This short work examines what the Hippocratic Oath said to Greek physicians 2400 years ago and reflects on its relevance to medical ethics today. Drawing on the writings of ancient physicians, Greek playwrights, and modern scholars, each chapter explores one passage of the Oath and concludes with a modern case discussion. This book is for anyone who loves medicine and is concerned about the ethics and history of the profession.

Part one : early translations of fundamental words -- Introduction -- Mistranslations in the early critical literature (1929-1949) -- The first Heidegger in English -- Part two : hermeneutics and philosophy of translation -- Elements of a theory of translation -- Paratactic method : translating parmenides, fragment VI -- Bibliography -- Part I : works by Heidegger cited in the text -- Part II : other sources -- A research bibliography of Heidegger in English translation.

Abstractionists claim that the only bearers of intrinsic value are abstract, necessarily existing states of affairs. I argue that abstractionism cannot succeed. Though we can model concrete goods such as lives, projects, and outcomes with abstract states, conflating models of goods with the goods themselves has surprising and unattractive consequences. I suggest that concrete states of affairs or facts are the only bearers of intrinsic value. I show how this proposal can overcome the concerns lodged against abstractionism and, in the (...) process, reconnect us with the good. (shrink)

Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end—its final value—may be conditional on its extrinsic features. They support this claim by appealing to examples: Kagan points to Abraham Lincoln’s pen, Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen to Lady Diana’s dress, and Korsgaard to a mink coat. They contend that these things may have final value in virtue of their historical or societal roles. These three examples have become familiar: many now merely mention them to establish the conditionalist position. But the widespread (...) faith in such cases is, I believe, unjustified. This is because, surprisingly, the pen, the dress, and the coat cannot have final value. I argue that the problem is internal: these cases are ruled out by every conditionalist account of final value. Further, the problem with these well-known cases applies to most other supposed examples of extrinsic, final goods. Thus nearly all cases given to support the conditionalist view cannot succeed. I suggest a kind of diagnosis: I claim that these examples are best seen as instances of sentimental value, rather than final value. I close by providing a brief account of sentimental value and explain how it relates to instrumental, intrinsic, and final goodness. (shrink)

_Practical Bioethics_ offers a mix of theory and readings, presented in a format that is succinct and approachable. Each chapter begins and ends with a case study, illustrating the core issues at play and emphasizing the practical nature of the dilemmas arising in medicine. Primary source texts are provided to flesh out the issues, and each of these is carefully edited and presented with interwoven explanatory comments to assist student readers. Throughout, J.K. Miles shows the importance of health-care ethics to (...) us all, whether we be medical providers, patients, or both. (shrink)

In this chapter we explore basic mathematical and other constraints which limit the often novel uses of computation employed in modern computational system biology. These constraints generate substantial obstacles for one goal prominent in the field; namely, the goal of producing models valid for predictive uses in clinical and other contexts. However on closer examination many applications of computation and simulation in the field have more pragmatic or investigative goals in mind, suggesting an important role for rationalizing uses of computation (...) in systems biology and elsewhere as investigative tools. We discuss the concept of an “investigative tool”, and what insights it might offer our understanding of modern computational strategies and the bases for them. (shrink)

I argue that there are two distinct views called ‘value pluralism’ in contemporary axiology, but that these positions have not been properly distinguished. The first kind of pluralism, weak pluralism, is the view philosophers have in mind when they say that there are many things that are valuable. It is also the kind of pluralism that philosophers like Moore, Brentano and Chisholm were interested in. The second kind of pluralism, strong pluralism, is the view philosophers have in mind when they (...) say there are many values, or many kinds of value. It is also the kind of pluralism that philosophers like Stocker, Kekes and Nussbaum have advanced. I separate and elucidate these views, and show how the distinction between them affects the contemporary debate about value pluralism. (shrink)

Mooreans claim that intrinsic goodness is a conceptual primitive. Fitting-attitude theorists object: they say that goodness should be defined in terms of what it is fitting for us to value. The Moorean view is often considered a relic; the fitting-attitude view is increasingly popular. I think this unfortunate. Though the fitting-attitude analysis is powerful, the Moorean view is still attractive. I dedicate myself to the influential arguments marshaled against Moore’s program, including those advanced by Scanlon, Stratton-Lake and Hooker, and Jacobson; (...) I argue that they do not succeed. (shrink)

