Paper on divine foreknowledge and human freedom.

Wandering is a symptom of dementia that can have devastating consequences on the lives of persons living with dementia and their families and caregivers. Increasingly, caregivers are turning towards electronic tracking devices to help manage wandering. Ethical questions have been raised regarding these location-based technologies and although qualitative research has been conducted to gain better insight into various stakeholders' views on the topic, developers of these technologies have been largely excluded. No qualitative research has focused on (...) developers’ perceptions of ethics related to electronic tracking devices. To address this, we performed a qualitative semi-structured interview study based on grounded theory. We interviewed 15 developers of electronic tracking devices to better understand how they perceive ethical issues surrounding the design, development, and use of these devices within dementia care. Our results reveal that developers are strongly motivated by moral considerations and believe that including stakeholders throughout the development process is critical for success. Developers felt a strong sense of moral obligation towards topics within their control and a weaker sense of moral obligation towards topics outside their control. This leads to a perceived moral boundary between development and use, where some moral responsibility is shifted to end-users. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA fundamental principle of all truth-conditional approaches to semantics is that the meanings of sentences of natural language can be compositionally specified in terms of truth conditions, where the meanings of the sentences’ parts are specified in terms of the contribution they make to such conditions their host sentences possess. Thus, meanings of words fit the meanings of sentences at least to the extent that the stability of what a sentence might mean as specified in a theory is in (...) accord with the stability of what a word might mean as similarly specified. In this paper, I shall be concerned with Ludlow’s idea that, in fact, there need be no such sympathy between words and sentences. He proposes that we can square what he calls a dynamic lexicon, where word meaning is not stable at all, with a traditional truth-conditional approach of the kind indicated, where sentence meaning is delivered via ‘absolute truth conditions’. I share Ludlow’s aspiration to accommodate dynamic features of word meaning with a truth conditional approach, but not his belief that the marriage is an easy deal. Thus, I shall present a problem for Ludlow’s position and show how resolving this problem leads to an alternative picture of how the meaning of a sentence may be truth-conditionally specified with all relevant dynamic features of the lexicon retained. (shrink)

This paper takes another look at a case study which has featured prominently in a variety of arguments for rival realist positions. After critically reviewing the previous commentaries of the theory shift that took place in the transition from Fresnel’s ether to Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of optics, it will defend a slightly different reading of this historical case study. Central to this task is the notion of explanatory approximate truth, a concept which must be carefully analysed to begin with. With (...) this notion properly understood, it will be finally argued, the popular Fresnel-Maxwell case study points towards a novel formulation of scientific realism. (shrink)

Data support the claim from the target article that women, both cross-culturally and historically, have employed a variety of mating strategies, marrying but also engaging in short-term unions. But those strategies appear to be practiced simultaneously and not conditionally as Gangestad & Simpson propose, a finding consistent with assumed constraints on the potential reproductive success of females.

I advance a novel argument for an infallibilist theory of knowledge, according to which we know all and only those propositions that are certain for us. I argue that this theory lets us reconcile major extant theories of knowledge, in the following sense: for any of these theories, if we require that its central condition (evidential support, reliability, safety, etc.) obtains to a maximal degree, we get a theory of knowledge extensionally equivalent to infallibilism. As such, the infallibilist can affirm (...) that, when their conditions are suitably interpreted, most post-Gettier theories of knowledge offer necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge. The infallibilist can thus reconcile major theories of knowledge, and is in a better position to explain the intuitive appeal of these theories than the fallibilist who only accepts one of them, and rejects the rest. (shrink)

Solidarity belongs to the basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and is part of the ethical repertoire of European moral traditions and European healthcare systems. This paper discusses how leaders of Catholic healthcare organizations (HCOs) can understand their institutional moral responsibility with regard to the preservation of solidarity. In dealing with this question, we make use of Taylor's philosophy of modern culture. We first argue that, just as all HCOs, Catholic ones also can embody and strengthen solidarity by (...) just doing their quintessential job, that is, to care for people with ill health. Second, we focus on the Catholic identity of these organizations and argue that this characteristic can empower a radical commitment to solidarity. Finally, we argue that CST provides a critical ethical framework for approaching solidarity from the perspective of the common good. (shrink)

This paper considers Thomas Aquinas’s claim that we can use certain habitus at will. Focusing on moral habitus, this claim is interpreted as a claim about the freedom human beings have with regard to their character traits: they can freely choose to act or not act according to their character traits. After giving a brief account of how, for Aquinas, character traits influence our actions via our emotions, the paper examines whether this freedom is of a libertarian (...) or of a compatibilist kind. A libertarian reading is defended on the basis of certain remarks of Aquinas’s about the act of contrition. (shrink)

In this article I respond to Sacha Golob's critique of my stance on Kantian nonconceptualism, objectivity, and animal perception of spatial particulars.

This paper examines some textual devices that writers may use to pre-structure the activities of their readers. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is used as an 'explicating device' to explore how writers can provide reading instructions, and how these can be experienced by readers. Structuring devices like paragraphs and sections, and hypertextual elements like notes and references are investigated in detail. In this way, the paper aspires to contribute to 'an ethnomethodology of textual practices'.

