In this classic work by one of America's most distinguished historians, Daniel Boorstin enters into Thomas Jefferson's world of ideas.

Jones & Love (J&L) contend that the Bayesian approach should integrate process constraints with abstract computational analysis. We agree, but argue that the fundamentalist/enlightened dichotomy is a false one: Enlightened research is deeply intertwined with the basic, fundamental work upon which it is based.

Pothos & Busemeyer (P&B) argue that quantum probability (QP) provides a descriptive model of behavior and can also provide a rational analysis of a task. We discuss QP models using Marr's levels of analysis, arguing that they make most sense as algorithmic level theories. We also highlight the importance of having clear interpretations for basic mechanisms such as interference.

In this classic work by one of America's most distinguished historians, Daniel Boorstin enters into Thomas Jefferson's world of ideas. By analysing writings of 'the Jeffersonian Circle,' Boorstin explores concepts of God, nature, equality, toleration, education and government in order to illuminate their underlying world view. The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson demonstrates why on the 250th anniversary of his birth, this American leader's message has remained relevant to our national crises and grand concerns. "The volume is too subtle, (...) too rich in ideas for anyone to do justice to it in brief summary, too heavily documented and too carefully wrought for anyone to dismiss its thesis. . . . It is a major contribution not only to Jefferson studies but to American intellectual history. . . . All who work in the history of ideas will find themselves in Mr. Boorstin's debt."—Richard Hofstadter, South Atlantic Monthly. (shrink)

Frailty is a state of increased vulnerability to poor resolution of homeostasis after a stressor event. Frailty is most frequently assessed in the old using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CSF) which ranks frailty from 1 to 9. This assessment typically takes less than one minute and is not validated in patients with learning difficulties or those under 65 years old. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) developed guidelines that use “frailty” as one of the priority-setting criteria for (...) how scarce, but potentially lifesaving, health care resources should be allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar guidelines have been developed elsewhere. This paper discusses the ethical implications of such rationing and argues that this is an unproven and ethically problematic form of health care rationing. It specifically discusses: (1) how the frailty ascription becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, (2) the problematic use of “frailty” in COVID-19 “triage,” (3) the circularity of the link between age and frailty, (4) indirect discrimination because of the use of a seemingly neutral criterion in health care rationing, and (5) the difficult link between comorbidities and frailty. It is found that there was no research into the use of global frailty scores as a criterion for access to acute treatment before January 2020 and so it is concerning how readily frailty scoring has been adopted to ration access to potentially lifesaving treatments. Existing gerontological frailty scoring systems have not been developed for this purpose, and repurposing them creates significant ethical issues. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, (...) intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, (...) intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:While tone at the top is widely regarded as an important predictor of ethical behavior in organizations, we argue that recent research overlooks the various conflicting ethical tones present in many multi-organizational work settings. Further, we propose that the resolution processes promulgated in many firms and professional associations to reconcile this conflict reinforce the tone at the bottom or a tone at the top of the employee’s organization, and that both of these approaches can conflict with the tone at the (...) top of other important organizations such as professional and regulatory organizations. Here we adapt Integrative Social Contract Theory’s priority rules to propose a multi-tone reconciliation process which prioritizes conflicting ethical tones based upon features of the organization and the effects on society. Using three contextualizations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the multi-tone reconciliation process over current processes. We conclude with recommendations for future research and implications for practice. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, multiple studies have examined the understanding of participants in clinical research. They show variable and often poor understanding of key elements of disclosure, such as expected risks and the experimental nature of treatments. Did the participants in these studies give valid consent? According to the standard view of informed consent they did not. The standard view holds that the recipient of consent has a duty to disclose certain information to the profferer of consent because valid (...) consent requires that information to be understood. The contents of the understanding and disclosure requirements are therefore conceptually linked. In this paper, we argue that the standard view is mistaken. The disclosure and understanding requirements have distinct grounds tied to two different ways in which a token of consent can be rendered invalid. Analysis of these grounds allows us to derive the contents of the two requirements. It also implies that it is sometimes permissible to enroll willing participants who have not understood everything that they ought to be told about their clinical trials. (shrink)

