On August 18, 1986, seventy-two Nobel laureates, seventeen state academies of science, and seven other scientific organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in which they defined and agreed upon the nature and scope of science. The brief was submitted in response to the Louisiana Balanced TreatmentAct for creation science and evolution science that had been struck down in the Federal Court of Louisiana in 1985 and was being appealed to the Supreme Court. (...) The Louisiana trial in general and the amicus curiae brief in particular have historical significance for the history of science, being unique in the collective mobilization of scientists both in defense of and in defining science. This article describes the origin and significance of the brief. (shrink)

What is the role of colleges and universities in forming the character of students? Should universities even attempt to cultivate virtue? If so, how can they do so effectively in a pluralistic context? Cultivating Virtue in the University seeks to answer these questions by gathering diverse perspectives on character education within twenty-first century universities. Bringing together experts from a variety of academic disciplines, this volume catalyzes a critical debate about the possibilities and limits of character education in the university while (...) offering theoretical and practical perspectives on what such education could look like in increasingly global, pluralistic, and intercultural institutions. Ultimately, by engaging insights from education, history, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology, the volume encourages faculty, staff, and administrators to embrace the opportunities and challenges of cultivating virtue in the university. (shrink)

Universities have long played an important role in preparing thinkers and leaders who go on to have significant impact around the world. But if the world needs wise thinkers and good leaders, then how might modern universities educate leaders of character, particularly in a pluralistic context where many educators are reluctant to see the university as a site of moral formation? This article shares insights from one specific program, the Oxford Global Leadership Initiative, an extra-curricular program that seeks to help (...) diverse cohorts of graduate students develop the ethical qualities of character needed for leaders to serve the common good. Drawing upon qualitative data collected over three years of program activity to illuminate and illustrate our argument, we address three questions: Can virtues of character necessary for good leadership be cultivated in a university setting among a culturally diverse group of students? How can a character-based leadership program meet the particular developmental needs of “emerging adults”? and How might the program’s impact translate into society and culture? We conclude that a program integrating character and leadership can make valuable contributions to the ethical and professional development of postgraduate students. (shrink)

This book represents emerging alternative perspectives to the "constructivist" orthodoxy that currently dominates the field of science and technology studies. Various contributions from distinguished Americans and Europeans in the field, provide arguments and evidence that it is not enough simply to say that science is "socially situated." Controversial Science focuses on important political, ethical, and broadly normative considerations that have yet to be given their due, but which point to a more realistic and critical perspective on science policy.

Schönau et al. (2021) identified four dimensions of agency (authenticity, privacy, self–trust, and responsibility) that may be influenced by the use of neurotechnologies, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) or brain–computer–interfaces (BCI). The Agency Map they proposed depicts the role of each dimension, and indicates how they may interact. The authors emphasize that a strength of their approach is that it allows to capture the agency dimensions that were previously seen as disconnected and independent as intricately interwoven parts of the (...) person’s experience. This intended unification may help to understand personal agency more fully in various contexts important in neuroethical considerations. However, what is missing in Schönau et al.’s analysis is the mechanism—the very link— by which these various dimensions can come together. As Zawadzki (2020) points out discussing his account of the self (PTS–moral aspects)—which also includes the agency dimensions indicated by Schönau et al. (both authenticity, and responsibility, but also autonomy)—what is crucial in order to unify these various dimensions is narrative. (shrink)

