault’s analysis of power to produce a metaphysics of tragedy, or a “politics of dying.” Such politics are then used to shed new theological light on the Christian apocalypse and what it means to be alive at the end of the twentieth century. In making his argument, Toole draws innovative connections between such diverse figures as John Milbank, Alasdair MacIntyre, Euripides, John Howard Yoder, and Norman Maclean (author of A River Runs Through It and Young Men and Fire ), all the while using Beckett’s play as a compass for his direction. The end result is a fascinating, eminently readable, unexpectedly adventurous theological inquiry into the meaning of life. (shrink)

This collection brings together eighteen of the author's original papers, previously published in a variety of academic journals and edited collections over the last three decades, on the process of interpretation in literature and the visual arts in one comprehensive volume. The volume highlights the centrality of artistic texts to the study of multimodality, organized into six sections each representing a different modality or semiotic system, including literature, television, film, painting, sculpture, and architecture. A new introduction lays the foundation for (...) the theoretically based method of analysis running through each of the chapters, one that emphasizes the interplay of textual details and larger thematic purposes to create an open-ended and continuous approach to the interpretation of artistic texts, otherwise known as the "hermeneutic spiral". Showcasing Michael O'Toole's extensive contributions to the field of multimodality and in his research on interpretation in literature and the visual arts, this book is essential reading for students and scholars in multimodality, visual arts, art history, film studies, and comparative literature. (shrink)

Energy and Social Change results from the Twenty Year Forecast Project, directed by the author and conducted trhough the University of Southern California Center for Futures Research. Unlike many more gloomy predictions, this study takes a step back from pessimism. It offers instead a realistic perspective tempered with a modicum of optimism.The report's special contribution to the energy debate lies in its call for a redirection of attention to options that are realizable within the framework--and the limits--of the existing system. (...) Advocating higher energy prices and more incentives for increased competition in the domestic energy market, the author supports a resurgence of the free enterprise system. The price of energy will and should increase in order to control waste, although the rise in costs will be mitigated by the gradual pace. In the long term, however, we should strive for a "quality economy" characterized in part by its reduced inefficiency and more meaningful jobs. Three of the ways in which this might be accomplished are shifting to an electrically based economy, developing alternative forms of energy, and switching to technologies more appropriate to the future environment.Sure to generate discussion, this analysis will prove useful in considerations of energy policy and the social impact of technological change. (shrink)

OF all the things that Plato was, he was primarily a philosopher and a metaphysician. Should this statement seem merely to emphasize the obvious; then let us explain why so simple a statement should rate special mention. There have always been those who are too willing to look upon the author of the ‘Theory of Ideas’ as an artist, a mystic, a poet but not a metaphysician. In this view, Plato’s Ideas are understandable only through the analysis of the personality (...) of an artist; it is a view which interjects far too much of the subjective into what must be seen as the objective ground for his whole philosophy. The possibility of such conflicting views on Plato can be explained by the fact that nowhere does Plato present in his writings a truly definitive Theory of Ideas and a workable proof for them. Some like Stewart require the assistance of psychology to examine Plato. Fite, on a priori grounds, makes a feeble attempt to take Plato out of the realm of any metaphysics whatsoever. Grote confuses reason and myth until nothing remains of Plato but a kind of mixed-up jumble. Others, of course, are loyal to the commitments of a critic and endeavour to discover the meaning of Plato and to present it fairly and honestly. (shrink)

Abstract. Intelligent Tutoring System Builder (ITSB) is an authoring tool designed and developed to aid teachers in constructing intelligent tutoring systems in a multidisciplinary fields. The teacher is needed to create a set of pedagogical fundamentals, which, in line, are inured to automatically build up a broad tutor framework and construct an intelligent tutoring system. In this paper an explanation of the theory and the architecture of the tool is outlined. A presentation of several system components, the (...) requirements of the different components, integration of these components in ITSB tool are shown. Furthermore, implanting of requirements, cognitive principle, and common design fundamentals in the tool to ease the use of teachers. A variety of design matters, an example of building an intelligent tutoring system for teaching Java language using ITSB tool and an evaluation are presented. (shrink)

Document assembly and other substantive legal practice applications are the most knowledge-intense forms of software now widely available in the legal technology marketplace. This article provides an illustrative look at two contemporary practice system engines-CAPS and Scrivener-and examines their relevance for AI-and-law researchers.

BackgroundThere is evidence that direct journal endorsement of reporting guidelines can lead to important improvements in the quality and reliability of the published research. However, over the last 20 years, there has been a proliferation of reporting guidelines for different study designs, making it impractical for a journal to explicitly endorse them all. The objective of this study was to investigate whether a decision tree tool made available during the submission process facilitates author identification of the relevant reporting guideline.MethodsThis (...) was a prospective 14-week before–after study across four speciality medical research journals. During the submission process, authors were prompted to follow the relevant reporting guideline from the EQUATOR Network and asked to confirm that they followed the guideline (‘before’). After 7 weeks, this prompt was updated to include a direct link to the decision-tree tool and an additional prompt for those authors who stated that ‘no guidelines were applicable’ (‘after’). For each article submitted, the authors’ response, what guideline they followed (if any) and what reporting guideline they should have followed (including none relevant) were recorded.ResultsOverall, 590 manuscripts were included in this analysis—300 in the before cohort and 290 in the after. There were relevant reporting guidelines for 75% of manuscripts in each group; STROBE was the most commonly applicable reporting guideline, relevant for 35% (n = 106) and 37% (n = 106) of manuscripts, respectively. Use of the tool was associated with an 8.4% improvement in the number of authors correctly identifying the relevant reporting guideline for their study (p < 0.0001), a 14% reduction in the number of authors incorrectly stating that there were no relevant reporting guidelines (p < 0.0001), and a 1.7% reduction in authors choosing a guideline (p = 0.10). However, the ‘after’ cohort also saw a significant increase in the number of authors stating that there were relevant reporting guidelines for their study, but not specifying which (34 vs 29%; p = 0.04).ConclusionThis study suggests that use of a decision-tree tool during submission of a manuscript is associated with improved author identification of the relevant reporting guidelines for their study type; however, the majority of authors still failed to correctly identify the relevant guidelines. (shrink)

