Those of us who take skepticism seriously typically have two relevant beliefs: (a) it’s plausible (even if false) that in order to know that I have hands I have to be able to epistemically neutralize, to some significant degree, some skeptical hypotheses, such as the brain-in-a-vat (BIV) one; and (b) it’s also plausible (even if false) that I can’t so neutralize those hypotheses. There is no reason for us to also think (c) that the BIV hypothesis, for instance, is plausible (...) or probably true. In order to take skepticism seriously it’s sufficient to hold (a) and (b); one need not hold (c). Indeed, philosophers who accept (a) and (b) never endorse (c). Show me a philosopher who suspects that he is a brain in a vat and I’ll show you someone who is deranged! That’s one thing that bothers undergraduates in philosophy. They object: why on earth do some philosophers take the BIV hypothesis to pose any threat at all to our beliefs given that those very same philosophers think that there’s no real chance that the BIV hypothesis is true? Sure, the BIV hypothesis is formally inconsistent with my belief that I have hands, so if the former is true then my belief is false. But so what? Why should that bare inconsistency matter so much? Is this strange attitude amongst philosophers the result of some logic fetish infecting the philosophical community? It is sometimes said that the skeptical hypotheses are not only inconsistent with our beliefs but are explanatory of our experiences, which is supposed to make them more of a threat. But students aren’t fooled: although the skeptical hypotheses may attempt to explain why our experience is as it is, it’s the kind of attempt appropriate for science fiction movies that are all special effects and virtually no plot. No one with any sense of reality will take the evil demon hypothesis to be even tenuously explanatory. (shrink)

In recent years, sociologists have been much concerned with the nature of communication and its consequences, but little attention, even in the sociology of religion, has been given to the idea of communication between human society and other worlds. Divine communication is sociologically interesting as a communication puzzle: authentic religious communication tends to be ineffable and hence it requires considerable intellectual work by experts to translate it into the effable domain. The ineffability of religious inspiration is associated with hierarchical structures (...) in societies with high illiteracy, because the untutored laity cannot readily interpret such messages expertly. The arrival of an information society and extensive literacy presupposes some degree of democratization and in particular an emphasis on — to conjure up a word strangely missing from modern English — effability. This transition from the hierarchical/ineffable to the horizontal/ effable implies a profound change in systems of authority in society and hence a transformation of the relationships between formal and popular religion. (shrink)

We argue that once a normative claim is developed, there is an imperative to effect changes based on this norm. As such, ethicists should adopt an “implementation mindset” when formulating...

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 82-84.

Patient safety has assumed a prominent role on the policy agenda since the Institute of Medicine report To Err Is Human was released in November 1999. The report maintained that medical error is the predominant mechanism by which patients in the United States and around the world are injured. This finding, along with the report’s recommendation for a “systems” approach to reducing medical error, provided an extremely important insight into the operation of our medical delivery system. Clearly, while advances in (...) medical technology, diagnostic techniques, and knowledge provide the foundation for saving lives, medical error has resulted in their loss. However, recognition that medical error is a primary cause of these avoidable patient injuries and deaths is a key one and may result in improvements within our system of health-care delivery as well as minimization of the emotional and financial toll that iatrogenic injury causes. (shrink)

Patient safety has assumed a prominent role on the policy agenda since the Institute of Medicine report To Err Is Human was released in November 1999. The report maintained that medical error is the predominant mechanism by which patients in the United States and around the world are injured. This finding, along with the report’s recommendation for a “systems” approach to reducing medical error, provided an extremely important insight into the operation of our medical delivery system. Clearly, while advances in (...) medical technology, diagnostic techniques, and knowledge provide the foundation for saving lives, medical error has resulted in their loss. However, recognition that medical error is a primary cause of these avoidable patient injuries and deaths is a key one and may result in improvements within our system of health-care delivery as well as minimization of the emotional and financial toll that iatrogenic injury causes. (shrink)

In the history of palliative care, all roads lead back to Dame Cicely Saunders, a remarkable social worker/nurse/physician who promoted the concept of total pain and founded the first modern hospic...

The triadic parent–patient–clinician interaction in pediatrics creates unique ethical challenges when parents and clinicians disagree about treatments or interventions. Rather than an autonomous ro...