In 1772, Kant outlined the new problem of his critical period in terms of four possible “ways” of understanding the agreement of knowledge with its object. This study expands Kant’s terse descriptions of these ways, examining why he rejected them. Apart from clarifying the historical context in which Kant saw his own achievement (the Fifth Way), the chief benefits of exploring the historical background of Way Two, in particular, are that it (1) explains the puzzling intuitus originarius/intellectus archetypus dichotomy, and (...) (2) casts doubt on the received idea that Kant broke with the traditional theocentric model of cognition. (shrink)

Moore's moral programme is increasingly unpopular. Judith Jarvis Thomson's attack has been especially influential; she says the Moorean project fails because ‘there is no such thing as goodness’. I argue that her objection does not succeed: while Thomson is correct that the kind of generic goodness she targets is incoherent, it is not, I believe, the kind of goodness central to the Principia. Still, Moore's critics will resist. Some reply that we cannot understand Moorean goodness without generic goodness. Others claim (...) that even if Moore does not need Thomson's concept, he still requires the objectionable notion of absolute goodness. I undermine both these replies. I first show that we may dispense with generic goodness without losing Moorean intrinsic goodness. Then, I argue that though intrinsic goodness is indeed a kind of absolute goodness, the objections marshalled against the concept are unsound. (shrink)

After briefly outlining the fine-tuning argument (FTA), I explain how it relies crucially on the claim that it is not improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe. Against this premise stands the divine psychology objection: the contention that the probability that God would design a fine-tuned universe is inscrutable. I explore three strategies for meeting this objection: (i) denying that the FTA requires any claims about divine psychology in the first place, (ii) defining the motivation and intention to design (...) a fine-tuned universe into the theistic hypothesis, and (iii) providing arguments that the relevant probability is not terribly low. While I reject the first two, I conclude, in line with the third, that considerations about life's objective value establish that it is not absurdly improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe, whether one regards the FTA as an inference merely to a cosmic designer, or to theism proper. Accordingly, the divine psychology objection fails. (shrink)

It is a standing temptation for philosophers to find anticipations of their own views in the great thinkers of the past, but few have been so bold in the search for precursors, and so utterly mistaken, as Berkeley when he claimed Plato and Aristotle as allies to his immaterialist idealism. InSiris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water, which Berkeley published in his old age in 1744, he reviews the leading philosophies of antiquity and finds (...) them on the whole a good deal more sympathetic to his own ideas than the ‘modern atheism’, as he calls it, of Hobbes and Spinoza or the objectionable principles of ‘the mechanic and geometrical philosophers’ such as Newton. But his strongest and, I think, his most interesting claim is that neither Plato nor Aristotle admitted ‘an absolute actual existence of sensible or corporeal things’. (shrink)

Jack Miles, a former member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and Mark Taylor, a philosophical atheist, have both in different ways brought religious and philosophical concerns into the wider world. Approaching the end of their careers as well as the end of their lives, they were prompted by the advent of a deadly pandemic amid worldwide political crises to think through matters of "ultimate concern": what is the human self, embedded as it is in a cosmos of nonhuman and (...) artificial intelligences? Within this larger ecology, what is the meaning of individual death? And can philosophy help us intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually understand and accept our fundamental impermanence? The authors' sense of urgency about their impending mortality, the worth of a life, the grief of loss and what was left undone, the fragility of existence, the uncertainty of the ending permeate their conversations. Readers will be drawn into the inner lives, the hidden fears and emotions, the existential dread experienced by these two exceptional philosophers facing life's close in extraordinary times when both annihilation and revolutionary new beginnings seem equally possible. The authors glean insight from Kierkegaard and Weil, Dickinson and Baldwin, Nagarjuna and Mahavira, Bateson and El Greco, leavened with a little Gluck, Auden, Borges, Ella Fitzgerald, and Hamilton. Reminiscent of the intimate conversations in "My Dinner with Andre," they confront an unknown future. Combining the diary's closeness to the self with the reflection of the personal letter much as Karl Ove Knausgaard combines diary with novelistic realism, these two distinctive voices are uncompromising, immediate, and raw. At the book's end they decide that their dialogue "will continue to change us even after one of us, perhaps both of us, dies." Ghosts may not be holy spirits, but even an atheist can believe that they are real. (shrink)