This book critically assesses arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism, develops an innovative account of objects’ persistence, and defends new arguments against classical theism. The authors engage the following classical theistic proofs: Aquinas’s First Way, Aquinas’s De Ente argument, and Feser’s Aristotelian, Neo-Platonic, Augustinian, Thomistic, and Rationalist proofs. The authors also provide the first systematic treatment of the ‘existential inertia thesis’. By connecting the thesis to relativity theory and recent developments in the philosophy of physics, and (...) by developing a variety of novel existential-inertia-friendly explanations of persistence, they mount a formidable new case against classical theistic proofs. Finally, they defend new arguments against classical theism based on abstract objects and changing divine knowledge. The text appeals to students, researchers, and others interested in classical theistic proofs, the existence and nature of God, and the ultimate explanations of persistence, change, and contingency. (shrink)

Misconceived Consent: Miguel has stage IV lung cancer. He has nearly exhausted his treatment options when his oncologist, Dr. Llewellyn, tells him about an experimental vaccine trial that may boost his immune response to kill cancer cells. Dr. Llewellyn provides Miguel with a consent form that explains why the study is being conducted, what procedures he will undergo, what the various risks and benefits are, alternative sources of treatment, and so forth. She even sits down with him, carefully talks through (...) the most important points, and gives him time to ask questions. Though it is a Phase 1 study and the chance that he will benefit is very low, Miguel happily agrees to take part. A week later, after the first experimental injection, she asks him if he is worried about the risks. “Risks?” he asks. “I’m sure this is safe—you’re a doctor, after all!”. (shrink)

After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

The available resources for global health assistance are far outstripped by need. In the face of such scarcity, many people endorse a principle according to which highest priority should be given to the worst off. However, in order for this prioritarian principle to be useful for allocation decisions, policy-makers need to know what it means to be badly off. In this article, we outline a conception of disadvantage suitable for identifying the worst off for the purpose of making health resource (...) allocation decisions. According to our total advantage view: the worst off are those who have the greatest total lifetime disadvantage; advantage foregone due to premature death should be treated in the same way as other ways of being disadvantaged at a time; how badly off someone is depends on the actual outcomes that will befall her without intervention, not her prospects at a time; and all significant forms of disadvantage count for determining who is worst off, not just disadvantage relating to health. We conclude by noting two important implications of the total advantage view: first, that those who die young are among the globally worst off, and second, that the epidemiological shift in the global burden of disease from communicable to non-communicable diseases should not lead to a corresponding shift in global health spending priorities. (shrink)

This chapter explores the foundation and content of the duty to respect persons. The authors argue that it is best understood as a duty to recognize people’s rights. Respect for persons therefore has specific implications for how competent and non-competent persons ought to be treated in research. For competent persons it underlies the obligation to obtain consent to many research procedures. The chapter gives an analysis of the requirements for obtaining valid consent. It then considers respect for persons as it (...) relates to four common topics: the therapeutic misconception, research with children and adolescents, the use of deception in research, and research on competent adults without their consent. (shrink)

Paul Churchland has recently argued that empirical evidence strongly suggests that perception is penetrable to the beliefs or theories held by individual perceivers (1988). While there has been much discussion of the sorts of psychological cases he presents, little has been said about his arguments from neurology. I offer a critical examination of his claim that certain efferents in the brain are evidence against perceptual encapsulation. I argue that his neurological evidence is inadequate to his philosophical goals, both by itself (...) and taken in concert with his psychological evidence. (shrink)

Tom Dougherty argues that culpably deceiving another person into sex is seriously wrong no matter what the content about which she is deceived. We argue that his explanation of why deception invalidates consent has extremely implausible implications. Though we reject Dougherty’s explanation, we defend his verdict about deception and consent to sex. We argue that he goes awry by conflating the disclosure requirement for consent and the understanding requirement. When these are distinguished, we can identify how deceptive disclosure invalidates consent. (...) This alternative explanation also allows for a response to Neil Manson’s recent criticisms of Dougherty’s argument. (shrink)