Minimum wages are usually assumed to be inefficient as they prevent the full exploitation of mutual gains from trade. Yet advocates of wage regulation policies have repeatedly claimed that this loss in market efficiency can be justified by the pursuit of ethical goals. Policy makers, it is argued, should not focus on efficiency alone. Rather, they should try to find an adequate balance between efficiency and equity targets. This idea is based on a two-worlds-paradigm that sees ethics and economics (...) as two inherently conflicting ways of thinking. We, however, believe that this view of the relationship between ethics and economics is fundamentally flawed and blurs our understanding of how an ethically responsible regulation of the labour market should be conducted. In drawing on an economic-ethical approach that resolves the antinomy between efficiency and equity, we show that ethics and economics are, in fact, two sides of the same coin and that minimum wage legislation can only be ethically responsible, if it is at the same time economically efficient. In other words, we can have our cake and eat it too. On the basis of our approach, we develop two simple game theoretical models for different types of labour markets and derive policy implications from an economic-ethical viewpoint. We suggest that under the assumption of perfectly competitive labour markets a tax-funded wage subsidy is preferable over minimum wages, as it makes everyone better off. If, however, employers have monopsony power in the wage setting process, the minimum wage is justifiable under certain conditions. (shrink)

If we peruse the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) and the Nietzschean corpus, we will find numerous examples of evaluative statements. And yet, both Chuang Tzu and Nietzsche are well known for their critique of conventional value distinctions. Time and again they argue that our conventional value distinctions are invalid and sometimes even harmful. Are these two philosophers justified in making what appear to be self-negating claims? This essay offers a line of argument to justify their employment of evaluative language (...) while at the same time disclaiming its validity. My essential argument is that there are two levels of consciousness in both of these philosophers and that evaluative language is transcended at one of these levels but still possesses limited validity at the other. I assume, I believe correctly, that the purpose of philosophy for both philosophers is self-transformation. Given this functional direction of philosophizing, I divide the types of statements I will analyze into three standpoints: (1) “evaluative standpoint,” or statements which I take to be primarily evaluative in nature. “Class i” refers to the evaluative standpoint which is the standpoint not yet transcended and to be transcended; (2) “transevaluative standpoint”, or statements which I take to be primarily transevaluative in nature. “Class ii” refers to the transevaluative standpoint which is the standpoint to be achieved; (3) “transevaluative resultant values,” or statements which are primarily statements of the resultant value which are the product of a value free standpoint. “Class iii” refers to the resultant concrete values which are the product of following the transevaluative standpoint. My analyses lead to the conclusion that evaluative language is employed in its appropriate level of consciousness and transcended in the other level. In short, I propose that Chuang Tzu and Nietzsche can have their cake, and eat it, too. (shrink)

Expressivists have a problem with negation. The problem is that they have not, to date, been able to explain why ‘murdering is wrong’ and ‘murdering is not wrong’ are inconsistent sentences. In this paper, I explain the nature of the problem, and why the best efforts of Gibbard, Dreier, and Horgan and Timmons don’t solve it. Then I show how to diagnose where the problem comes from, and consequently how it is possible for expressivists to solve it. Expressivists (...) should accept this solution, I argue, because it is demonstrably the only way of avoiding the problem, and because it generalizes. Once we see how to solve the negation problem, I show, it becomes easy to state a constructive, compositional expressivist semantics for a purely normative language with the expressive power of propositional logic, in which we can for the first time give explanatory, formally adequate expressivist accounts of logical inconsistency, logical entailment, and logical validity. As a corollary, I give what I take to be the first real expressivist explanation of why Geach’s original moral modus ponens argument is genuinely logically valid. This proves that the problem with expressivism cannot be that it can’t account for the logical properties of complex normative sentences. But it does not show that the same solution can work for a language with both normative and descriptive predicates, let alone that expressivists are able to deal with more complex linguistic constructions like tense, modals, or even quantifiers. In the final section, I show what kind of constraints the solution offered here would place expressivists under, in answering these further questions. (shrink)

In a recent volume of this journal Saatsi [Saatsi, J.. Reconsidering the Fresnel–Maxwell theory shift: How the realist can have her cake and EAT it too. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 36, 509–536.] suggests that we adopt an approach where we explain phenomena reductively, by properties that are described via their nomological roles. These properties are conceived of as higher-order multiply realisable properties. Such properties are however not causally efficacious independent of their causal basis. (...) Therefore Saatsi has left it open what kind of explanatory work these properties could possibly do.Keywords: Realism; Multi realisability; Structuralism; Semirealism; Eclectic realism; Higher-order propertiess. (shrink)

Descartes holds that ideas have or contain _objective reality_ of their objects, so that the idea of the sun is the sun itself existing in the intellect. In this paper, I examine this obscure thesis which grounds the disagreement about Descartes’ commitment to direct or indirect realism. I suggest that, importantly, both readings are correct to a certain extent. I argue that the view of objective reality Descartes develops bears the earmarks of both direct and indirect realist views (...) but must be classified as a third alternative combining some central features of both. I elaborate first on the direct realist interpretations of Descartes’ objective reality and explain their most significant shortcomings. My interpretation of objective identity comes in the form of attributing to Descartes a view about identity and persistence of objects known as _sortalism_. I argue that Descartes’ objective identity turns out to be much like the Aristotelian view of _formal identity_, yet without the forms. By way of discussing the case of Theseus’ ship, I point out how Cartesian sortalism, contrary to other versions of sortalism, allows us to analyze the puzzle as a tension between two distinct yet independently legitimate criteria of identity. It is this sortalist insight that helps to render Descartes’ account of objective identity consistent. This point also grounds my argument that we need not consider direct and indirect realism as logical complements, contrary to the received wisdom. (shrink)

I offer an unorthodox argument for the thesis that prostitution is not just a normal job. It has the advantage of being compatible with the claim that humans should have full authority over their sexual life. In fact, it is ultimately the emphasis on this authority that leads the thesis that prostitution is a normal job to collapse. Here is the argument: merchants cannot (both legally and morally) discriminate whom they transact with on the basis of factors like (...) the ethnicity or the religion of their client; but if prostitutes are ‘sex merchants’, then they cannot (both legally and morally) discriminate whom they have sex with on the basis of these factors. Yet everyone should have the full discretionary power to refuse to have sex under any circumstances. (shrink)

Many debates about consciousness appear to be endless, in part because of conceptual confusions preventing clarity as to what the issues are and what does or does not count as evidence. This makes it hard to decide what should go into a machine if it is to be described as 'conscious'. Thus, triumphant demonstrations by some AI developers may be regarded by others as proving nothing of interest because the system does not satisfy *their* definitions or requirements specifications.

