Assessments of animal experience and consciousness are embedded in all issues of animal welfare policy, and the field of animal welfare science has been developed to make these evaluations. In light of modern studies of the social construction of scientific knowledge, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to date on how crucial evaluations about animals are made. In this paper, I begin to fill that gap by presenting a historical case study of the attempt to define the (...) pain and distress of one common practice in animal research-the use of the tabletop guillotine to decapitate laboratory rodents. I describe the negotiations involved in reaching consensus on the meaning of the available data and caution animal care and use committees that they should always work with the realization that our scientific knowledge of what animals experience is partial and provisional knowledge at best. (shrink)

Some ambiguities in the verb ‘to know’ are analyzed, and it is argued that “undefeatably justified true belief” is the meaning of most philosophical interest with respect to specifying truth conditions for ‘S knows that p’. Two general conditions for an adequate definition of ‘S knows that p’ are discussed. Then a proposal for a quasi-causal theory of knowledge is introduced and defended.

Some ambiguities in the verb ‘to know’ are analyzed, and it is argued that “undefeatably justified true belief” is the meaning of most philosophical interest with respect to specifying truth conditions for ‘S knows that p’. Two general conditions for an adequate definition of ‘S knows that p’ are discussed. Then a proposal for a quasi-causal theory of knowledge is introduced and defended.

Jnanasrimitra (975-1025) was regarded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the most important Indian philosopher of his generation. His theory of exclusion combined a philosophy of language with a theory of conceptual content to explore the nature of words and thought. Jnanasrimitra's theory informed much of the work accomplished at Vikramasila, a monastic and educational complex instrumental to the growth of Buddhism. His ideas were also passionately debated among successive Hindu and Jain philosophers. This volume marks the first English translation (...) of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness. Featuring the rival arguments of Buddhist and Hindu intellectuals, among other thinkers, the Monograph reflects more than half a millennium of competing claims while providing an invaluable introduction to a crucial philosopher. Lawrence J. McCrea and Parimal G. Patil familiarize the reader with the author, themes, and topics of the text and situate Jnanasrimitra's findings within his larger intellectual milieu. Their clear, accessible, and accurate translation proves the influence of Jnanasrimitra on the foundations of Buddhist and Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Since published acknowledgements of scientific misconduct are a species of image restoration, common strategies for responding publicly to accusations can be expected: from sincere apologies to ritualistic apologies. This study is a rhetorical examination of these strategies as they are reflected in choices in language: it compares the published retractions and letters of apology with the letters that charge misconduct. The letters are examined for any shifts in language between the charge of misconduct and the response to the charge in (...) order to assess whether the apology was sincere or ritualistic. The results indicate that although most authors’ published acknowledgments of scientific misconduct seem to minimize culpability by means of the strategic use of language, their resulting ritualistic apologies often still satisfy in some way the accusers’ (and thus their community’s) concerns. (shrink)

Arguments from thought experiment ask the reader to imagine some hypothetical, sometimes exotic, often fantastic, scenario for the sake of illustrating or countering some claim. Variously characterized as mental experimentation, imaginary cases, and even crazy cases, thought experiments figure into both scientific and philosophical arguments. They are often criticized for their fictive nature and for their lack of grounding. Nevertheless, they are common especially in arguments in ethics and philosophy of mind. Moreover, many thought experiments have spawned variations that attempt (...) to both affirm and refute their original arguments. These emended thought experiments exhibit a variety of styles, details, and embellishments. A rhetorical analysis of these variations suggests a reciprocal influence between the arguers' selection of details and their philosophical commitments. I offer examples of this relationship from the variations on John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment and Judith Thomson's unconscious violinist thought experiment. (shrink)

This article points out the challenges to current models for media ethics that arise from the private ownership of public media, and it proposes a new model that integrates Adam Smith's free-market theory and his system of moral reasoning. The model creates moral obligations to maintain the integrity of a system for anyone who profits from it. This model renews an appeal for the contemporary notion of transparency and is built on an analogy between the system of the free market (...) for creating wealth and the system of the free press for producing reliable market information. (shrink)

Citizens need accurate news to govern themselves effectively in a democratic society. Journalists argue editorial independence is necessary to ensure that the integrity of news is not compromised. However, the economic characteristics of news create conflicts between the ideal of independence and the need to pay production costs. This study analyzes those conflicts and the economic tools for resolving them. The analysis suggests ways to balance independence and economic necessity without violating mutual ethical obligations shared by journalists, audiences, and advertisers. (...) Independence, along with a good budget, tends to make for quality journalism. —Michael Wolff, The Man Who Owns the News (p. 225). (shrink)

Contemporary professional restaurant reviews have consequences beyond the dinner plate. They now face challenges from the democratizing efforts of blogs and crowd-sourced reviews. Thus an analysis seems appropriate for determining how they are written and what might be lost should they be replaced. Restaurant reviews are presumed to be a species of art and literary criticism and as such have evolved as a rhetorical genre. Through genre analysis we inductively construct the form of the professional restaurant review and then apply (...) it deductively to recent reviews to discover any substantive and stylistic differences that have arisen in the evolution of this genre of writing. We conclude with a critique of this genre that reveals ethical implications for the uses of metaphors in professional restaurant reviews. (shrink)