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception - a canonical text of twentieth-century philosophy - concludes with an appeal to 'heroism' by citing a series of enigmatic sentences drawn from Saint-Exupe;ry's Pilote de guerre. Surprisingly, however, these lines are antithetical to the philosophical thrust of Merleau-Ponty's project. This book aims to explain this situation. Foregrounding liminal themes in Merleau-Ponty's thought that have been largely overlooked - e.g., sacrifice, death, myth, faith - and showing how these themes support Merleau-Ponty's reinterpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, Smyth (...) shows that Merleau-Ponty's appeal to 'heroism' represents an extra-philosophical appeal to a historical purposiveness as a universal feature of human nature, and that Merleau-Ponty makes this appeal in virtue of his recognition of the intrinsic methodological limitations of philosophy as a theoretical endeavor. The book thus recovers the 'militant' dimension of Merleau-Ponty's thought. This sheds considerable new light on his work. It does so in a way that challenges some of the basic parameters of existing Merleau-Ponty scholarship by illuminating the intrinsic normativity of his existential phenomenology, and its epistemic reliance on forms of non-reason such as faith and myth. (shrink)

Gene therapy is the modification of the human genetic code to prevent disease or cure illness. This technology is in its infancy and remains confined to experimental clinical trials. Once the present barriers are overcome, gene therapy will confront humanity with a host of ethical challenges. Therapies targeted to the genes of germ-line cells will introduce permanent changes to the human gene pool. Furthermore, nonmedical gene modifications have the potential to introduce a new form of eugenics into our society by (...) which some members attempt to become inherently superior to others and humanity is re-engineered to man-made specifications. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 45–50. (shrink)

NOTES: Based on the book Socrates on trial written by Andrew Irvine and published by the University of Toronto Press. Performed at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, May 31-June 7, 2008. CONTENTS: Trailer, Who was Socrates?, Selected scenes, The production, Credits. UBC Library Catalogue Permanent URL: http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=3956307.

There are a number of problematic features within the current treatment of time in physical theories, including the “timelessness” of the Universe as encapsulated by the Wheeler–DeWitt equation. This paper considers one particular investigation into resolving this issue; a conditional probability interpretation that was first proposed by Page and Wooters. Those authors addressed the apparent timelessness by subdividing a faux Universe into two entangled parts, “the clock” and “the remainder of the Universe”, and then synchronizing the effective dynamics of the (...) two subsystems by way of conditional probabilities. The current treatment focuses on the possibility of using a realistic clock system; namely, a coherent-state description of a damped harmonic oscillator. This clock proves to be consistent with the conditional probability interpretation; in particular, a standard evolution operator is identified with the position of the clock playing the role of time for the rest of the Universe. Restrictions on the damping factor are determined and, perhaps contrary to expectations, the optimal choice of clock is not necessarily one of minimal damping. (shrink)

Pointing the way toward a revitalized future for the study of literature, Reconstruction in Literary Studies draws on philosophical pragmatism to justify the academic study of literature. In turn, Vescio connects the changing field to its social function as an institution.

Wilderness Search and Rescue is the process of finding and assisting persons who are lost in remote wilderness areas. Because such areas are often rugged or relatively inaccessible, searching for missing persons can take huge amounts of time and resources. Camera-equipped mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have the potential for speeding up the search process by enabling searchers to view aerial video of an area of interest while closely coordinating with nearby ground searchers. In this paper, we report on lessons learned by (...) trying to use UAVs to support WiSAR. Our research methodology has relied heavily on field trials involving searches conducted under the direction of practicing search and rescue personnel but using simulated missing persons. Lessons from these field trials include the immediate importance of seeing things well in the video, the field need for defining and supporting various roles in the search team, role-specific needs like supporting systematic search by providing a visualization tool to represent the quality of the search, and the on-going need to better support interactions between ground and video searchers. Surprisingly to us, sophisticated autonomous search patterns were less critical than we anticipated, though advances in video enhancement and visualizing search progress, as well as ongoing work to model the likely location of a missing person, open up the possibility of closing the loop between UAV path-planning, search quality, and the likely location of a moving missing person. Keywords: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Wilderness Search and Rescue, Human–Robot Interaction, Human Factors, Field Robotics, Graphical User Interfaces. (shrink)

Phylogenetic trees are a crucial backbone for a wide breadth of biological research spanning systematics, organismal biology, ecology, and medicine. In 2015, the Open Tree of Life project published a first draft of a comprehensive tree of life, summarizing digitally available taxonomic and phylogenetic knowledge. This paper reviews, investigates, and addresses the following questions as a follow-up to that paper, from the perspective of researchers involved in building this summary of the tree of life: Is there a tree of life (...) and should we reconstruct it? Is available data sufficient to reconstruct the tree of life? Do we have access to phylogenetic inferences in usable form? Can we combine different phylogenetic estimates across the tree of life? And finally, what is the future of understanding the tree of life? A schematic of the process of building a unified tree of life. Inputs are published phylogenetic estimates and a unified taxonomy. These inputs are combined into a summary supertree containing ≈2 million taxa. The relationships among any subset of taxa may easily be accessed and used in downstream analyses. (shrink)