Several philosophers have recently advanced the claim that the content of mental states has its own non-imagistic phenomenology. I show that if defenders of cognitive phenomenology are to account for the conscious experience of thoughts, they must actually commit themselves to two different kinds of cognitive phenomenology, which I refer to as ‘general’ and ‘specific.’ Once this distinction is made, we can see how arguments from experience for cognitive phenomenology depend on an ambiguity in ‘what it is like’ talk (...) for their success. Disambiguating this kind of talk into talk of either general or specific phenomenology shows that these arguments are either valid – but assume what they are trying to prove – or are not valid. (shrink)

Ambiguity is a property of syntactic expressions which is ubiquitous in all informal languages–natural, scientific and mathematical; the efficient use of language depends to an exceptional extent on this feature. Disambiguation is the process of separating out the possible meanings of ambiguous expressions. Ambiguity is typical if the process of disambiguation can be carried out in some systematic way. Russell made use of typical ambiguity in the theory of types in order to combine the assurance of its (apparent) consistency (“having (...) the cake”) with the freedom of the informal untyped theory of classes and relations (“eating it too”). The paper begins with a brief tour of Russell’s uses of typical ambiguity, including his treatment of the statement Cls ∈ Cls. This is generalized to a treatment in simple type theory of statements of the form A ∈ B where A and B are class expressions for which A is prima facie of the same or higher type than B. In order to treat mathematically more interesting statements of self membership we then formulate a version of typical ambiguity for such statements in an extension of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. Specific attention is given to how the“naive” theory of categories can thereby be accounted for. (shrink)

After Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks expressed her opposition to the Iraq War and President Bush in a country music concert, she was told to "shut up and sing." When NFL player Colin Kaepernick protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, he was applauded by some and demonized by others. Both had their careers irrevocably altered by speaking out for their beliefs. This book examines the ethical issues that arise when famous people speak out on (...) issues often unrelated to the performances that brought those figures to public attention. It analyzes several celebrity speakers--singers Taylor Swift and the Chicks; satirist Jon Stewart; actor Tom Hanks; and athletes Serena Williams, Stephen Curry, Colin Kaepernick, and Naomi Osaka--and demonstrates that justifiable speaking requires celebrity speakers, journalists, and audiences to consider ethical issues regarding platform, intent, and harm. Celebrity speakers must exercise ethical care in a digital world where audiences equate celebrity status with authority and expertise about public issues. Finally, this book considers how people who are not famous can understand their ethical responsibilities for speaking out about public issues in their own spheres of influence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The De Auxiliis Controversy, Molinism, and Physical Premotion:The Christological Implications*Pachomius Walker O.P.From 1582 until 1607, the de Auxiliis controversy consumed much of the attention of Dominicans, Jesuits, and the Papacy.1 The controversy began in 1582 at Salamanca when a Scholastic debate entertained the question of [End Page 607] how Christ's sacrifice was both free and meritorious.2 The Jesuit, Prudencio de Montemayor, claimed that if Christ had been commanded to (...) lay down his life and be crucified, then his action was not free and, therefore, not meritorious.3 The Dominicans, on the other hand, resolved the question of Christ's merit and freedom using what would later come to be known as physical premotion.4 In a word, the de Auxiliis controversy has Christological roots. Even though the controversy quickly engaged other, related questions, a successful adjudication of these conflicting positions must have reference to the Christological truths implicated in the controversy.5 [End Page 608] The goal of this present study, therefore, is to exposit the Christological implications of the de Auxiliis controversy in an effort to reexamine the conflicting proposals about grace.Historically, in order to resolve the confusion about the God-man, the partisans of the debate needed to clarify their differing principles regarding God and man generally. As was soon apparent, however, the parties of the debate had contradictory understandings of basic philosophical principles.6 The participants in the controversy engaged other topics such as man's freedom, God's foreknowledge of future contingents, and predestination.7 It is understandable, therefore, that when Domingo Báñez († 1604), one of Montemayor's principal interlocutors, submitted his list of theses that summarized Montemayor's position, many of them dealt with questions other than those of Christ's merit.8Eventually, the controversy centered upon Luis de Molina's Concordia after its publication in 1588.9 The Concordia became the focus and [End Page 609] touch-point for the debate, since various parties aligned themselves based on their support for or condemnation of the work. The papal Congregation de Auxiliis (1594–1607), initially convoked by Pope Clement VIII, analyzed Molina's work and the positions contained therein. This, again, helped specify the debate. To keep the relevant parties focused and to make clear the lineaments of the controversy, it was helpful to have a standard text to which all parties had reference. Questions about God's grace and man's freedom were concretized through specific questions about Molina's approach to grace, God's knowledge, and predestination and whether his positions agreed with Thomas, Augustine, the Fathers of the Church, and Church councils. Hence, the Controversy de Auxiliis, which began by dealing with questions of Christology, resulted in a debate about the Molinist position as described in the Concordia.The subsequent years of the controversy have retained much of the same breadth: grace, freedom, God's foreknowledge, and predestination.10 The original impetus for the debate—Christology—can many times be overlooked or seen as a historical curiosity11 On one level, passing over the [End Page 610] Christological issues is reasonable: Molina's Concordia was first published after the lines of the debate had already been formed, and thus it is not a work of Christology. In fact, it was only in response to certain objections from Francisco Zumel that Molina included a more explicit treatment of Christ in his second edition.12 While those involved in the debate understood the details of Christ's merit to be a related and important issue, Molina's theological position was no longer seen primarily in terms of Christology.13 Even so, since the action of God in the human soul is nowhere clearer and nowhere more powerful than in the soul of Christ, any attempt to resolve these questions must take the original arena of Christology into account.14 [End Page 611]What follows is an attempt to reexamine the two proposals on grace—that of Molina and that of the Thomists on physical premotion—in Christological terms.15 The main Christological tenets at play are: (1) the fact that the hypostatic union is not of persons, but in the person; (2) that Christ... (shrink)