This volume brings historians of science and social historians together to consider the role of "little tools"--such as tables, reports, questionnaires, dossiers, index cards--in establishing academic and bureaucratic claims to authority and objectivity. From at least the eighteenth century onward, our science and society have been planned, surveyed, examined, and judged according to particular techniques of collecting and storing knowledge. Recently, the seemingly self-evident nature of these mundane epistemic and administrative tools, as well as the prose in which they are (...) cast, has demanded historical examination. The essays gathered here, arranged in chronological order by subject from the late seventeenth to the late twentieth century, involve close readings of primary texts and analyses of academic and bureaucratic practices as parts of material culture. The first few essays, on the early modern period, largely point to the existence of a "juridico-theological" framework for establishing authority. Later essays demonstrate the eclipse of the role of authority per se in the modern period and the emergence of the notion of "objectivity." Most of the essays here concern the German cultural space as among the best exemplars of the academic and bureaucratic practices described above. The introduction to the volume, however, is framed at a general level the closing essays also extend the analyses beyond Germany to broader considerations on authority and objectivity in historical practice. The volume will interest scholars of European history and German studies as well as historians of science. Peter Becker is Professor of Central European History, European University Institute. William Clark is Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University. (shrink)

Agents act on the basis of their beliefs and these beliefs change as they interact with other agents. In this book the authors propose and explain general logical tools for handling change. These tools include preferential reasoning, theory revision, and reasoning in inheritance systems, and the authors use these tools to examine nonmonotonic logic, deontic logic, counterfactuals, modal logic, intuitionistic logic, and temporal logic. This book will be of benefit to researchers engaged with artificial intelligence, and in particular agents, multiagent (...) systems and nonmonotonic logic. (shrink)

The only subtype of epistemic agent currently recognized within scientonomy is community. The place of both individuals and epistemic tools in the scientonomic ontology is yet to be clarified. This paper extends the scientonomic ontology to include epistemic agents and epistemic tools as well as their relationship to one another. Epistemic agent is defined as an agent capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements. These stances must be taken intentionally, that is, based on a semantic understanding of the epistemic (...) element in question and its available alternatives, with reason, and for the purpose of acquiring knowledge. I argue that there can be both communal and individual epistemic agents. Epistemic agents are linked by relationships of authority delegation based on their differing areas of expertise. Having established the role of epistemic agents in the process of scientific change, I then turn to the role of epistemic tools, such as a thermometer, a text, or a particle accelerator in epistemic activities. I argue that epistemic tools play a different role in scientific change than do epistemic agents. This role is specified by an agent’s employed method. A physical object or system is an epistemic tool for some epistemic agent if there is a procedure by which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge for answering some question under the employed method of the agent. An agent is said to rely on such a tool. (shrink)

Business theory suggests that knowledge intensive professionslike law would devote major attention to knowledge management (KM) activities. Afterall, since a firm's combined knowledge is a key differentiating asset, one wouldexpect the exploitation of that asset to be a high priority. Yet new lawyers are oftensurprised at how little of such activities take place within firms. One might also expect tofind rich connections between academic research in knowledge management and law firmsusing that research. The rarity of such connections stands in sharp (...) contrast to thebreadth and depth of use of substantive legal research and analysis. These disappointmentsare not unrelated: a firm that allocates little time to systems for leveraging its intellectualcontent is unlikely to invest in staying up to date with externalresearch relating to such systems.The authors believe that significant progress nonetheless may bemade both in applying KM methodologies to law firm work and better connecting theacademic and practice sectors. To those ends, this article explores three theses: (1)Legal technologists can and should lead by example in utilizing KM tools and methods; (2) Theeconomics of legal practice still pose substantial challenges to even those knowledge technologies considered by some as truly ``disruptive''; and (3) Focussing onareas that could yield a tremendous economic harvest may help forge richer connections betweenthe work being done in academic and practice spheres. (shrink)

This manuscript discusses the author’s experience implementing a secularized version of Lectio Divina, a medieval monastic contemplative reading practice, in an introductory philosophy classroom. Following brief discussion of Lectio Divina’s history and a description of how the practice was modified for the classroom, I discuss three benefits (increased attention to cognitive and noncognitive reactions to the text, willingness to engage with the material in novel ways, and the opportunity to engage in independent disciplinary practice) and three potential challenges (the time (...) required, student engagement, and the practice’s perceived religiosity) arising from the exercise. Following this, I discuss potential modifications to the exercise that instructors may wish to consider, namely strategies for addressing students’ status as novice meditators, focusing textual selections on course materials, and having students engage in some aspects of the practice as homework. (shrink)