There has been a growing interest in research concerning memory modification technologies (MMTs) in recent years. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to explore the prospect of controllable and intentional modification of human memory. One of the technologies with the greatest potential to this end is optogenetics—an invasive neuromodulation technique involving the use of light to control the activity of individual brain cells. It has recently shown the potential to modify specific long-term memories in animal models in ways not yet possible (...) with other MMTs. As the therapeutic potential of optogenetics has already prompted approval of the first human trials, it is especially important and timely to consider the opportunities and dangers this technology may entail. In this article, we focus on possible consequences of optogenetics as an MMT by analyzing fundamental threats potentially associated with memory modifications: the potential disruption of personality and authenticity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Historical and Theological Reflections by Matthew LeveringBrant PitreDid Jesus Rise from the Dead? Historical and Theological Reflections by Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 272 pp.In his book Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? Historical and Theological Reflections, Matthew Levering writes "to make the case" that there is "good reason" to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus (1). In this (...) self-described work of "theological apologetics" (211), Levering argues from a threefold foundation for the credibility of Jesus's resurrection: (1) "the New Testament evidence," considered from the perspective of historical investigation; (2) the "sheer strangeness" of the apostolic claim that [End Page 1347] Jesus was "resurrected" and not just resuscitated or exalted into heaven as an immortal soul; (3) and the intrinsic credibility of the "supreme love" revealed through his death and resurrection (2–4). As this threefold foundation makes clear, Levering draws together both "historical and theological reasons for believing that Jesus' Resurrection happened" (4).In chapter 1, Levering contends that, while "faith does not stand or fall upon the results of historical research, those who insist that the truth of Jesus' Resurrection has nothing to do with the domain of historical investigation are mistaken" (30). To this end, he offers a survey of three figures: (1) the Belgian Dominican theologian Edward Schillebeeckx; (2) the American Protestant biblical scholar Dale C. Allison Jr.; and (3) the Anglican bishop and biblical theologian N. T. Wright. Levering exposes the serious flaws of contemporary attempts to reduce the resurrection claims of early Christians to hallucinations or visions of someone who has recently died. In particular, Levering finds compelling Wright's argument that the bodily resurrection of Jesus provides "the best historical explanation" of the early Christian claim that what first-century Jews expected to happen to everyone at the end of time had in fact happened to only one person—Jesus of Nazareth—in the middle of time. From a strictly historical point of view, claims that the disciples were merely moved by grace to a new experience Jesus being "alive" or that they simply experienced hallucinatory visions of Jesus after his death fail to explain the "radical change of eschatology" that took place in the early Church (56).In chapter 2, Levering explores the question of whether "the Church's mediation is truly effective in enabling us to share in the apostolic communion with the risen Jesus" (63). He first offers a sympathetic overview of the Protestant biblical scholar Richard Bauckham's book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2003; 2nd ed., 2017), in which he claims that the Gospels rest largely on "eyewitness testimony" (87–88). According to Levering, Bauckham's historical arguments show that "the ongoing presence of eyewitnesses provides a reason for not being skeptical about the major events of Jesus' life as reported by the Gospels, including his Resurrection" (89). At the same time, Levering insists that eyewitness memory is only one "mode of historical remembrance" utilized by the Church; in addition, Jesus also "willed that the historical remembrance of his Resurrection be an ecclesial reality" (90)—that is, a liturgical act of "remembrance" that takes place above all in the Eucharistic liturgy.In chapter 3, Levering aims to shed light on "the role of the Old Testament in aiding the discernment of the historical credibility of Jesus's Resurrection" (91). This chapter presents a stark contrast to contemporary [End Page 1348] studies of the resurrection that begin (and end) with the New Testament data. In it, Levering surveys the work of three contemporary scholars—Dale Allison, N. T. Wright, and the Jewish scholar Jon Levenson—and puts them in conversation with Thomas Aquinas's thirteenth-century commentary on the account of Jesus's resurrection in John 20–21. As this chapter amply demonstrates, it is "precisely in the scriptural history that the Creator God has guided, that we come to know that given such a God and such a history, Jesus' Resurrection is believable" (112). According to Levering, "the entire Old Testament" (113) is a necessary prolegomenon for understanding what it even means to say that Jesus has been raised in the first... (shrink)