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) — collaborative endeavors between health care clinicians and lawyers to more effectively address issues impacting health care — have proliferated over the past decade. The goal of this interdisciplinary approach is to improve the health outcomes and quality of life of patients and families, recognizing the many non-medical influences on health care and thus the value of an interdisciplinary team to enhance health. This article examines the unique, interrelated ethical issues that confront the clinical and legal (...) partners involved in MLPs. We contend that the ethical precepts of the clinical and legal professions should be seen as opportunities, not barriers, to further the interdisciplinary nature of MLPs. The commonalities in ethical approaches represent a potential bridge between legal and health care advocacy for patient/client well-being. Bioethics has a role to play in building and analyzing this bridge: bioethics may serve as a discourse and method to enhance collaboration by highlighting common ethical foundations and refocusing legal and clinical partners on their similar goals of service for patients/clients. This article explores this bridging role of bioethics, through a series of case studies. It concludes with recommendations to strengthen the collaborations. (shrink)

What is the work ethic? Does it justify policies that promote the wealth and power of the One Percent at workers' expense? Or does it advance policies that promote workers' dignity and standing? Hijacked explores how the history of political economy has been a contest between these two ideas about whom the work ethic is supposed to serve. Today's neoliberal ideology deploys the work ethic on behalf of the One Percent. However, workers and their advocates have long used (...) the work ethic on behalf of ordinary people. By exposing the ideological roots of contemporary neoliberalism as a perversion of the seventeenth-century Protestant work ethic, Elizabeth Anderson shows how we can reclaim the original goals of the work ethic, and uplift ourselves again. Hijacked persuasively and powerfully demonstrates how ideas inspired by the work ethic informed debates among leading political economists of the past, and how these ideas can help us today. (shrink)

The legacy of Nisbett and Wilson’s classic article, Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes , is mixed. It is perhaps the most cited article in the recent history of consciousness studies, yet no empirical research program currently exists that continues the work presented in the article. To remedy this, we have introduced an experimental paradigm we call choice blindness [Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., & Olsson, A. . Failure to detect mismatches between intention (...) and outcome in a simple decision task. Science, 310, 116–119.]. In the choice blindness paradigm participants fail to notice mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they are presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. In this article, we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis to investigate a corpus of introspective reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. We contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated vs. manipulated trials, but find very few differences between these two groups of reports. (shrink)

Respect for autonomy and beneficence are frequently regarded as the two essential principles of medical ethics, and the potential for these two principles to come into conflict is often emphasised as a fundamental problem. On the one hand, we have the value of beneficence, the driving force of medicine, which demands that medical professionals act to protect or promote the wellbeing of patients or research subjects. On the other, we have a principle of respect for autonomy, which demands (...) that we respect the self-regarding decisions of individuals. As well as routinely coming into opposition with the demands of beneficence in medicine, the principle of respect for autonomy in medical ethics is often seen as providing protection against beneficial coercion (i.e. paternalism) in medicine. However, these two values are not as straightforwardly opposed as they may appear on the surface. In fact, the way that we understand autonomy can lead us to implicitly sanction a great deal of paternalistic action, or can smuggle in paternalistic elements under the guise of respect for autonomy. -/- This paper is dedicated to outlining three ways in which the principle of respect for autonomy, depending on how we understand the concept of autonomy, can sanction or smuggle in paternalistic elements. As the specific relationship between respect for autonomy and beneficence will depend on how we conceive of autonomy, I begin by outlining two dominant conceptions of autonomy, both of which have great influence in medical ethics. I then turn to the three ways in which how we understand or employ autonomy can increase or support paternalism: firstly, when we equate respect for autonomy with respect for persons; secondly, when our judgements about what qualifies as an autonomous action contain intersubjective elements; and thirdly, when we expect autonomy to play an instrumental role, that is, when we expect people, when they are acting autonomously, to act in a way that promotes or protects their own wellbeing. I then provide a proposal for how we might work to avoid this. I will suggest that it may be impossible to fully separate paternalistic elements out from judgements about autonomy. Instead, we are better off looking at why we are motivated to use judgements about autonomy as a means of restricting the actions of patients or research subjects. I will argue that this is a result of discomfort about speaking directly about our beneficent motivations in medical ethics. Perhaps we can reduce the incentive to smuggle in these beneficent motivations under the guise of autonomy by talking directly about beneficent motivations in medicine. This will also force us to recognise paternalistic motivations in medicine when they appear, and to justify paternalism where it occurs. (shrink)