The authors believe there is a need for novel ways of enhancing professional judgment and discretion in the contemporary healthcare environment. The objective is to provide a framework to guide a discursive analysis of an ongoing clinical scenario by a small group of healthcare professionals to achieve consensual understanding in the decision-making necessary to resolve specific healthcare inadequacies and promote organisational learning. REPVAD is an acronym for the framework’s five decision-making dimensions of reasoning, evidence, procedures, values, attitudes and defences. The (...) design is set out in terms of well-defined definitions of the dimensions, a rationale for using REPVAD, and explications of dimensions one at a time. Furthermore, the REPVAD process of application to a scenario is set out, and a didactic scenario is given to show how REPVAD works together with a sample case. A discussion is fleshed out in four real life student cases, and a conclusion indicates strengths and weaknesses and the possibility of further development and transferability. In terms of findings, the model has been tried, tested and refined over a number of years in the development of advanced practitioners at university healthcare faculties in two European countries. Consent was obtained from the four participating students. (shrink)

Here is my thesis (and the outline of this paper). Increasingly secret, complex and inscrutable computational systems are being used to intensify existing power relations, and to create new ones (Section II). To be all-things-considered morally permissible, new, or newly intense, power relations must in general meet standards of procedural legitimacy and proper authority (Section III). Legitimacy and authority constitutively depend, in turn, on a publicity requirement: reasonably competent members of the political community in which power is being exercised must (...) be able to determine that power is being exercised legitimately and with proper authority (Section IV). The publicity requirement can be satisfied only if the powerful can explain their decision-making—including the computational tools that they use to support it—to members of their political community. Section V applies these ideas to opaque computational systems. Section VI addresses objections; Section VII concludes. (shrink)

Returning genomic research results to family members raises complex questions. Genomic research on life-limiting conditions such as cancer, and research involving storage and reanalysis of data and specimens long into the future, makes these questions pressing. This author group, funded by an NIH grant, published consensus recommendations presenting a framework. This follow-up paper offers concrete guidance and tools for implementation. The group collected and analyzed relevant documents and guidance, including tools from the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium. The authors then (...) negotiated a consensus toolkit of processes and documents. That toolkit offers sample consent and notification documents plus decision flow-charts to address return of results to family of living and deceased participants, in adult and pediatric research. Core concerns are eliciting participant preferences on sharing results with family and on choice of a representative to make decisions about sharing after participant death. (shrink)

This last result leads, rather naturally, to some concluding observations and a series of questions for further investigation. These case studies show that in all of the sites examined, the institutionalization of molecular biology as a “discipline” was primarily driven by the need to separate groups of practitioners with divergent but overlapping interests within the local context. Thus molecular biology was contingently separated from agricultural or medical biochemistry, virology, work on the physiology of nucleic acids, and so forth for contingent (...) local institutional reasons. This makes it even more pressing to try to understand how molecular biology came to be delimited on a larger scale. How did it come to be a discipline with specific intellectual content (or did it?), including some problems, tools, and practices and excluding others? How did it gain authority as the forefront biological science by the mid-1960s? We need to understand the ways in which the tensions between different practices, projects, aims, understandings of the goals of molecular biology, and so on were resolved, on what scale and in what venues, so that something approximating the political character of a discipline, rather than a federation, was achieved. If these case studies provide a sound starting point, it will nevertheless prove difficult to answer the interconnected questions implicit here satisfactorily.One means of getting at such questions that should prove of considerable interest is to examine carefully the work of those who were widely cited in the papers of the late fifties through the mid-seventies by the people now considered major founders of molecular biology. By studying the contributions of those who are now omitted in the standard histories and recollections, we will gain a clearer sense of the possibilities that were open as molecular biology took shape. It is already widely recognized that the contributions of a number of biochemists have been given short shrift, but (as the example of Ernest Gale in Rheinberger's study illustrates) there are a great many more figures whose line of work were then crucial but who are now overlooked.6 To understand both what molecular biology was at the time of its early institutionalization and what is has become, it will be enormously helpful to understand at what point the definition or ideology “hardened” and the grounds for inclusion and exclusion of individuals and lines of work were reformed. Studies of this sort are appropriate in many other areas as well, of course; in general, they should different histories, political standing, and institutional bases of those disciplines in their national cultures. It is likely (but a matter for investigation!) that such differences influenced the opportunities for introducing new bench practices, if in no other way than by delimiting the niches within which certain practices could be initiated.7 And since new practices can fail to achieve their objectives, can transform the direction of work and disciplinary allegiances of their practitioners, can lead to only routine results, or can open up important new vistas, the character of the available niches from which to work can prove to have a strong influence on the direction that new work takes if and when it starts to flourish. A key aspect of this problematic (not yet adequately studied, I believe) is the problem of drawing boundaries between different kinds of work and determining where each should fit among established disciplines and/or within some new construct. To the extent that an “international” solution is ultimately achieved to such problems, it must surely be achieved in light of initially different ways of dealing with it in different countries.Underlying work of the sort we have been exploring is the thorny problem of how best to contextualize the work being studied. This, I believe, is one of the major historiographic problems that we must face in the history of science. It is by no means a new problem, of course, but a particularization of the age-old problem of the (seeming) overdetermination of historical events. If we deal with local cultures, to understand how they develop and their fate we need to understand their location within larger cultures. But it is utterly unclear how to draw appropriate boundaries on the relevant larger culture(s). As even this brief discussion has shown, institutional cultures, the cultures of sponsoring agencies, “the” culture of science (or of biological science, physical science, etc., as appropriate), and national cultures all can provide relevant contexts, all can occasionally determine the fate of work undertaken in a particular local context. The potentially intractable problem of delimiting the boundaries of investigation looms large here, but it is one that must be faced explicity if we are to profit fully from the enormously stimulating investigations of local cultures exemplified in the four papers published in this symposium. My own view is that we have no abstract standard available for determining which boundaries are appropriate to a given study, and, indeed, that no single contextualization is adequate to the examination of any given case, but that, nonetheless, we can (at least sometimes) distinguish useful and explanatory delimitations of the larger context from others that prove to be misleading.Against this background, I hope that the four papers published in this special issue will stimulate the readers of the JHB to carry out similar studies—that is, studies that seek to characterize and contextualize local experimental cultures —over a wide range of cases. I also hope that some of those who take up this challenge will deal with the larger questions raised by the need to find a way of balancing different, sometimes competing, contextualizations of such studies. The fact that any given case requires multiple contextualizations, resulting in multifaceted representations no one of which is alone adequate, will surely land us in fascinating, hopefully fruitful and productive, controversies. (shrink)