The goal of most scientific research published in peer-review journals is to discover and report the truth. However, the research record includes tongue-in-cheek papers written in the conventional form and style of a research paper. Although these papers were intended to be taken ironically, bibliographic database searches show that many have been subsequently cited as valid research, some in prestigious journals. We attempt to understand why so many readers cited such ironic science seriously. We draw from the literature on error (...) propagation in research publication for ways categorize citations. We adopt the concept of irony from the fields of literary and rhetorical criticism to detect, characterize, and analyze the interpretations in the more than 60 published research papers that cite an instance of ironic science. We find a variety of interpretations: some citing authors interpret the research as valid and accept it, some contradict or reject it, and some acknowledge its ironic nature. We conclude that publishing ironic science in a research journal can lead to the same troubles posed by retracted research, and we recommend relevant changes to publication guidelines. (shrink)

The Tree of Life hypothesis frames the evolutionary process as a series of events whereby lineages diverge from one another, thus creating the diversity of life as descendent lineages modify properties from their ancestors. This hypothesis is under scrutiny due to the strong evidence for lateral gene transfer between distantly related bacterial taxa, thereby providing extant taxa with more than one parent. As a result, one argues, the Tree of Life becomes confounded as the original branching structure is gradually superseded (...) by reticulation, ultimately losing its ability to serve as a model for bacterial evolution. Here we address a more fundamental issue: is there a Tree of Life that results from bacterial evolution without considering such lateral gene transfers? Unlike eukaryotic speciation events, lineage separation in bacteria is a gradual process that occurs over tens of millions of years, whereby genetic isolation is established on a gene-by-gene basis. As a result, groups of closely related bacteria, while showing robust genetic isolation as extant lineages, were not created by an unambiguous series of lineage-splitting events. Rather, a temporal fragmentation of the speciation process results in cognate genes showing different genetic relationships. We argue that lineage divergence in bacteria does not produce a tree-like framework, and inferences drawn from such a framework have the potential to be incorrect and misleading. Therefore, the Tree of Life is an inappropriate paradigm for bacterial evolution regardless of the extent of gene transfer between distantly related taxa. (shrink)

Individuals are faced with the many opportunities to pirate. The decision to pirate or not may be related to an individual''s attitudes toward other ethical issues. A person''s ethical and moral predispositions and the judgments that they use to make decisions may be consistent across various ethical dilemmas and may indicate their likelihood to pirate software. This paper investigates the relationship between religion and a theoretical ethical decision making process that an individual uses when evaluating ethical or unethical situations. An (...) ethical decision making model was studied for general unethical scenarios and for the unethical behavior of software piracy. The research model was tested via path analysis using structural equation modeling and was found to be appropriate for the sample data. The results suggest that there is a relationship between religion and the stages of an ethical decision making process regarding general ethical situations and software piracy. (shrink)

Compiled by an archaeologist and philosopher of science, Science at the Frontiers: Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of Science supplements current literature in the history and philosophy of science with essays approaching the traditional problems of the field from new perspectives and highlighting disciplines usually overlooked by the canon. William H. Krieger brings together scientists from a number of disciplines to answer these questions and more in a volume appropriate for both students and academics in the field.

Dès ses premiers écrits, Lonergan a été attentif à la dimension d'amitié qui caractérise les ordres trinitaire et créé. L'homme est par essence ouvert au delà de lui-même; ne pouvant pas coïncider à soi, il est appelé à quelque conversion. La pensée moderne, qui par contre l'a prétendu capable de présence à soi; soutint l'individualisme òu le rapport à l'autre devenait instrumental. La réaction post-moderne, qui accentue l'idée d"autre', réveille la conscience à ses traits plus humains, en favorisant en même (...) temps un retour à la tradition philosophique et théologique sur l'amitié, òu d'ailleurs son idée d''autre' se voit elle-même enrichie. La réflexion thomiste sur la charité comme amitié divine est ici décisive. Lonergan la reprend en explicitant l'essence du corps mystique. L'attention à l'expérience concrète invite enfin à conduire la réflexion jusqu'au plan de l'éducation, d'òu on ne peut pas abstraire l'exigence du don de soi, à l'exemple du Christ qu'y s'est abaissé jusqu'à nous. (shrink)

"The Fragility of Consciousness is the first published collection of his essays and contains several of his best known writings as well as unpublished work. The essays in this volume exhibit a long interdisciplinary engagement with the relationship between faith and reason in the context of the crisis of culture that has marked twentieth- and twenty-first century thought and practice. Frederick G. Lawrence, with his profound and generous commitment to the intellectual life of the church, has produced a body (...) of work that engages with Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Ricoeur, Strauss, Voegelin, and Benedict XVI among others. These essays also explore various themes such as the role of religion in a secular age, political theology, economics, neo-Thomism, Christology, and much more. In an age marked by social, cultural, political, and ecclesial fragmentation, Lawrence models a more generous way--one that prioritizes friendship, conversation, and understanding above all else."--. (shrink)