Berkeley has made the bold claim on behalf of his theory that it is uniquely able to justify the claim that snow is white. But this claim, made most strikingly in the Third of his "Three Dialogues," has been held, most forcefully by Margaret Wilson, to conflict with Berkeley's argument in the First Dialogue that, because of various facts to do with perceptual variation, colors are merely apparent and hence, mind-dependent. This paper develops an alternative reading of the First Dialogue (...) arguments, in which their project is not to establish the mind-dependence of colors but instead to undermine the position that colors are also mind-independent. Under these circumstances, the coherence of the First and the Third Dialogue arguments is assured, just so long as the Third Dialogue claim to have established that snow is really white is not taken to mean that snow is mind-independently white, but instead, something like that our experiences of snow are stably and regularly white. (shrink)

In order to make progress towards a better world we need to learn how to do it. And for that we need institutions of learning rationally designed and devoted to helping us solve our global problems, make progress towards a better world. It is just this that we lack at present. Our universities pursue knowledge. They are neither designed nor devoted to helping humanity learn how to tackle global problems — problems of living — in more intelligent, humane and effective (...) ways. That, this book argues, is the key disaster of our times, the crisis behind all the others: our failure to have developed our institutions of learning so that they are rationally organized to help us solve our problems of living — above all, our global problems. Having universities devoted almost exclusively to the pursuit of knowledge is a recipe for disaster. Scientific knowledge and technological know-how have unquestionably brought great benefits to humanity. But they have also made possible — even caused — our current global crises, above all the impending crisis of global warming. In this lucid and provocative book, Nicholas Maxwell argues convincingly that we need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities round the world so that their basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge. (shrink)

How can philosophy expand to be a discipline via which young people from diverse backgrounds feel they can make a direct and positive contribution to their communities? In this chapter I suggest some creative methods by which philosophers can support community-led change. Collaborators and I have been developing the approaches described here through work on issues of racial justice, but they can be applied to campaigns or public debate on any topic. Developing more community-led, socially engaged methods has (...) the potential to make philosophy a more attractive discipline for young people from diverse backgrounds who are keen to use their skills to make a positive difference to their communities. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has refocused attention on the issue of mandatory vaccination. Some have suggested that vaccines ought to be mandatory, while others propose more moderate alternatives, such as incentives. This piece surveys a range of possible interventions, ranging from mandates through to education. All may have their place, depending on circumstances. However, it is worth clarifying the options available to policymakers, since there is sometimes confusion over whether a particular policy constitutes a mandate or (...) not. Further, I illustrate a different kind of alternative to mandatory vaccination. Rather than seeking less coercive alternatives to a mandate, we might instead employ an alternative mandate, which requires people to do something less than get vaccinated. For instance, we might merely require people to attend an appointment at a vaccine clinic. Whether this mandatory attendance policy is justified will depend on specific circumstances, but it represents another way to promote vaccination, without mandating it. In some cases, this may represent an appropriate balance between promoting public health goals and respecting individual liberty. (shrink)

The world is in a state of crisis. Global problems that threaten our future include: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, catastrophic loss of wild life, and mass extinction of species; lethal modern war; the spread of modern armaments; the menace of nuclear weapons; pollution of earth, sea and air; rapid rise in the human population; increasing antibiotic resistance; the degradation of democratic politics, brought about in part by the internet. It is not just that universities around the (...) world have failed to help humanity solve these global problems; even worse, they have made the genesis of these problems possible. Modern science and technology, developed in universities, have made possible modern industry and agriculture, modern hygiene and medicine, modern power production and travel, modern armaments, which in turn make possible much that is good, all the great benefits of the modern world, but also all the global crises that now threaten our future. What has gone wrong? The fault lies with the whole conception of inquiry built into universities around the world. The basic idea is to help promote human welfare by, in the first instance, acquiring scientific knowledge and technological know-how. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help solve social problems, and promote human welfare. But this basic idea is an intellectual disaster. Judged from the standpoint of promoting human welfare, it is profoundly and damagingly irrational, in a structural way. As a result of being restricted to the tasks of acquiring and applying knowledge, universities are prevented from doing what they most need to do to help humanity solve global problems, namely, engage actively with the public to promote action designed to solve global problems. We need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that their central task becomes to help humanity learn how to solve the climate crisis and other problems of living, local and global, so that we may make progress towards a good, civilized world. Almost every branch and aspect of the university needs to change. (shrink)

Modeling and simulation clearly have an upside. My discussion here will deal with the inevitable downside of modeling — the sort of things that can go wrong. It will set out a taxonomy for the pathology of models — a catalogue of the various ways in which model contrivance can go awry. In the course of that discussion, I also call on some of my past experience with models and their vulnerabilities.

For at least the past three decades, injuries have been recognized as an important public health problem in the United States. In 2001, there were approximately 157,000 deaths due to injuries in the US. There were also almost 30 million non-fatal injury incidents.Injuries have been defined as: “…any unintentional or intentional damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to thermal, mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen”. Within public (...) health, the field of injury prevention and control is dedicated to reducing the burden of injuries on the lives of people around the world.Injury prevention seeks to reduce injuries by: 1) identifying risk factors, 2) designing interventions to address the risk factors, 3) implementing those interventions, 4) evaluating their effectiveness, and 5) replicating those that work. As with many other public health problems, interventions can target factors associated with the human or host, vehicle or vector, and the physical or social environment. (shrink)