This article develops the notion of resistance as articulated in the literature of critical pedagogy as being both culturally sponsored and cognitively manifested. To do so, the authors draw upon John Dewey's conception of tools for inquiry. Dewey provides a way to conceptualize student resistance not as a form of willful disputation, but instead as a function of socialization into cultural models of thought that actively truncate inquiry. In other words, resistance can be construed as the cognitive and emotive dimensions (...) of the ongoing failure of institutions to provide ideas that help individuals both recognize social problems and imagine possible solutions. Focusing on Dewey's epistemological framework, specifically tools for inquiry, provides a way to grasp this problem. It also affords some innovative solutions; for instance, it helps conceive of possible links between the regular curriculum and the study of specific social justice issues, a relationship that is often under-examined. The aims of critical pedagogy depend upon students developing dexterity with the conceptual tools they use to make meaning of the evidence they confront; these are background skills that the regular curriculum can be made to serve even outside social justice-focused curricula. Furthermore, the article concludes that because such inquiry involves the exploration and potential revision of students' world-ordering beliefs, developing flexibility in how one thinks may be better achieved within academic subjects and topics that are not so intimately connected to students' current social lives, especially where students may be directly implicated. (shrink)

This article, based on a presentation at the Future of the History of the Human Sciences workshop, discusses some of the potential benefits and pitfalls of digital humanities tools and approaches for historians of the human sciences. It reviews some of the major approaches that form DH and draws on the author’s experience as part of a team creating a large DH resource to consider the complications presented by these.

I argue that, because God is the author of history and has a purpose for his creation, evolution has a plot and can be analyzed with tools drawn from literary criticism. This necessitates engagement with the “epic of evolution” genre of scientific literature. I survey several prominent versions of the epic and distinguish between a purely naturalistic epic of evolution and a goal‐oriented Christian epic of evolution (CEE). In dealing with CEE, I use the thought of J. R. R. Tolkien, (...) along with Kevin Vanhoozer and Dorothy Sayers, to discuss the ways in which we can theologically legitimate speaking of God as the “author” of evolutionary history. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning about Urban Sustainability with Digital Stories: Promoting Collaborative Creativity from a Constructionist Perspective” by Maria Daskolia, Chronis Kynigos & Katerina Makri. Upshot: Daskolia, Kynigos and Makri’s article offers us a view into potential applications of constructionist learning theory to help students conceive of and collaborate on solutions to today’s complex problems. This work in many ways parallels the efforts of those investigating systems thinking and highlights the importance of digital production in that process. (...) While many efforts rely on simulations and models, the authors place centrally the role of digital production in understanding complexity. This, in turn, calls our attention to the affordances and limitations of our current tools for facilitating learning and collaboration, and ultimately to the need for new tools. (shrink)

Interactions between state, international, transnational and intra-state law involve overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, claims to legitimate authority. These have led scholars to new theoretical explanations of sovereignty, constitutionalism, and legality, but there has been no close attention to authority itself. This book asks whether, and under what conditions, there can be multiple legitimate authorities with overlapping or conflicting domains. Can legitimate authority be shared between state, supra-state and non-state actors, and if so, how should they relate to one another? Roughan (...) argues that understanding authority in contemporary pluralist circumstances requires a new conception of relative authority, and a new theory of its legitimacy. The theory of relative authority treats the interdependence of authorities, and the relationships in which they are engaged, as critical to any assessment of their legitimacy. It offers a tool for evaluating inter-authority relationships prevalent in international, transnational, state and non-state constitutional practice, while suggesting significant revisions to the idea that law, in general or even by necessity, claims to have legitimate authority. (shrink)

Government’s responsibility to safeguard the public’s health through law has been part of the social contract since ancient times. Cicero declared salus populi suprema lex esto - “the safety of the people is the supreme law”. Disraeli proclaimed that protecting the public’s health is the first duty of the statesman. Of the ten most important public health achievements of the 20th century in the US., seven are directly related to legal interventions, including legislative interventions. As new and existing risks to (...) health risks emerge internationally, governments have consistently used the law as a tool to define the goals of public health, direct public health authorities to accomplish these goals, and equip them with the power and resources to do so.Tobacco control represents a salient example of how law can be used to ensure health. Like other public health laws, tobacco control laws have historic grounds. Government and other policymakers have enacted laws to control tobacco use for hundreds of years. The Russian church forbade tobacco use as an “abomination.”. (shrink)