A controversy rages over the question of how should controversial topics be taught. Recent work has advanced the “epistemic criterion” as the resolution to this controversy. According to the epistemic criterion, a matter should be taught as controversial when contrary views can be entertained on the matter without the views being contrary to reason. When an issue is noncontroversial, according to the epistemic criterion, the correct position can be taught “directively,” with the teacher endorsing that position. When there is a (...) legitimate controversy, the view should be taught “nondirectively,” with the teacher remaining neutral. In response, Bryan Warnick and Spencer Smith argue that the proponents of the epistemic criterion fail to recognize the multidimensional nature of what it means to learn to be rational. Recognizing this complexity undermines the link between the epistemic status of the controversy and directiveness of one's teaching, suggesting more flexibility in how teachers approach controversial issues. It also implies the need for a new category of teaching, which Warnick and Smith call “soft-directive” teaching. (shrink)

In a brilliant and explosively controversial work, the author attacks modern science for destroying our spiritual sense of self. What is the role of science in present-day society? Should we be as dazzled as we are by the innovations, the insights, and the miraculous improvements in material life that science has wrought? Or is there a darker, more pernicious side to our scientific success? Renowned British science columnist Bryan Appleyard thoroughly explores each of these provocative topics in a book (...) that has incited the ire of the scientific community. He points out that while scientists have shaped our lives and our beliefs, they have consistently failed to explain human consciousness, the soul, or the meaning of life. From Galileo to Darwin, from Copernicus to Oppenheimer, countless scientists have proclaimed a universe in which human beings are only an accidental presence. The unwitting result is that science has cast humankind adrift, paralyzing us with fear and cutting us off from personal or religious truth. In Appleyard's view, science has done us "appalling spiritual damage." These startling conclusions have prompted strong counterattacks from the scientific establishment. Yet regardless of where one falls in the debate, Understanding the Present forces readers to re-examine society's blind faith in the benevolence of modern science. "An exposition that is dazzling for its concrete illustrations and examples."--The New York Times "A withering indictment of modern science . . . This should crack a few test tubes."--Kirkus Reviews. (shrink)

Work‐related stress is too often neglected by employers and rarely seen as an ethical issue by them. Its moral implications are explored here by the Senior Corporate Policy Manager at City and Inner London North Training and Enterprise Council, 80 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3DP. Sue Bryan, M.A., A.M.I.P.D., is also completing an Executive MBA degree at London Business School.

In his 1923 play R.U.R.: Rossum s Universal Robots, Karel Capek coined In 1993, we began a humanoid robotics project aimed at constructing a robot for use in exploring theories of human intelligence. In this article, we describe three aspects of our research methodology that distinguish our work from other humanoid projects. First, our humanoid robots are designed to act autonomously and safely in natural workspaces with people. Second, our robots are designed to interact socially with people by exploiting natural (...) human social cues. Third, we believe that robotics offers a unique tool for testing models of human intelligence drawn from developmental psychology and cognitive science. (shrink)

De nos jours, les partis politiques et les syndicats communiquent avant tout de jour, afin de se faire entendre du plus grand nombre. Il n’en a pas toujours été ainsi. En pleine Guerre froide, les militants devaient bien souvent agir la nuit pour promouvoir et défendre leurs idées – quitte à s’exposer physiquement à des représailles de leurs adversaires. La communication politique après-guerre privilégiait bien souvent les meetings nocturnes (non-)contradictoires, parfois émaillés d’incidents. Ce n’est que progressivement avec la technicisation de (...) la communication et la mise à distance des corps que la violence physique va reculer pour perdurer dans les marges politiques. Profondément liés à des organisations politiques, les syndicats répondaient en partie au même schéma, bien que le déclin de la violence physique nocturne se soit enclenché plus rapidement au profit d’une violence diurne maîtrisée. Cet article contribue à l’étude de l’évolution de la violence militante politique et... (shrink)

Employee reporting dishonesty is a significant area of concern for firms. In this study, we investigate how providing information about their prosocial actions, such as organizational citizenship behaviors, affects the extent of employee reporting dishonesty. We distinguish prosocial actions whose welfare effects are mutually beneficial (i.e., that help others and the employee), which are common in business practice, from those that are selfless in nature (i.e., that help others at a personal cost to the employee). In addition to examining the (...) effect of the type of prosocial action on the extent of employee reporting dishonesty, we also examine the effect of construal (the manner in which individuals perceive and interpret the action). Using an experiment, we find that participants with high moral identity are less dishonest when they describe their selfless prosocial actions than when they describe their mutually beneficial prosocial actions, but only when they abstractly construe this information. However, we do not find evidence that the reporting dishonesty of participants with low moral identity is influenced by the type of prosocial action they provide information about or the construal of that information. We discuss implications of these results for theory and practice. (shrink)

Semantics for Reasons is a book about what we mean when we talk about reasons. It not only brings together the theory of reasons and natural language semantics in original ways but also sketches out a litany of implications for metaethics and the philosophy of normativity. In their account of how the language of reasons works, Bryan R. Weaver and Kevin Scharp propose and defend a view called Question Under Discussion Reasons Contextualism. They use this view to argue for (...) a series of novel positions on the ontology of reasons, indexical facts, the reasons-to-be-rational debate, moral reasons, and the reasons-first approach. (shrink)