For at least the past three decades, injuries have been recognized as an important public health problem in the United States. In 2001, there were approximately 157,000 deaths due to injuries in the US. There were also almost 30 million non-fatal injury incidents.Injuries have been defined as: “…any unintentional or intentional damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to thermal, mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen”. Within public (...) health, the field of injury prevention and control is dedicated to reducing the burden of injuries on the lives of people around the world.Injury prevention seeks to reduce injuries by: 1) identifying risk factors, 2) designing interventions to address the risk factors, 3) implementing those interventions, 4) evaluating their effectiveness, and 5) replicating those that work. As with many other public health problems, interventions can target factors associated with the human or host, vehicle or vector, and the physical or social environment. (shrink)

Background Most jurisdictions that allow euthanasia and assisted suicide (AS) regulate it through the medical profession. However, the extent and nature of how medicine should be involved are debated. Swiss AS practice is unusual in that it is managed by lay AS organizations that rely on a law that permits AS when done for nonselfish reasons. Physicians are not mentioned in the law but are usually called upon to prescribe the lethal medications and perform capacity evaluations.Methods We analyzed in-depth interviews (...) of 23 Swiss AS experts including ethicists, lawyers, medical practitioners, and senior officials of AS organizations for their views on AS.Results Although there was agreement on some issues (e.g., need for better end-of-life care), the interviewees’ preferred model for AS, and the nature of preferred medical involvement, varied, which we categorized into five types: preference for AS practice as it occurred prior to lay AS organizations; preference for the current lay model; preference for a modified lay model to increase autonomy protections while limiting medical AS normalization; preference for various types of more medicalized models of AS; and, ambivalence about any specific model of medical involvement. The rationales given for each type of model reflected varying opinions on how medicine’s role would likely impact AS practice and demonstrated the experts’ attitudes toward those impacts.Conclusion The dynamics within the Swiss AS regime, as reflected in the varying views of Swiss AS experts, shed light on the dilemmas inherent to medical scope and involvement in AS, which may have implications for debates in other jurisdictions. (shrink)

I argue that ethical features of sport strongly interact with aesthetic features of sport, such that all pro tanto ethical merits/defects count as aesthetic merits/defects. This is a much-debated topic in the philosophy of art and aesthetics literature, in which recent critics have taken to task this interactionist take on how ethical evaluative properties interact with aesthetic ones. The critics’ main argument against this view is that far too many works of art than theorists of this strong interactionist kind (...) care to admit either lack the evaluative ethical properties they claim for them, or their ethical properties do not appreciably affect their aesthetic properties. Sport, I argue, is a notable exception. That’s because in sport ethical flaws in athletic performances double as aesthetic flaws with very few exceptions, or so I will argue. Unlike artworks, therefore, the interactionist thesis holds mostly true across the entire athletic spectrum, which is why, in my view, it warrants far more serious attention and appreciation than it is commonly given in both the philosophy of art and aesthetics and philosophy of sport literature. (shrink)

In the article are presented the main philosophical explanations of the application of mathematics on the real world (Plato, Aristotle, rationalists, empiricists, Kant, Frege, Husserl, Carnap etc.). They indicate some typical triangular structure of relationships where the mathematical structures somehow correspond to the forms of reality, and thus are possible though something third what bound them. The attempts to solve the question of the application of mathematics by the dispensability of mathematics (e.g. Field) do not success because they do not (...) explain the big success of mathematics in science. However they call our attention to the meaning of transpositions of some empirical contents on the level of theirs mathematical representations. That is neither an abstraction nor an idealisation but is the mapping from the empirical into a formal language. The opposite attempts to identify mathematics and the fundamental structure of reality also do not explain the success of mathematics because of the obvious ontological differences between the mathematical and the real objects. I return finally to Plato and show how he denies the reduction of numbers to some sets. We have to distinguish the idea of numbers and the various aspects of it, for example the cardinal and the ordinal numbers. According to this platonic insight only the idea of numbers exists. Its aspects are only some partial reflections of this idea in our mathematical theories and in the application of mathematics. (shrink)

Imagine that an anthropologist returns from her study of a group of people and reports the following:They refuse to kill one person even to avert the death of all involved—including that one person;They won’t directly push someone to his death to save the lives of five others, but they will push a lever to kill him to save five others;They punish transgressors because it feels right, even when they expect the punishment to cause far more harm than good—and even when (...) the harm done by the punishment exceeds the harm done by the transgression being punished.The anthropologist’s report might lead us to conclude that these people are at least confused, and perhaps even dangerous.Here’s some bad news. Those people are us. Or so suggests recent research in experimental psychology and the neurosciences. This research indicates that our moral intuitions have a vaguely deontological character and they prompt us to make any number of judgments that appear arbitrary or otherwise unjustified, such ... -/- I contend that Greene partly misunderstands the practical implications of his own principles. If our ordinary moral judgments are to do the strategic work Greene wants them to do, he needs to endorse fullfledged Sidgwickian self-effacement for at least some areas of micro-level decision making. By the lights of some of Greene’s own arguments, people must accept the correctness—and not simply the usefulness—of the relevant intuitions in their personal conduct to satisfy utilitarian standards. I argue that removing utilitarian reasoning from micro-level decision making is consistent with Greene’s preferred strategy of using utilitarianism as a Bcommon currency^ for resolving moral conflict at the institutional level. To clarify upfront: the aim of this paper is to offer an internal criticism rather than to defend (e.g.,) the relevant empirical research, utilitarianism, self-effacement, and so on. I’m making an argument about where Greene’s own psychological and philosophical commitments should take him. (shrink)