Government’s responsibility to safeguard the public’s health through law has been part of the social contract since ancient times. Cicero declared salus populi suprema lex esto - “the safety of the people is the supreme law”. Disraeli proclaimed that protecting the public’s health is the first duty of the statesman. Of the ten most important public health achievements of the 20th century in the US., seven are directly related to legal interventions, including legislative interventions. As new and existing risks to (...) health risks emerge internationally, governments have consistently used the law as a tool to define the goals of public health, direct public health authorities to accomplish these goals, and equip them with the power and resources to do so.Tobacco control represents a salient example of how law can be used to ensure health. Like other public health laws, tobacco control laws have historic grounds. Government and other policymakers have enacted laws to control tobacco use for hundreds of years. The Russian church forbade tobacco use as an “abomination.”. (shrink)

Contemporary society very often asks of individuals and/or corporate entities that they perform actions connected in some way with the immoral actions of other individuals or entities. Typically, in the attempt to determine what would be unacceptable cooperation with such immoral actions, Christian scholars and authorities refer to the distinction, which appears in the writings of Alphonsus Liguori, between material and formal cooperation, the latter being connected in some way with the cooperator's intention in so acting. While expressing agreement with (...) most of Alphonsus's determinations in these regards, Cooperation with Evil also argues that the philosophical background to these determinations often lacks coherence, especially when compared to related passages in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Having compared the philosophical approaches of these two great moralists, Cooperation with Evil then describes a number of ideas in Thomas's writings that might serve as more effective tools for the analysis of cases of possible immoral cooperation. The book also includes, as appendixes, translations of relevant passages in both Alphonsus and Thomas. (shrink)

Regional aspects of science communication represent a potential asset and as such are quite suitable topic for further examination with respect to future social and economic development in Prague based on the city's main development strategies. Closer analysis of SCIP aspects at re- gional level can present a suitable complement for development of suitable measures and projects of the regional innovation and education policies. This study focuses on research questions related to regional dimension of science communication, its impacts and suitable (...) tools. Document analysis and questionnaire distributed among selected experts were chosen as tools for elaboration of the study. Results suggest that regional dimension of science communication policy and initiatives is a relevant one in case of Prague. However, the attention given to this topic by national and regional authorities is unsatisfactory resulting in lack of co-ordination of activities of the respective stakeholders. Impacts of SCIP, as far as causality can be identified, lie in encouraging young people in their interest in science, increasing awareness of general public in science-related issues and explaining role of science in society and problems that science is facing. To maximise effects of science communication there is a space for national and regional authorities to play an integrating role. Given the concentration of SCIP actors, the City of Prague could aspire to develop its science communication policy in order to promote itself as a Central European centre of science. (shrink)

For most nurses world-wide, activities are centred around working directly with patients and so the nurse-patient relationship is of the greatest importance. Ethnocentrism on the part of the health care community has led to misdiagnosis, mistreatment and undertreatment of culturally diverse individuals world-wide. This author discusses a tool, Greipp's Model of Ethical Decision-Making, which can be used to assist nurses in analysing the effects of culture, beliefs and diversity upon the caregiver and care recipient within an ethical framework.

The church’s mission to the world in the new millennium will require a careful balance of global vision and local sensitivity. Karl Rahner’s ecclesiology supplies useful tools for this balance, in that it moves toward an appreciation of the inherent authority and dignity of the local church community, understood as an interpersonal network within the broader church. Rahner’s focus on the church as sacrament provides the key consideration: that the church necessarily accomplishes its mission in the midst of concrete historical (...) contexts. Rahner also provides a way of understanding the presence of the whole church embodied in the local community, particularly as it gathers for Eucharist. This sharing in the essence of the church also manifests itself in the local community’s roles in nurturing and responding to official authority. Rahner’s trust in the work of the Spirit for the maintenance of unity allows him to revel in the church’s diversity. The local community shows most clearly the aspect of church as pilgrim in the world, which Rahner underscores. Because the local community embodies the universal church in a particular location, the study of the community and its contexts is essential for understanding the reality and the mission of the church in the world. (shrink)

This paper defends Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis , a proposed empirical methodology for explicating philosophical concepts. This methodology attributes to our shared concepts whatever application conditions they would need to have in order best to continue delivering benefits in the ways they have regularly delivered benefits in the past. In the first stage of my argument I argue that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis has what I call normative authority : we have practical and epistemic reason to adopt the explications that it delivers (...) even if we think doing so requires stipulative revisions in the meanings of our concepts. I then use this normative authority to argue that Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis also has what I call descriptive authority : when we understand concept-meaning in the way we ought to understand it (in the way licensed by the normative authority of Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis) we see that, rather than being revisionary, Pragmatic Conceptual Analysis is a semantically conservative tool that uncovers (what we should think of as being) the meanings our concepts already have. (shrink)

​Authors, Factions, and Courts in Angevin England: A Literature of Personal Ambition (12th-13th Century) advances a model for historical study of courtly literature by foregrounding the personal aims, networks, and careers as the impetus for much of the period’s literature. The book takes two authors as case studies – Gerald of Wales and Walter Map – to show how authors not only built their own stories but also used popular narratives and the tools of propaganda to achieve their own, personal (...) goals. The purpose of this study is to overturn the top-down model of political patronage, in which patrons – and particularly royal patrons – set the cultural agenda and dictate literary tastes. Rather, Fabrizio De Falco argues that authors were often representative of many different interests expressed by local groups. To pursue those interests, they targeted specific political factions in the changeable political scenario of Angevin England. Their texts reveal a polycentric view of cultural production and its reception. The study aims to model a heuristic process which is applicable to other courtly texts besides the chosen case-studies. (shrink)