Media in Question sets the agenda for a revitalized debate on the hybrid communicative practices that constitute the postmodern media landscape: practices that cross the boundaries between fact and fiction, information and entertainment, public knowledge, and popular culture. In this challenging and provocative collection, the individual contributors rethink key issuesùthe meaning of the public interest, the quality of media performance, and deregulation. In the process they raise questions rarely addressed in normative media theories, for example, the ethics of sports reporting, (...) the moral reasoning in popular culture, and the required professional standards for infotainment genres such as reality television and gossip journalism. Accessible and wide-ranging, The Media in Question will be essential reading for students in mass communication and political communication studies. (shrink)

Legal decision-support systems have the potential to improve access to justice, administrative efficiency, and judicial consistency, but broad adoption of such systems is contingent on development of technologies with low knowledge-engineering, validation, and maintenance costs. This paper describes two approaches to an important form of legal decision support—explainable outcome prediction—that obviate both annotation of an entire decision corpus and manual processing of new cases. The first approach, which uses an attention network for prediction and attention weights to highlight salient case (...) text, was shown to be capable of predicting decisions, but attention-weight-based text highlighting did not demonstrably improve human decision speed or accuracy in an evaluation with 61 human subjects. The second approach, termed semi-supervised case annotation for legal explanations, exploits structural and semantic regularities in case corpora to identify textual patterns that have both predictable relationships to case decisions and explanatory value. (shrink)

On receiver-based teleosemantic theories of representation, the chemical states of the circadian clocks in animal, plant and cyanobacterial cells constitute signals of future states of affairs, often the rising and setting of the sun. This signalling is much more rigid than sophisticated representational systems like human language, but it is not simple on all dimensions. In most organisms the clock regulates many different circadian rhythms. The process of entrainment ensures that the mapping between chemical states of the clock and the (...) daily light-dark cycle is adjusted to deal with seasonal changes. In regulating anticipatory behaviour, the states of the clock look forward both to the time the behaviour is supposed to happen and the later time when the anticipated circumstances are supposed to arise. The case of the circadian clock shows that purely indicative signals can arise in very basic biological systems and brings into sharp relief the trade-offs involved in characterizing representational systems. On receiver-based teleosemantic theories, future-directed signals are not restricted to complex multicellular organisms but are ubiquitous in the biological world. (shrink)

There has been a growing interest in research concerning memory modification technologies (MMTs) in recent years. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to explore the prospect of controllable and intentional modification of human memory. One of the technologies with the greatest potential to this end is optogenetics—an invasive neuromodulation technique involving the use of light to control the activity of individual brain cells. It has recently shown the potential to modify specific long-term memories in animal models in ways not yet possible (...) with other MMTs. As the therapeutic potential of optogenetics has already prompted approval of the first human trials, it is especially important and timely to consider the opportunities and dangers this technology may entail. In this article, we focus on possible consequences of optogenetics as an MMT by analyzing fundamental threats potentially associated with memory modifications: the potential disruption of personality and authenticity. (shrink)

Logic-based approaches to legal problem solving model the rule-governed nature of legal argumentation, justification, and other legal discourse but suffer from two key obstacles: the absence of efficient, scalable techniques for creating authoritative representations of legal texts as logical expressions; and the difficulty of evaluating legal terms and concepts in terms of the language of ordinary discourse. Data-centric techniques can be used to finesse the challenges of formalizing legal rules and matching legal predicates with the language of ordinary parlance by (...) exploiting knowledge latent in legal corpora. However, these techniques typically are opaque and unable to support the rule-governed discourse needed for persuasive argumentation and justification. This paper distinguishes representative legal tasks to which each approach appears to be particularly well suited and proposes a hybrid model that exploits the complementarity of each. (shrink)

In this book, William Brant inquires how violence is reduced. Social causes of violence are exposed. War, sexual domination, leadership, propagandizing and comedy are investigated. Legal systems are explored as reducers and implementers of violence and threats.