Property law plays a crucial role in the ability of groups, especially ones composed of geographically-adjacent members, to establish and maintain significant forms of "community" around a shared social, economic, or ideological interest. Property may also, however, have the opposite effect of undermining or even destroying communities, particularly those that rely on fragile modes of cooperation. This Article identifies three major types of territorial communities: Intentional Communities—close-knit groups that initially organize around a consolidating non-instrumental idea and employ sweeping internal (...) norms to validate their communality. Planned Communities — comprised mostly of residential developments of homeowners associations, which rely on a formal set of conditions, covenants, and restrictions incorporated in the association’s governing documents. Spontaneous Communities — clusters of initially unorganized neighbors who succeed in cooperating and coordinating over time. The evolvement of such organizations may be essential to the creation of an interpersonal "social capital" and to a physical and functional improvement of the community’s surroundings. For each one of these types of communities, property law plays a very different role. Thus, while Intentional Communities do not strictly hinge upon the existence of a supportive property system to flourish, Planned Communities cannot be conceived without the security of an overt, formal, state-backed regime, and Spontaneous Communities may often need property law’s affirmative backing to thrive and enjoy the social and economic benefits of sustainable collective action. (shrink)

Inspired by the effective altruism movement, The Impactful Vegan teaches readers how to audit their impact and follow methods that have been scrutinized, evaluated, and determined to do the most good for animals.

Global bioethics and the environment -- Biodiversity -- Health -- Disease -- Drugs -- Food -- Water -- Global bioethics in practice.

Background: Perfectionism is increasing over time and associated with various mental health problems. Recent research indicates adverse childhood experiences may play a role in the development of perfectionism. In addition, perfectionism is marked by interpersonal problems with implications for treatment outcome.Aim: This study aimed to fill an important gap in the predominantly quantitative literature field by exploring how individuals with perfectionism understand the relationship between painful experiences and how they relate to others.Method: Nine individuals with perfectionism were interviewed using McAdam's (...) life-story interview. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interviews.Results: Four themes emerged: “A childhood with big responsibilities,” “I am still the responsible one,” “Keeping others at a distance to protect the inner self,” and “Achieving physical distance to get a fresh start.” These themes are grouped into two overarching themes: “You can't always trust people” and “A distancing from others.”Conclusion: Findings highlight taking responsibility and social distancing serve an important function for perfectionistic individuals in response to painful relational events. We discuss how themes of control and agency impact individuals' relationship to mental health and turning toward others for help. The findings provide greater complexity to understanding perfectionism as a “barrier to treatment.”. (shrink)

Should nurses have their own ethics to match specific problems met in their daily routines? How do nurses act in a society that is changing from a 'monocultural' to an 'intercultural' structure? What are the ethical consequences of these changes for their many tasks? How can the ethical aspects be taught to nurses? This article describes the current status of nursing ethics in the curriculum taught in schools of higher education for nurses in The Netherlands. Aspects (...) of the debate on nursing ethics are outlined and ideas about its future as a subject and discipline in nurse education are offered. Est-ce que le personnel infirmier doit avoir son éthique à soi pour faire face aux problèmes spécifiques dans la routine journalière? Et comment les infirmiers/ères se comportent-ils dans une société qui est en train de changer de la 'monoculture' en 'interculture'? Quels sont les conséquences éthiques de leur tâches? Comment peuvent ces aspets éthiques être enseignés aux infirmiers/ères? Cet article parle de l'état courant de l'éthique infirmier dans l'enseignement dans les écoles de l'education supérieure pour infirmiers/ères en Hollande. En plus, il donne une esquisse de la discussion sur l'éthique infirmier et donne quelques idées pour le futur de l'éthique infirmier comme sujet et discipline en soi dans l'éducation des infirmiers/ères. Sollte das Pflegepersonal seine eigene Ethik haben um den spezifischen Problemen seiner täglichen Routine gewachsen zu sein? Wie soll das Pflegepersonal in einer Gesellschaft handeln, die im Wechsel ist von einer 'Monokultur' zu einer 'Interkultur'? Was sind die ethischen Konsequenzen ihres handeln? Wie können diese ethischen Aspekte dem Pflegepersonal gelehrt werden? Dieser Artikel beschreibt den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Krankenpflege-Ethik im Lehrplan der Schulen für Höhere Ausbildung für Pflegepersonal in Holland. Er gibt auch einen Umriss über die Debatte über Krankenpflege-Ethik und formuliert einige Ideen für die Zukunft der Krankenpflege- Ethik als ein Thema und eine Disziplin in der Ausbildung des Pflegepersonals. (shrink)

Paraconsistent logics are the formal systems in which absurdities do not trivialise the logic. In this paper, we give Hintikka-style game theoretical semantics for a variety of paraconsistent and non-classical logics. For this purpose, we consider Priest’s Logic of Paradox, Dunn’s First-Degree Entailment, Routleys’ Relevant Logics, McCall’s Connexive Logic and Belnap’s four-valued logic. We also present a game theoretical characterisation of a translation between Logic of Paradox/Kleene’s K3 and S5. We underline how non-classical logics require different verification games and prove (...) the correctness theorems of their respective game theoretical semantics. This allows us to observe that paraconsistent logics break the classical bidirectional connection between winning strategies and truth values. (shrink)