A casual comment by a student alerted the authors to the existence and prevalence of Internet-based paraphrasing tools. A subsequent quick Google search highlighted the broad range and availability of online paraphrasing tools which offer free ‘services’ to paraphrase large sections of text ranging from sentences, paragraphs, whole articles, book chapters or previously written assignments. The ease of access to online paraphrasing tools provides the potential for students to submit work they have not directly written themselves, or in the case (...) of academics and other authors, to rewrite previously published materials to sidestep self-plagiarism. Students placing trust in online paraphrasing tools as an easy way of complying with the requirement for originality in submissions are at risk in terms of the quality of the output generated and possibly of not achieving the learning outcomes as they may not fully understand the information they have compiled. There are further risks relating to the legitimacy of the outputs in terms of academic integrity and plagiarism. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the existence, development, use and detection of use of Internet based paraphrasing tools. To demonstrate the dangers in using paraphrasing tools an experiment was conducted using some easily accessible Internet-based paraphrasing tools to process part of an existing publication. Two sites are compared to demonstrate the types of differences that exist in the quality of the output from certain paraphrasing algorithms, and the present poor performance of online originality checking services such as Turnitin® to identify and link material processed via machine based paraphrasing tools. The implications for student skills in paraphrasing, academic integrity and the clues to assist staff in identifying the use of online paraphrasing tools are discussed. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss ethical issues related to using and disclosing artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT and other systems based on large language models (LLMs), to write or edit scholarly manuscripts. Some journals, such as Science, have banned the use of LLMs because of the ethical problems they raise concerning responsible authorship. We argue that this is not a reasonable response to the moral conundrums created by the use of LLMs because bans are unenforceable and would encourage (...) undisclosed use of LLMs. Furthermore, LLMs can be useful in writing, reviewing and editing text, and promote equity in science. Others have argued that LLMs should be mentioned in the acknowledgments since they do not meet all the authorship criteria. We argue that naming LLMs as authors or mentioning them in the acknowledgments are both inappropriate forms of recognition because LLMs do not have free will and therefore cannot be held morally or legally responsible for what they do. Tools in general, and software in particular, are usually cited in-text, followed by being mentioned in the references. We provide suggestions to improve APA Style for referencing ChatGPT to specifically indicate the contributor who used LLMs (because interactions are stored on personal user accounts), the used version and model (because the same version could use different language models and generate dissimilar responses, e.g., ChatGPT May 12 Version GPT3.5 or GPT4), and the time of usage (because LLMs evolve fast and generate dissimilar responses over time). We recommend that researchers who use LLMs: (1) disclose their use in the introduction or methods section to transparently describe details such as used prompts and note which parts of the text are affected, (2) use in-text citations and references (to recognize their used applications and improve findability and indexing), and (3) record and submit their relevant interactions with LLMs as supplementary material or appendices. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a dynamic, young, ambitious, attractive, and heterogeneous scientific discipline. It is constantly developing and changing, which makes societal evaluation of this emerging new science a challenging task, prone to misunderstandings. Synthetic biology is difficult to capture, and confusion arises not only regarding which part of synthetic biology the discussion is about, but also with respect to the underlying concepts in use. This book offers a useful toolbox to approach this complex and fragmented field. It provides a biological (...) access to the discussion using a 'layer' model that describes the connectivity of synthetic or semisynthetic organisms and cells to the realm of natural organisms derived by evolution. Instead of directly reviewing the field as a whole, firstly our book addresses the characteristic features of synthetic biology that are relevant to the societal discussion. Some of these features apply only to parts of synthetic biology, whereas others are relevant to synthetic biology as a whole. In the next step, these new features are evaluated with respect to the different areas of synthetic biology. Do we have the right words and categories to talk about these new features? In the third step, traditional concepts like "life" and "artificiality" are scrutinized with regard to their discriminatory power. This approach may help to differentiate the discussion on synthetic biology. Lastly our refined view is utilized for societal evaluation. We have investigated the public views and attitudes to synthetic biology. It also includes the analysis of ethical, risk and legal questions, posed by present and future practices of synthetic biology. This book contains the results of an interdisciplinary research project and presents the authors' main findings and recommendations. They are addressed to science, industry, politics and the general public interested in this upcoming field of biotechnology. (shrink)

The increasing costs of healthcare delivery led to different political and administrative approaches trying to preserve the core values of the welfare state. This approach has well documented weaknesses namely with regard to healthcare rationing. The objective of this paper is to evaluate if independent healthcare regulation is an important tool with regard to the construction of fair processes for setting limits to healthcare. Methodologically the authors depart from Norman Daniels’ and James Sabin’s theory of accountability for reasonableness and (...) try to determine if new regulatory models—namely independent agencies—perform better with regard to the public disclosure of the reasons and rationales of healthcare rationing. In publicly financed healthcare systems independent regulation is an important tool to assure fair and reasonable procedures of prioritising services. In accordance with the principle of public accountability, independent regulatory agencies are particularly well suited to assure publicity of the decision-making processes, relevance of the rationale involved and particularly mechanisms for challenge and dispute resolution regarding limit setting decisions. It follows that independent healthcare regulation could be regarded not only as an instrument for performance improvement but also as a tool of social justice. The authors conclude by stating that accountability for reasonableness should be regarded as a landmark of any healthcare reform. And therefore regulators have the social task of assuring that the rationales for limit-setting decisions are clearly accessible to the public. (shrink)