Research on interdisciplinary science has for the most part concentrated on the institutional obstacles that discourage or hamper interdisciplinary work, with the expectation that interdisciplinary interaction can be improved through institutional reform strategies such as through reform of peer review systems. However institutional obstacles are not the only ones that confront interdisciplinary work. The design of policy strategies would benefit from more detailed investigation into the particular cognitive constraints, including the methodological and conceptual barriers, which also confront attempts to work (...) across disciplinary boundaries. Lessons from cognitive science and anthropological studies of labs in sociology of science suggest that scientific practices may be very domain specific, where domain specificity is an essential aspect of science that enables researchers to solve complex problems in a cognitively manageable way. The limit or extent of domain specificity in scientific practice, and how it constrains interdisciplinary research, is not yet fully understood, which attests to an important role for philosophers of science in the study of interdisciplinary science. This paper draws upon two cases of interdisciplinary collaboration; those between ecologists and economists, and those between molecular biologists and systems biologists, to illustrate some of the cognitive barriers which have contributed to failures and difficulties of interactions between these fields. Each exemplify some aspect of domain specificity in scientific practice and show how such specificity may constrain interdisciplinary work. (shrink)

I present and evaluate three interpretations of methodological naturalism (MN), the principle that scientific explanations may only appeal to natural phenomena: as an essential feature of science, as a provisional guideline grounded in the historical failure of supernatural hypotheses, and as a synthesis of these two approaches. In doing so, I provide both a synoptic overview of current scholarship on MN, as well a contribution to that discussion by arguing in favor of a restricted version of MN, placing it on (...) a firmer theoretical foundation than that supplied by previous studies, and replying to recent objections. (shrink)

We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard account of Minkowski spacetime in [Maudlin 2012] and [Malament, unpublished]. It is intended for future use in the formalization of physical theories in Minkowski spacetime. The choice of primitives is in the spirit of [Tarski 1959]: a predicate of betwenness and a (...) four place predicate to compare the square of the relativistic intervals. Minkowski spacetime is described as a four dimensional ‘vector space’ that can be decomposed everywhere into a spacelike hyperplane - which obeys the Euclidean axioms in [Tarski and Givant, 1999] - and an orthogonal timelike line. The length of other ‘vectors’ are calculated according to Pythagora’s theorem. We conclude with a Representation Theorem relating models of our system that satisfy second order continuity to the mathematical structure called ‘Minkowski spacetime’ in physics textbooks. (shrink)

Dixon et al. overlook the fact that contact predicts not only favorable out-group attitudes/evaluations, but also cognitions, affect, and behavior. The weight of evidence supporting the benefits of intergroup contact cautions against throwing the (contact) baby out with the bathwater. The goal to “ignite struggles” in pursuit of social equality, we argue, incautiously risks hurling us down the proverbial rabbit hole.

British writers of the eighteenth century such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are widely thought to have used the notion of disinterestedness to distinguish an aesthetic mode of perception from all other kinds. This historical view originates in the work of Jerome Stolnitz. Through a re-examination of the texts cited by Stolnitz, I argue that none of the writers in question possessed the notion of disinterestedness that has been used in later aesthetic theory, but only the ordinary, non-technical concept, and that (...) they did not use this notion to define a specifically aesthetic mode of perception or a specifically aesthetic mode of anything else. The nearest thing that they had to the Stolnitzian conception of “the aesthetic” was their conception of taste, which differs from the former in some essential respects. (shrink)

Sarcopenia is a process of progressive aging‐associated loss of skeletal muscle mass (SMM) recognized as a serious global health issue contributing to frailty and increased all‐cause mortality. Exercise and nutritional interventions (particularly intake of dairy products and milk) demonstrate good efficacy, safety, and broad applicability. Here, we propose that at least some of the well‐documented favorable effects of milk and milk‐derived protein supplements on SMM might be mediated by D‐galactose, a monosaccharide present in large quantities in milk in the form (...) of disaccharide lactose (milk sugar). We suggest that ingestion of dairy products results in exposure to D‐galactose in concentrations metabolized primarily via the Leloir pathway with the potential to (i) promote anabolic signaling via maintenance of growth factor (e.g., insulin‐like growth factor 1 [IGF‐1]) receptor mature glycosylation patterns; and (ii) provide extracellular (liver glycogen) and intracellular substrates for short (muscle glycolysis) and long‐term (muscle glycogen, intramyocellular lipids) energy availability. Additionally, D‐galactose might optimize the metabolic function of skeletal muscles by increasing mitochondrial content and stimulating glucose and fatty acid utilization. The proposed potential of D‐galactose to promote the accretion of SMM is discussed in the context of its therapeutic potential in sarcopenia. (shrink)