This paper proposes a model ofratio decidendi as a justification structure consisting of a series of reasoning steps, some of which relate abstract predicates to other abstract predicates and some of which relate abstract predicates to specific facts. This model satisfies an important set of characteristics ofratio decidendi identified from the jurisprudential literature. In particular, the model shows how the theory under which a case is decided controls its precedential effect. By contrast, a purely exemplar-based model ofratio decidendi fails to (...) account for the dependency of precedential effect on the theory of decision. (shrink)

Optogenetics is an invasive neuromodulation technology involving the use of light to control the activity of individual neurons. Even though optogenetics is a relatively new neuromodulation tool whose various implications have not yet been scrutinized, it has already been approved for its first clinical trials in humans. As optogenetics is being intensively investigated in animal models with the aim of developing novel brain stimulation treatments for various neurological and psychiatric disorders, it appears crucial to consider both the opportunities and dangers (...) such therapies may offer. In this review, we focus on the memory-modifying potential of optogenetics, investigating what it is capable of and how it differs from other memory modification technologies. We then outline the safety challenges that need to be addressed before optogenetics can be used in humans. Finally, we re-examine crucial neuroethical concerns expressed in regard to other MMTs in the light of optogenetics and address those that appear to be unique to the memory-modifying potential of optogenetic technology. (shrink)

The aims of this paper are to: (1) identify the best framework for comprehending multidimensional impact of deep brain stimulation on the self; (2) identify weaknesses of this framework; (3) propose refinements to it; (4) in pursuing (3), show why and how this framework should be extended with additional moral aspects and demonstrate their interrelations; (5) define how moral aspects relate to the framework; (6) show the potential consequences of including moral aspects on evaluating DBS’s impact on patients’ selves. Regarding (...) (1), I argue that the pattern theory of self can be regarded as such a framework. In realizing (2) and (3), I indicate that most relevant issues concerning PTS that require resolutions are ontological issues, including the persistence question, the “specificity problem”, and finding lacking relevant aspects of the self. In realizing (4), I identify aspects of the self not included in PTS which are desperately needed to investigate the full range of potentially relevant DBS-induced changes—authenticity, autonomy, and responsibility, and conclude that how we define authenticity will have implications for our concept of autonomy, which in turn will determine how we think about responsibility. Concerning (5), I discuss a complex relation between moral aspects and PTS—on one hand, they serve as the lens through which a particular self-pattern can be evaluated; on the other, they are, themselves, products of dynamical interactions of various self-aspects. Finally, I discuss (6), demonstrating novel way of understanding the effects of DBS on patients’ selves. (shrink)

It is argued that the Achilles heel of contemporary sociology-and great parts of social science-is a) weak theory development, and b) absence of a meta-theory providing a common platform and a shared goal for its practitioners, fostering cumulativity. A meta-theory called causal realism (a variant of critical realism) is suggested for these purposes. The main tenets and key concepts of realism, such as causality and explanation, mechanism, stratified reality, are presented. Thereafter, via an anology to the physical sciences, it is (...) argued that a natural implication of realism and the search for causal mc mechanisms is a division of society into levels. The micro-macro issue is approached by a level-ontology for the development of sociological theory. Five levels are suggested, discussed and briefly exemplified. In the concluding remarks, some further positive implications of realism to sociology are touched upon. 140105b.k. (shrink)

Freedom of information laws promote transparency by permitting individuals and organizations to obtain government documents. However, exemptions from disclosure are necessary to protect privacy and to permit government officials to deliberate freely. Deliberative language is often the most challenging and burdensome exemption to detect, leading to high processing costs and delays in responding to open-records requests. This paper describes a novel deliberative-language detection model trained on a new annotated training set. The deliberative-language detection model is a component of a decision-support (...) system for open-records requests under the US Freedom of Information Act, the FOIA Assistant, that ingests documents responsive to an open-records requests, suggests passages likely to be subject to deliberative language, privacy, or other exemptions, and assists analysts in rapidly redacting suggested passages. The tool’s interface is based on extensive human-factors and usability studies with analysts and is currently in operational testing by multiple US federal agencies. (shrink)