This chapter looks at approaches developed by philosophers of science that may be useful to those working in religion, theology, and the philosophy of religion. Philosophers of science have spent a lot of time thinking about how theories change, what to do with surprising data and conflicting explanations, and what to say when we need more categories than true and false. Sometimes, all this is hidden behind terms such as antirealism, paradigm, verisimilitude, and inference to the best explanation. The author (...) unpacks a bit of jargon from the philosophy of science and considers some analogies and applications to matters of religion. The chapter also presents some of the tools developed in the philosophy of science. Finally, it discusses what is supposed to be the fundamental divide between religion and science: the former is based on faith, while the latter is based on reason. (shrink)

This article questions the role of the author in the photographical image. Undoubtedly, the invention of photography has changed our attitude towards ourselves, towards the world. The impact of photography on one’s life is growing with the development of technology, mainly the photo-technology. One cannot but trust technological tools more than oneself, because any technological device nowadays is considered to be smarter, faster, and more precise than any human being. The technology plays a special role in photography, and that is (...) why the author’s position as the creator of the image is being challenged. Hence, there is also a much wider problem, the impact of technology on a person. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to show that photography as a kind of visual art is not directly a product of human creative activity. Nevertheless, as a technical product, it tends to anonymity when the question of authorship is simply decreasing. Although each image, as a human creation, has its author, in the photography the author becomes the background. We agree with Flusser that it is worthwhile to distinguish between the functionary and the photographer as candidates for the role of the author in the photographic process; but in the process of contemplating the photographs, the name of the author of the photographical image, regardless of his or her claims, is ignored, because the photography, retaining the function of objective documentation, captures any events without any interest. It is also completely dependent on technology; claiming not only for the mediation but also for the "authorship", it introduces the mode of anonymity and accidental fixation of events. The image is deprived of subjective features and the need to have an author. One can say that in any case the photographer falls into the "shadow" created by the device. The author "dies", giving the life to the photography, and dissolves in the technicality of the image. (shrink)

The author rejects Leon Galis's claim ( Inquiry, Vol. II, No. 2) that in 'Of Words and Tools' ( Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 2) he attacks a form of the 'use' theory of meaning that no one has held. Galis's other claim, that the author criticizes a needlessly weak form of the theory, is found to be justified, but the author argues that his procedure was adequate, and parallel to that oi Galis's own reconstruction of the 'use' theory in terms (...) of 'goal-directed action'. Difficulties in this reconstruction are pointed out, and some meta-semantic issues about theories of meaning raised. (shrink)

Background Citizen science is increasingly prevalent in the biomedical sciences, including the field of human genomics. Genomic citizen science initiatives present new opportunities to engage individuals in scientific discovery, but they also are provoking new questions regarding who owns the outputs of the research, including intangible ideas and discoveries and tangible writings, tools, technologies, and products. The legal and ethical claims of participants to research outputs become stronger—and also more likely to conflict with those of institution-based researchers and other stakeholders—as (...) participants become more involved, quantitatively and qualitatively, in the research process. It is not yet known, however, how genomic citizen science initiatives are managing the interests of their participants in accessing and controlling research outputs in practice. To help fill this gap, we conducted an in-depth review of relevant policies and practices of U.S.-based genomic citizen science initiatives. Methods We queried the peer-reviewed literature and grey literature to identify 22 genomic citizen science initiatives that satisfied six inclusion criteria. A data collection form was used to capture initiative features, policies, and practices relevant to participants’ access to and control over research outputs. Results This analysis revealed that the genomic citizen science landscape is diverse and includes many initiatives that do not have institutional affiliations. Two trends that are in apparent tension were identified: commercialization and operationalization of a philosophy of openness. While most initiatives supported participants’ access to research outputs, including datasets and published findings, none supported participants’ control over results via intellectual property, licensing, or commercialization rights. However, several initiatives disclaimed their own rights to profit from outputs. Conclusions There are opportunities for citizen science initiatives to incorporate more features that support participants’ access to and control over research outputs, consistent with their specific objectives, operations, and technical capabilities. (shrink)

In the world of Philosophy for Schools, Dr Phil Cam requires no introduction. As stated in a recent edition of 'Journal of Philosophy in' 'Schools' that was dedicated to celebrating his work, ‘Philip Cam is an international authority on philosophy in schools who has been a pioneer in introducing philosophy and ethics into schools in Australia’'. Very simply, when Cam talks about P4C, people listen. As a result, I was hugely excited to receive a copy of his latest book 'Philosophical (...) Inquiry: Combining the Tools of Philosophy with Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning'. The book forms part of a new series of philosophical books entitled 'Big Ideas for Young Thinkers', published by Rowman and Littlefield. The series is edited by Thomas E Wartenburg, who himself is a hugely significant figure in P4C. (shrink)

Amongst the most treated questions in Western research on the works of Svetlana Aleksievich is the question of the genre of Aleksievich’s prose works, followed closely by the question of the historical authenticity of her method of collecting oral information about the Soviet period of history from witnesses of that history. The questions treated, such as the problem of genre, aesthetic authenticity and the relationship of history and fiction, can be distilled into the question of the authority of the literary (...) text. If the Nobel Prize for literature is awarded on the assumption that Aleksievich’s work is literature—and no one, including the author, has questioned that assumption—then it is justifiable to pose the question of the authority of the literary text as an aesthetic message—as literary truth—using the tools of literary analysis, not of historiography or sociology. In this essay, the claim that Secondhand Time [Vremia second hend] is a novel will be examined in the context of the narratological model of the literary text of Russian Formalism and Prague Structuralism and by applying the test of “artistic quality” (khudozhestvennost’), which validates the aesthetic value of texts of the literary canon. This examination will allow us to answer the question about what kind of text has been created using oral testimonies as material for a work of fiction. (shrink)