Narrative analysis is well established as a means of examining the subjective experience of those who suffer chronic illness and cancer. In a study of perceptions of the outcomes of treatment of cancer of the colon, we have been struck by the consistency with which patients record three particular observations of their subjective experience: the immediate impact of the cancer diagnosis and a persisting identification as a cancer patient, regardless of the time since treatment and of the presence or absence (...) of persistent or recurrent disease; a state of variable alienation from social familiars, expressed as an inability to communicate the nature of the experience of the illness, its diagnosis and treatment; and a persistent sense of boundedness, an awareness of limits to space, empowerment and available time. These subjectivities were experienced in varying degree by all patients in our study. Individual responses to these experiences were complex and variable. The experiences are best understood under the rubric of a category we call “liminality”. We believe that all cancer patients enter and experience liminality as a process which begins with the first manifestations of their malignancy. An initial acute phase of liminality is marked by disorientation, a sense of loss and of loss of control, and a sense of uncertainty. An adaptive, enduring phase of suspended liminality supervenes, in which each patient constructs and reconstructs meaning for their experience by means of narrative. This phase persists, probably for the rest of the cancer patient’s life. The experience of liminality is firmly grounded in the changing and experiencing body that houses both the disease and the self. Insights into the nature of the experience can be gained from the Existentialist philosophers and from the history of attitudes to death. Understanding liminality helps us to understand what it is that patients with cancer seek from the system to which they turn for help. Its explication should therefore be important for those who provide health care, those who educate health care workers and those concerned to study and use outcomes as administrative and policy making instruments. (shrink)

In this paper we take a close look at current interdisciplinary modeling practices in the environmental sciences, and suggest that closer attention needs to be paid to the nature of scientific practices when investigating and planning interdisciplinarity. While interdisciplinarity is often portrayed as a medium of novel and transformative methodological work, current modeling strategies in the environmental sciences are conservative, avoiding methodological conflict, while confining interdisciplinary interactions to a relatively small set of pre-existing modeling frameworks and strategies (a process we (...) call crystallization). We argue that such practices can be rationalized as responses in part to cognitive constraints which restrict interdisciplinary work. We identify four salient integrative modeling strategies in environmental sciences, and argue that this crystallization, while contradicting somewhat the novel goals many have for interdisciplinarity, makes sense when considered in the light of common disciplinary practices and cognitive constraints. These results provide cause to rethink in more concrete methodological terms what interdisciplinarity amounts to, and what kinds of interdisciplinarity are obtainable in the environmental sciences and elsewhere. (shrink)

We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard account of Minkowski spacetime in Maudlin and Malament. It is intended for future use in the formalization of physical theories in Minkowski spacetime. The choice of primitives is in the spirit of Tarski : a predicate of betwenness and a four place (...) predicate to compare the square of the relativistic intervals. Minkowski spacetime is described as a four dimensional ‘vector space’ that can be decomposed everywhere into a spacelike hyperplane—which obeys the Euclidean axioms in Tarski and Givant, 175–214 1999)—and an orthogonal timelike line. The length of other ‘vectors’ are calculated according to Pythagoras’ theorem. We conclude with a Representation Theorem relating models \ of our system \ that satisfy second order continuity to the mathematical structure \, called ‘Minkowski spacetime’ in physics textbooks. (shrink)

Integrative systems biology is an emerging field that attempts to integrate computation, applied mathematics, engineering concepts and methods, and biological experimentation in order to model large-scale complex biochemical networks. The field is thus an important contemporary instance of an interdisciplinary approach to solving complex problems. Interdisciplinary science is a recent topic in the philosophy of science. Determining what is philosophically important and distinct about interdisciplinary practices requires detailed accounts of problem-solving practices that attempt to understand how specific practices address the (...) challenges and constraints of interdisciplinary research in different contexts. In this paper we draw from our 5-year empirical ethnographic study of two systems biology labs and their collaborations with experimental biologists to analyze a significant problem-solving approach in ISB, which we call adaptive problem solving. ISB lacks much of the methodological and theoretical resources usually found in disciplines in the natural sciences, such as methodological frameworks that prescribe reliable model-building processes. Researchers in our labs compensate for the lack of these and for the complexity of their problems by using a range of heuristics and experimenting with multiple methods and concepts from the background fields available to them. Using these resources researchers search out good techniques and practices for transforming intractable problems into potentially solvable ones. The relative freedom lab directors grant their researchers to explore methodological options and find good practices that suit their problems is not only a response to the complex interdisciplinary nature of the specific problem, but also provides the field itself with an opportunity to discover more general methodological approaches and develop theories of biological systems. Such developments in turn can help to establish the field as an identifiably distinct and successful approach to understanding biological systems. (shrink)

Miles brings Plotinus' thought alive for the twenty-first century by relating it to present day concerns.