Grey zone attacks tend to paralyze response for two reasons. First, they present us with choice scenarios of inherently dilemmatic structure, e.g., Prisoners’ Dilemmas and games of chicken, complicated by difficult conditions of choice, such as choice under risk or amid vagueness. Second, they exploit our uncertainty about how much we do or should care about the things under attack¬—each attack is small in effect, but their effects accumulate: how should we decide whether to treat a given attack as (...) something meriting a serious response rather than a mere irritation to be ignored? This chapter brings standard decision theoretic tools to bear on the issues, tools such as the maximization of expected utility principle, and the precautionary principle. But it also develops three innovations. It shows that seeing it as possible to make choices not just of actions given our values, but also choices of values themselves, can extricate us from certain kinds of decision paralysis. It shows how we can rationally regard ourselves as having bright decision lines even when nothing in the circumstance of choice has these lines in its structure. And it shows how certain conflict escalation risks from the former two strategies can be managed by both parties seeing that cooperation can yield a sharable surplus of goods, and that cooperation can be rational upon a rationally defensible change in their values so that each comes to derive utility from the success of both parties. This yields cooperative solutions to what amount to Prisoners’ Dilemmas. The Cold War was prosecuted on the logic of strategic rationality and that part of game theory that is deterrence theory. We need a new logic from decision theorists for the games that constitute grey zone conflict. (shrink)

Today's headlines are full of employee unrest over racial injustice, communities infuriated by corporate environmental impacts, staff anxiety over surveillance, and discoveries of child labor in supply chains. We've traveled far and fast from the old world of business ethics, where black-and-white concerns about bribery and fraud could be addressed with rules and processes. Simply maximizing shareholder value while not breaking the law is no longer an option, but we've never been so confused about what it means to do the (...) right thing. In this eye-opening, indispensable book, NYU ethics professor Alison Taylor argues that amid stakeholder demands and transparency pressures, we can no longer treat ethics as a legal and reputational defense mechanism. Leaders at Davos and the Business Roundtable have called for a new corporate responsibility paradigm, but how to implement their ideas remains an open question as organizations struggle in an atmosphere of heightened expectations and intense suspicion. Offering vivid stories and examples, Taylor brings this complex, risky environment alive to provide a blueprint for how leaders should rethink and reshape their practices. How can CEOs cut through the noise to set robust environmental and social priorities? When should they speak out on contentious social and political issues, and how? What does it really take to build a healthy organizational culture? How are we to approach corporate values when society is so divided? Higher Ground will show leaders how business can navigate this messy paradigm shift, build trust, and achieve long-term strategic advantage in a turbulent world. (shrink)

How medical education and practice can move beyond a narrow focus on biological intervention to recognize the lived experiences of illness, suffering, and death. In Afflicted, Nicole Piemonte examines the preoccupation in medicine with cure over care, arguing that the traditional focus on biological intervention keeps medicine from addressing the complex realities of patient suffering. Although many have pointed to the lack of compassion and empathy in medical practice, few have considered the deeper philosophical, psychological, and ontological reasons (...) for it. Piemonte fills that gap, examining why it is that clinicians and medical trainees largely evade issues of vulnerability and mortality and, doing so, offer patients compromised care. She argues that contemporary medical pedagogy and epistemology are not only shaped by the human tendency to flee from the reality of death and suffering but also perpetuate it. The root of the problem, she writes, is the educational and institutional culture that promotes reductionist understandings of care, illness, and suffering but avoids any authentic confrontation with human suffering and the fear and self-doubt that can come with that confrontation. Through a philosophical analysis of the patient-practitioner encounter, Piemonte argues that the doctor, in escaping from authentic engagement with a patient who is suffering, in fact “escapes from herself.” Piemonte explores the epistemology and pedagogy of medicine, examines its focus on calculative or technical thinking, and considers how “clinical detachment” diminishes physicians. She suggests ways that educators might cultivate the capacity for authentic patient care and proposes specific curricular changes to help students expand their moral imaginations. (shrink)

A growing body of research suggests that follower perceptions of ethical leadership are associated with beneficial follower outcomes. However, some empirical researchers have found contradictory results. In this study, we use social learning and social exchange theories to test the relationship between ethical leadership and follower work outcomes. Our results suggest that ethical leadership is related positively to numerous follower outcomes such as perceptions of leader interactional fairness and follower ethical behavior. Furthermore, we explore how ethical leadership relates to (...) and is different from other leadership styles such as transformational and transactional leadership. Results suggest that ethical leadership is positively associated with transformational leadership and the contingent reward dimension of transactional leadership. With respect to the moderators, our results show mixed evidence for publication bias. Finally, geographical locations of study samples moderated some of the relationships between ethical leadership and follower outcomes, and employee samples from public sector organizations showed stronger mean corrected correlations for ethical leadership–follower outcome relationships. (shrink)

The troubling ethics and politics of philanthropy Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today’s democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society’s benefit, Just Giving shows how such generosity not only isn’t the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice. Big philanthropy is often an exercise of power, the conversion of private assets into public influence. And it is (...) a form of power that is largely unaccountable, often perpetual, and lavishly tax-advantaged. The affluent—and their foundations—reap vast benefits even as they influence policy without accountability. And small philanthropy, or ordinary charitable giving, can be problematic as well. Charity, it turns out, does surprisingly little to provide for those in need and sometimes worsens inequality. These outcomes are shaped by the policies that define and structure philanthropy. When, how much, and to whom people give is influenced by laws governing everything from the creation of foundations and nonprofits to generous tax exemptions for donations of money and property. Rob Reich asks: What attitude and what policies should democracies have concerning individuals who give money away for public purposes? Philanthropy currently fails democracy in many ways, but Reich argues that it can be redeemed. Differentiating between individual philanthropy and private foundations, the aims of mass giving should be the decentralization of power in the production of public goods, such as the arts, education, and science. For foundations, the goal should be what Reich terms “discovery,” or long-time-horizon innovations that enhance democratic experimentalism. Philanthropy, when properly structured, can play a crucial role in supporting a strong liberal democracy. Just Giving investigates the ethical and political dimensions of philanthropy and considers how giving might better support democratic values and promote justice. (shrink)