David Marr's theory of vision has been a rich source of inspiration, fascination and confusion. I will suggest that some of this confusion can be traced to discrepancies between the way Marr developed his theory in practice and the way he suggested such a theory ought to be developed in his explicit metatheoretical remarks. I will address claims that Marr's theory may be seen as an optimizing theory, along with the attendant suggestion that optimizing assumptions may be inappropriate for cognitive (...) mechanisms just as anti-adaptationists have argued they are inappropriate for other physiological mechanisms. I will discuss the nature of optimizing assumptions and theories. Considering various difficulties in identifying and assessing optimizing assumptions, I will suggest that Marr's theory is not purely an optimizing theory and that reaction to Marr on this issue prompts interesting considerations for the development of inter-disciplinary constraints in the cognitive and brain sciences. (shrink)

Trials with highly unfavourable risk–benefit ratios for participants, like HIV cure trials, raise questions about the quality of the consent of research participants. Why, it may be asked, would a person with HIV who is doing well on antiretroviral therapy be willing to jeopardise his health by enrolling in such a trial? We distinguish three concerns: first, how information is communicated to potential participants; second, participants’ motivations for enrolling in potentially high risk research with no prospect of direct benefit; and (...) third, participants’ understanding of the details of the trials in which they enrol. We argue that the communication concern is relevant to the validity of informed consent and the quality of decision making, that the motivation concern does not identify a genuine problem with either the validity of consent or the quality of decision making and that the understanding concern may not be relevant to the validity of consent but is relevant to the quality of decision making. In doing so, we derive guidance points for researchers recruiting and enrolling participants into their HIV cure trials, as well as the research ethics committees reviewing proposed studies. (shrink)

Most regulations and guidelines require that potential research participants be told a great deal of information during the consent process. Many of these documents, and most of the scholars who consider the consent process, assume that all this information must be disclosed because it must all be understood. However, a wide range of studies surveying apparently competent participants in clinical trials around the world show that many do not understand key aspects of what they have been told. The standard view (...) of the conditions for valid consent therefore implies that these people have failed to give valid consent to research participation. In this paper we argue that the standard view is false. The primary function of the requirement that researchers disclose information about a study is the avoidance of illegitimate control over someone’s consent decision, which is a form of fraud.We derive the content and manner of appropriate disclosure by analysing the ways in which the manipulation of information can invalidate consent. Our analysis shows that the informational requirements for valid consent are conceptually distinct and thus unlikely to have identical contents. This implies that consent can be valid when not everything that ought to be disclosed by the person asking for consent is understood by the person who proffers it. (shrink)

Anthropologists have documented substantial cross-society variation in people’s willingness to treat strangers with impartial, universal norms versus favoring members of their local community. Researchers have proposed several adaptive accounts for these differences. One variant of the pathogen stress hypothesis predicts that people will be more likely to favor local in-group members when they are under greater infectious disease threat. The material security hypothesis instead proposes that institutions that permit people to meet their basic needs through impartial interactions with strangers reinforce (...) a tendency toward impartiality, whereas people lacking such institutions must rely on local community members to meet their basic needs. Some studies have examined these hypotheses using self-reported preferences, but not with behavioral measures. We conducted behavioral experiments in eight diverse societies that measure individuals’ willingness to favor in-group members by ignoring an impartial rule. Consistent with the material security hypothesis, members of societies enjoying better-quality government services and food security show a stronger preference for following an impartial rule over investing in their local in-group. Our data show no support for the pathogen stress hypothesis as applied to favoring in-groups and instead suggest that favoring in-group members more closely reflects a general adaptive fit with social institutions that have arisen in each society. (shrink)

Criticism of the observation/theory distinction generally supposes it to be an empirical fact that even the most basic human perception is heavily theory-laden. I offer critical examination of experimental evidence cited by Thomas Kuhn and Paul Churchland on behalf of this supposition. I argue that the empirical evidence cited is inadequate support for the claims in question. I further argue that we have empirical grounds for claiming that the Kuhnian discussion of perception is developed within an inadequate conceptual framework and (...) that a version of the observation/theory distinction is indeed tenable. The connection between cognitive science and epistemology is also discussed. (shrink)