For a Better Worldliness is not only a statement of Abraham Kuyper's and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological concept and historical practice of discipleship. It is also--and perhaps more importantly--a call to engage in the fullness of the Christian life here and now. While this book goes to great efforts to establish sound historical and theological insights specifically in regards to Kuyper and Bonhoeffer, there is a strong underlying current that these particular insights deeply matter to the life of discipleship in the (...) world today. History shows us that discipleship is not a singular journey; because of Jesus Christ it is not a description of one set path with one set of guidelines. A disciple can be a prime minister who unabashedly and successfully campaigned on his Calvinistic principles, just as he can be a participant in a coup d'état launched against a tyrant, leading to the disciple's own imprisonment and death. Jesus Christ calls--whether to the height of political office, or to the dank prison cell, or (more likely for us) to somewhere in between. - Back cover. (shrink)

Memory modification technologies (MMTs)—interventions within the memory affecting its functions and contents in specific ways—raise great therapeutic hopes but also great fears. Ethicists have expressed concerns that developing and using MMTs may endanger the very fabric of who we are—our personal identity. This threat has been mainly considered in relation to two interrelated concerns: truthfulness and narrative self‐constitution. In this article, we propose that although this perspective brings up important matters concerning the potential aftermaths of MMT utilization, it fails to (...) tell the whole story. We suggest that capturing more tangible potential consequences of MMT use, namely, its psychological ramifications is crucial both in ethical considerations and in making decisions regarding the permissibility of such interventions. To this end, we first examine what current MMTs are capable of and what are the prospects of emerging MMTs. Subsequently, we outline the relationship between memory and personal identity; specifically, we indicate that concepts of self‐defining memories and narrative identity are crucial to considering how MMTs may influence one's psychological functioning. On this basis, we analyze potential consequences of narrative disruption that may be the result of the use of MMTs; more precisely, we consider its potential effects on mental health, well‐being, and personal agency, and outline the ethical dilemmas that decision‐makers face in this context. We conclude by considering the broader cultural context that may have influence on policymaking regarding permissibility of memory modification interventions. (shrink)

Tye's book develops a persuasive and, in many respects, original argument for the view that the qualitative side of our mental life is representational in..

This article is the first attempt to justify the "next" milestone in the development of legal realism: hyperrealism. The implications of digitalization have become the new fuel for the legal realist's jurisprudence prediction theory, that is, empirical research to predict the judge's or the court's decision. Indeed, that was impossible for American realists in the early twentieth century, and all the attempts failed. Therefore, tools such as Judicial Analytics allow us to prove that personal motives and prejudices affect a dispute's (...) resolution. Based on a systemic, comparative, and interdisciplinary analysis that intermingles legal theory, data analytics and digital technologies, the article substantiates the concept of hyperrealism itself. It evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of its primary tool—judicial analytics. The authors state the necessity of creating regulatory mechanisms of "curbing" to use them to improve justice and minimize the risk of rights violations. They propose using tools of expert evaluation, standardization, and ethical regulation of forensic analysis. (shrink)

This book fills a gap in studies of meaning by providing detailed case studies of attested corpus data on the meanings of words and phrases.

Multicultural education, in some capacity, is a part of nearly every teacher education program in the country. Studies have shown, though, that this multicultural education does not often include issues of gender non-conformity and sexuality as a part of the instruction. Given these experiences in teacher preparation programs, we wanted to investigate pre-service and in-service social studies teachers' sense of self-efficacy in working with LGBTQ youth, teaching LGBTQ content, and addressing LGBTQ bias in school context. Using a Likert-scale we assessed (...) the self-efficacy of 47 pre-service teachers. We found that the teachers had the highest sense of self-efficacy working with LGBTQ students and families. The participants reported a lower sense of self-efficacy teaching LGBTQ content and the lowest sense of self-efficacy addressing bias against LGBTQ individuals in commercial teaching materials and school contexts. The results of this study reveal the need for social studies teacher educators to be purposeful in the inclusion of these topics in their teacher preparation courses. (shrink)