In this article, we provide a case study examining how integrative systems biologists build simulation models in the absence of a theoretical base. Lacking theoretical starting points, integrative systems biology researchers rely cognitively on the model-building process to disentangle and understand complex biochemical systems. They build simulations from the ground up in a nest-like fashion, by pulling together information and techniques from a variety of possible sources and experimenting with different structures in order to discover a stable, robust result. Finally, (...) we analyze the alternative role and meaning theory has in systems biology expressed as canonical template theories like Biochemical Systems Theory. (shrink)

Dusky groupers (Epinephelus marginatus) are characterized by a complex sex allocation strategies and overexploitation of bigger individuals. We developed an individual based model to investigate the long-term effects of density dependence on grouper population dynamics and to analyze the variabilities of extinction probabilities as a result of interacting mortalities at different life stages. We conduct several simulations with different forms of sex allocation functions and different combinations of mortality rates. The model was parametrized using data on dusky grouper populations from (...) the literature. The most important insights produced by this simulation study are that density dependence of sex allocation is an evolutionarily stable strategy, increases the population biomass, mitigates the effect of the removal of large male and indicates a need for protection of females and flexible stages. (shrink)

The importation of computational methods into biology is generating novel methodological strategies for managing complexity which philosophers are only just starting to explore and elaborate. This paper aims to enrich our understanding of methodology in integrative systems biology, which is developing novel epistemic and cognitive strategies for managing complex problem-solving tasks. We illustrate this through developing a case study of a bimodal researcher from our ethnographic investigation of two systems biology research labs. The researcher constructed models of metabolic and cell-signaling (...) pathways by conducting her own wet-lab experimentation while building simulation models. We show how this coupling of experiment and simulation enabled her to build and validate her models and also triangulate and localize errors and uncertainties in them. This method can be contrasted with the unimodal modeling strategy in systems biology which relies more on mathematical or algorithmic methods to reduce complexity. We discuss the relative affordances and limitations of these strategies, which represent distinct opinions in the field about how to handle the investigation of complex biological systems. (shrink)

In this article, we apply the literature on the ethics of choice-architecture (nudges) to the realm of virtual reality (VR) to point out ethical problems with using VR for empathy-based nudging. Specifically, we argue that VR simulations aiming to enhance empathic understanding of others via perspective-taking will almost always be unethical to develop or deploy. We argue that VR-based empathy enhancement not only faces traditional ethical concerns about nudge (autonomy, welfare, transparency), but also a variant of the semantic variance problem (...) that arises for intersectional perspective-taking. VR empathy simulations deceive and manipulate their users about their experiences. Despite their often laudable goals, such simulations confront significant ethical challenges. In light of these goals and challenges, we conclude by proposing that VR designers shift from designing simulations aimed at producing empathic perspective-taking to designing simulations aimed at generating sympathy. These simulations, we claim, can avoid the most serious ethical issues associated with VR nudges, semantic variance, and intersectionality. (shrink)

Depression is a major public health issue and the literature has consistently showed that the rates of depression increase dramatically during youth transition to adulthood, and gender differences merge in this period. Positive youth development framework is focused on strengths that make young people more resistant to negative outcomes, like depression, and more capable to choose a positive life direction. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between the 5Cs of PYD and depression in Croatia and Spain, (...) as well as to analyze gender differences. This research was conducted within the PYD Cross-National Project. High school and university students from Eastern Croatia and Southern Spain participated in the study. There were 584 students from Croatia and 768 students from Spain, who filled in self-reports of PYD and depression. Results showed that male participants presented more Competence and Confidence, while female participants reported more Connection, Caring, Character, overall PYD, but also more depressive symptoms. Furthermore, Confidence and Connection were negative correlates of depressive symptoms, with neither Spain nor Croatia showing remarkable gender differences. These results may have some implications concerning the promotion of the 5Cs of PYD as a recommendable approach to promote youth mental health in Croatia and Spain from a gender perspective. Youth mental health services and initiatives that engage the partnership of youth contexts, such as the family, schools and neighborhoods, should not only address risk factors for mental health problems, but also protecting factors as the 5Cs, thus providing a more inclusive and sustainable support for youth well-being. (shrink)