Most regulations and guidelines require that potential research participants be told a great deal of information during the consent process. Many of these documents, and most of the scholars who consider the consent process, assume that all this information must be disclosed because it must all be understood. However, a wide range of studies surveying apparently competent participants in clinical trials around the world show that many do not understand key aspects of what they have been told. The standard view (...) of the conditions for valid consent therefore implies that these people have failed to give valid consent to research participation. In this paper we argue that the standard view is false. The primary function of the requirement that researchers disclose information about a study is the avoidance of illegitimate control over someone’s consent decision, which is a form of fraud.We derive the content and manner of appropriate disclosure by analysing the ways in which the manipulation of information can invalidate consent. Our analysis shows that the informational requirements for valid consent are conceptually distinct and thus unlikely to have identical contents. This implies that consent can be valid when not everything that ought to be disclosed by the person asking for consent is understood by the person who proffers it. (shrink)

Most regulations and guidelines require that potential research participants be told a great deal of information during the consent process. Many of these documents, and most of the scholars who consider the consent process, assume that all this information must be disclosed because it must all be understood. However, a wide range of studies surveying apparently competent participants in clinical trials around the world show that many do not understand key aspects of what they have been told. The standard view (...) of the conditions for valid consent therefore implies that these people have failed to give valid consent to research participation. In this paper we argue that the standard view is false. The primary function of the requirement that researchers disclose information about a study is the avoidance of illegitimate control over someone’s consent decision, which is a form of fraud.We derive the content and manner of appropriate disclosure by analysing the ways in which the manipulation of information can invalidate consent. Our analysis shows that the informational requirements for valid consent are conceptually distinct and thus unlikely to have identical contents. This implies that consent can be valid when not everything that ought to be disclosed by the person asking for consent is understood by the person who proffers it. (shrink)

A large body of research in computational vision science stems from the pioneering work of David Marr. Recently, Patricia Kitcher and others have criticized this work as depending upon optimizing assumptions, assumptions which are held to be inappropriate for evolved cognitive mechanisms just as anti-adaptationists (e.g., Lewontin and Gould) have argued they are inappropriate for other evolved physiological mechanisms. The paper discusses the criticism and suggests that it is, in part, misdirected. It is further suggested that the criticism leads to (...) interesting questions about how one formulates constraints--across "levels of organization" and disciplinary boundaries--on one's models of complex systems, such as human vision. (shrink)

Specialists and primary care physicians play an integral role in treating the twin epidemics of pain and addiction. But inadequate access to specialists causes much of the treatment burden to fall on primary physicians. This article chronicles the differences between treatment contexts for both pain and addiction — in the specialty and primary care contexts — and derives a series of reforms that would empower primary care physicians and better leverage specialists.

Block (1995t) has argued for a noncognitive and non- representational notion of phenomenal consciousness, but his putative examples of this phenomenon are conspicuous in their representational and functional properties while they do not clearly possess other phenomenal properties.

The dissertation sketches a solution to the problem of pictorial representation. By appealing to the visual system as an information processing system, we understand how it is that certain sorts of pictures are seen as representing their subjects. ;The first chapter introduces the problem and discusses existing philosophical treatment of pictorial representation. Conventionalist arguments against the possibility of a naturalist account are refuted, thus clearing the way for a naturalist, realist, "resemblance" view of pictorial representation. ;The second chapter discusses the (...) notion of the modularity of mind. Aspects of perceptual holism are criticized. I support the modularist claim that one can make a useful distinction between observation and inference without suffering familiar positivist problems. I suggest that much of vision can fruitfully be studied in isolation from other mental processes. ;The third and fourth chapters provide a contemporary account of human vision. A model of the neural circuitry of vision is provided. Similar treatment is given to mathematical modeling of spatial vision . Also, some attention is paid to lower level biological details and to higher level functional attributes of the system. Research methodologies are discussed, as are the connections between the various levels of investigation. ;The concluding chapter begins with a theoretical and methodological comparison of experimental work cited as empirical foundation for various forms of conventionalism with that supporting modularity . The questions of Chapter I are then reconsidered in light of the vision science of Chapters III and IV. It is shown that current understanding of vision elucidates many of the problems of pictorial representation. Especially relevant is the observation that human spatial vision functions by abstracting certain features from the environment, features that are preserved in certain sorts of pictures. It turns out that many of the conventionalist claims about mind, vision and pictorial representation are unsupportable, given current understanding of mind and vision. (shrink)

A connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness needs to disambiguate its criteria for identifying the relevant vehicles. Moreover, a vehicle theory may appear entirely arbitrary in sorting between what are typically thought of as conscious and unconscious processes.