For nearly two decades, ethicists have expressed concerns that the further development and use of memory modification technologies (MMTs)—techniques allowing to intentionally and selectively alter memories—may threaten the very foundations of who we are, our personal identity, and thus pose a threat to our well-being, or even undermine our “humaneness.” This paper examines the potential ramifications of memory-modifying interventions such as changing the valence of targeted memories and selective deactivation of a particular memory as these interventions appear to be at (...) the same time potentially both most promising clinically as well as menacing to identity. However, unlike previous works discussing the potential consequences of MMTs, this article analyzes them in the context of the narrative relational approach to personal identity and potential issues related to autonomy. I argue that such a perspective brings to light the ethical aspects and moral issues arising from the use of MMTs that have been hidden from previously adopted approaches. In particular, this perspective demonstrates how important the social context in which an individual lives is for the ethical evaluation of a given memory-modifying intervention. I conclude by suggesting that undertaking memory modifications without taking into account the social dimension of a person’s life creates the risk that she will not be able to meet one of the basic human needs—the autonomous construction and maintenance of personal identity. Based on this conclusion, I offer some reflections on the permissibility and advisability of MMTs and what these considerations suggest for the future. (shrink)

Punishment involves the intentional infliction of harm and suffering. Both of the most prominent families of justifications of punishment – retributivism and consequentialism – face several moral concerns that are hard to overcome. Moreover, the effectiveness of current criminal punishment methods in ensuring society’s safety is seriously undermined by empirical research. Thus, it appears to be a moral imperative for a modern and humane society to seek alternative means of administering justice. The special issue of Diametros “The Abolition of Punishment: (...) Is a Non-Punitive Criminal Justice System Ethically Justified?” was brought into life precisely to give the authors a platform for such progressive inquiries. And it is now safe to say that this platform has been put to excellent use, since Valerij Zisman, Alexander Stachurski, Giorgia Brucato, Perica Jovchevski, Sofia M. I. Jeppsson, Stephen G. Morris, Benjamin Vilhauer, John Lemos, Saul Smilansky, Elizabeth Shaw, Mirko Farina, Andrea Lavazza and Sergei Levin have presented such thought-provoking texts that they are bound to set the stage for debate in the years to come. This article is an introduction to this special issue and to the authors’ papers. (shrink)

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an invasive therapeutic method involving the implantation of electrodes and the electrical stimulation of specific areas of the brain to modulate their activity. DBS brings therapeutic benefits, but can also have adverse side effects. Recently, neuroethicists have recognized that DBS poses a threat to the very fabric of human existence, namely, to the selves of patients. This article provides a review of the neuroethical literature examining this issue, and identifies the crucial dimensions related to the (...) self which DBS may endanger—personal identity, authenticity, and autonomy. The most influential theories accounting for these dimensions are analyzed herein, and it is argued that most of these theories require further refinement. This paper also demonstrates the interrelation between personal identity, authenticity, and autonomy, and concludes that one can only fully understand the impact of DBS on the self when all of these factors are taken into account. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 7, Page 27-30, July 2012.

Online dispute resolution (ODR) is an alternative to traditional litigation that can both significantly reduce the disadvantages suffered by litigants unable to afford an attorney and greatly improve court efficiency and economy. An important aspect of many ODR systems is a facilitator, a neutral party who guides the disputants through the steps of reaching an agreement. However, insufficient availability of facilitators impedes broad adoption of ODR systems. This paper describes a novel model of facilitation that integrates two distinct but complementary (...) knowledge sources: cognitive task analysis of facilitator behavior and corpus analysis of ODR session transcripts. This model is implemented in a decision-support system that (1) monitors cases to detect situations requiring immediate attention and (2) automates selection of standard text messages appropriate to the current state of the negotiations. This facilitation model has the potential to compensate for shortages of facilitators by improving the efficiency of experienced facilitators, assisting novice facilitators, and providing autonomous facilitation. (shrink)