From one of our most astute art critics, an impassioned and elegant book that questions the demand for art's political relevance or its need to deliver a message, and insists on its power to take us out of the everyday world, and its most important role: to excite, disturb, inspire or unsettle us. As more and more critics and enthusiasts insist that art needs to promote a particular idea or message, be it political or social, as a brand, a means (...) of education or entertainment, Jed Perl wants to remind us that the purpose of art lies not in our ability to define it, to place it in a context, whether a cause, an issue or an ideology. Instead the true power of art lies in its ability to shake our need for definitions, relevance or categories. He reminds us of the inherently uncategorizable nature of the artistic imagination, that a work of art is not merely a statement beamed out into the world, but the result of a dialogue between the artist and the tools and tradition of the medium, and that the fascination of the arts lies in their ability to be both dispassionate and impassioned. Perl explores the practices that are the foundation for the two catalysts of imaginative achievement: authority and freedom. He discusses the sense of vocation that give artists their purpose and focus, and how the interplay between authority and freedom underpin the creative process. (shrink)

This book honors J. Michael Dunn, who was a preeminent relevance logician. Dunn's career spanned over 50 years and his research results had an impact on philosophy, mathematics and informatics. Dunn often used algebraic techniques in his research into logics such as relevance, orthomodular and substructural logics. He invented the logic R-mingle and the sequent calculus LR+; he proved crucial theorems about 2-valued first-order logic and non-classical higher-order logics - among many other results. The papers in this volume touch upon (...) topics that Dunn was concerned with. Some authors were students or colleagues of Dunn; some other authors had not met Dunn in person, but share his research interests. None of the articles published here have appeared in print before; indeed, most of the papers were written specifically for this collection. The diversity of the themes of the articles reflects the scope of Dunn's own research in logic. It will also ensure that anybody with an interest in logic - whether a student, a logician or a scholar in another field - will find reading this book a worthwhile endeavor. The editor, Katalin Bimbó was the 14th Ph.D. student of J. Michael Dunn at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, U.S.A.; currently, she is a professor of philosophy at the University of Alberta in Canada. (shrink)

Let T 1 , T 2 be countable first-order theories, M i ⊨ T i , and ������ any regular ultrafilter on λ ≥ $\aleph_{0}$ . A longstanding open problem of Keisler asks when T 2 is more complex than T 1 , as measured by the fact that for any such λ, ������, if the ultrapower (M 2 ) λ /������ realizes all types over sets of size ≤ λ, then so must the ultrapower (M 1 ) λ /������. (...) In this paper, building on the author's prior work [12] [13] [14], we show that the relative complexity of first-order theories in Keisler's sense is reflected in the relative graph-theoretic complexity of sequences of hypergraphs associated to formulas of the theory. After reviewing prior work on Keisler's order, we present the new construction in the context of ultrapowers, give various applications to the open question of the unstable classification, and investigate the interaction between theories and regularizing sets. We show that there is a minimum unstable theory, a minimum TP 2 theory, and that maximality is implied by the density of certain graph edges (between components arising from Szemerédi-regular decompositions) remaining bounded away from 0, 1. We also introduce and discuss flexible ultrafilters, a relevant class of regular ultrafilters which reflect the sensitivity of certain unstable (non low) theories to the sizes of regularizing sets, and prove that any ultrafilter which saturates the minimal TP 2 theory is flexible. (shrink)

Upshot: In the model simulation and the human experiment, we observed that attention shifted from a tool to a task. This was accompanied by bodily extension. However, our experiments lack a sense of bodily incorporation (the sense of ownership. Based on the valuable commentaries, we would like to discuss the necessary conditions for possible bodily incorporation in terms of redundant degrees of freedom, synchronous visual tactile stimulation, and 1/f noise.

Preparing for and responding to public health emergencies involving medical countermeasures raise often complex legal challenges and questions among response stakeholders at the local, state, and federal levels. This includes concerns about emergency legal authorities, liability, emergency use of regulated medical products, and regulations that might enhance or hinder public health response goals. In this article, lawyers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the General Counsel , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , and Food (...) and Drug Administration discuss federal legal tools that are critical to enhancing MCM legal preparedness for public health emergencies, with an emphasis on the legal mechanisms that can be used to facilitate the emergency use of countermeasures. Specifically, the authors describe the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act and Emergency Use Authorization authority, outlining the conditions under which these tools can be utilized and providing examples of how they have supported both pre-event and intra-event activities. (shrink)

This unique introduction fully engages and clearly explains pragmatism, an approach to knowledge and philosophy that rejects outmoded conceptions of objectivity while avoiding relativism and subjectivism. It follows pragmatism's focus on the process of inquiry rather than on abstract justifications meant to appease the skeptic. According to pragmatists, getting to know the world is a creative human enterprise, wherein we fashion our concepts in terms of how they affect us practically, including in future inquiry. This book fully illuminates that enterprise (...) and the resulting radical rethinking of basic philosophical conceptions like truth, reality, and reason. Author Cornelis de Waal helps the reader recognize, understand, and assess classical and current pragmatist contributions--from Charles S. Peirce to Cornel West--evaluate existing views from a pragmatist angle, formulate pragmatist critiques, and develop a pragmatist viewpoint on a specific issue. The book discusses: Classical pragmatists, including Peirce, James, Dewey, and Addams; Contemporary figures, including Rorty, Putnam, Haack, and West; Connections with other twentieth-century approaches, including phenomenology, critical theory, and logical positivism; Peirce's pragmatic maxim and its relation to James's will-to-believe; Applications to philosophy of law, feminism, and issues of race and racism. (shrink)