Various claims for theory-laden perception have involved empirical as well as conceptual considerations. Thomas Kuhn cites New Look psychological research in discussing the role of a paradigm in perception (1970) and Paul Churchland (1988) appeals to biological evidence, as well as New Look sources similar to Kuhn's. This paper offers a critical examination of the empirical evidence cited by Kuhn and Churchland, including a look at the underlying experimental work. It also offers a comment on the application of such evidence (...) in a naturalized epistemology. (shrink)

Of the many controversial claims in Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions perhaps none are more troublesome than those made in his account of the role of a paradigm in perception. For if we take it that “a paradigm is prerequisite to perception itself (Kuhn 1970, p. 113) and that “two groups of scientists see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction” (Kuhn 1970, p. 150) then we seem to be burdened with all (...) the familiar problems about whether, and how, experimental evidence could possibly serve to promote the acceptance of a paradigm. And, indeed, these problems have been amply discussed in the last several decades. Dudley Shapere, for instance, has questioned Kuhn’s account of how science comes to move between incommensurable paradigms. (Shapere 1964) Still, Kuhn’s discussion of perception has an empirical foundation in psychological research which gives it a certain resilience in the face of surface problems with the consequences of his account. (shrink)

The experimental validity of research in the experimental philosophy of free will has been called into question. Several new, important studies (Murray et al. forthcoming; Nadelhoffer et al., Cognitive Science 44 (8): 1–28, 2020 ; Nadelhoffer et al., 2021; Rose et al., Cognitive Science 41 (2): 482–502, 2017 ) are interpreted as showing that the vignette-judgment model is defective because participants only exhibit a surface-level comprehension and not the deeper comprehension the model requires. Participants, it is argued, commit _bypassing_, _intrusion_, (...) and _fatalism_ errors. We respond in two ways: (1) we critique and improve existing methods for assessing deeper comprehension and (2) we develop videos to convey deterministic principles of change that succeed in significantly reducing participants’ bypassing, intrusion, and fatalism errors. Consequently, we have the best existing instrument for gauging folk intuitions about the relationship between free will and determinism. (shrink)

Pascal’s wager has received the attention of philosophers for centuries. Most of its criticisms arise from how the wager is often framed. We present Pascal’s wager three ways: in isolation from any further apologetic arguments, as leading toward a regimen intended to produce belief, and finally embedded in a larger apology that includes evidence for Christianity. We find that none of the common objections apply when the wager is presented as part of Pascal’s larger project. Pascal’s wager is a successful (...) argument in its proper place. However, the most interesting features of our first two presentations of the wager turn out to be either irrelevant or missing from our reading: infinite utility and the relativity of evidence. The successful wager is a boring wager. Still, this study shows us how the wager might profitably be incorporated into different apologetic contexts and why it often can’t. (shrink)

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable (...) if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. (shrink)

This book explores the challenges of informed consent in medical intervention and research ethics, considering the global reality of multiculturalism and religious diversity. Even though informed consent is a gold standard in research ethics, its theoretical foundation is based on the conception of individual subjects making autonomous decisions. There is a need to reconsider autonomy as relational-where family members, community and religious leaders can play an important part in the consent process. The volume re-evaluates informed consent in multicultural contexts and (...) features perspectives from Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It is valuable reading for scholars interested in bioethics, healthcare ethics, research ethics, comparative religions, theology, human rights, law and sociology. (shrink)

The coincident facts among uncivilised peoples.--The nature of a cultural change.--Necessity in human affairs.

In “Informed Consent: What Must be Disclosed and What Must be Understood?”, we reject a dogma at the heart of research ethics. We demonstrate that the constitutive claim...