What's Good on TV? Understanding Ethics Through Television presents an introduction to the basic theories and concepts of moral philosophy using concrete examples from classic and contemporary television shows. Utilizes clear examples from popular contemporary and classic television shows, such as The Office, Law and Order, Star Trek and Family Guy, to illustrate complex philosophical concepts Designed to be used as a stand-alone or supplementary introductory ethics text Features case studies, study questions, and suggested readings Episodes mentioned are from a (...) wide variety of television shows, and are easily accessible Offers a balanced treatment of a number of controversial ethical issues including environmental ethics, animal welfare, abortion, homosexuality, capital punishment, assisted suicide, censorship and the erosion of values Includes a companion website at http://whatsgoodontv.webs.com. (shrink)

'You shouldn't drink too much. The Earth is round. Milk is good for your bones.' Are any of these claims true? How can you tell? Can you ever be certain you are right? For anyone tackling philosophical logic and critical thinking for the first time, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well provides a practical guide to the skills required to think critically. From the basics of good reasoning to the difference between claims, evidence and arguments, Robert Arp and (...) class='Hi'>Jamie Carlin Watson cover the topics found in an introductory course. Now revised and fully updated, this Second Edition features a glossary, chapter summaries, more student-friendly exercises, study questions, diagrams, and suggestions for further reading. Topics include: the structure, formation, analysis and recognition of arguments deductive validity and soundness inductive strength and cogency inference to the best explanation truth tables tools for argument assessment informal and formal fallacies With real life examples, advice on graduate school entrance exams and an expanded companion website packed with additional exercises, an answer key and help with real life examples, this easy-to-follow introduction is a complete beginner's tool set to good reasoning, analyzing and arguing. Ideal for students in basic reasoning courses and students preparing for graduate school. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the association of locus of control with reading and mathematics achievement of high school students with disabilities using data from the Special Educ...

BackgroundJunior medical doctors have a key role in discussions and decisions about treatment and end-of-life care for people with dementia in hospital. Little is known about junior doctors’ decision-making processes when treating people with dementia who have advance care directives, or the factors that influence their decisions. To describe among junior doctors in relation to two hypothetical vignettes involving patients with dementia: their legal compliance and decision-making process related to treatment decisions; the factors influencing their clinical decision-making; and the factors (...) associated with accurate responses to one hypothetical vignette. MethodA cross-sectional survey of junior doctors, including trainees, interns, registrars and residents, on clinical rotation in five public hospitals located in one Australian state. The anonymous, investigator-developed survey was conducted between August 2018 and June 2019. Two hypothetical vignettes describing patients with dementia presenting to hospital with an ACD and either: bacterial pneumonia; or suspected stroke were presented in the survey. Participants were asked to indicate whether they would commence treatment, given the ACD instructions described in each vignette.ResultsOverall, 116 junior doctors responded. In Vignette 1, 58% of respondents selected the legally compliant option. Participants who chose the legally compliant option perceived ‘following patient wishes’ and ‘legal requirements to follow ACDs’ as equally important reasons for complying with the ACD. The most common reason for not selecting the legally compliant option in Vignette 1 was the ‘ACD is relevant in my decision-making process, but other factors are more relevant’. In Vignette 2, 72% of respondents indicated they would commence treatment and 18% selected they would not commence treatment.. Similar reasons influenced participant decision-making in Vignette 2, a less legally certain scenario.ConclusionsThere are critical gaps in junior doctors’ compliance with the law as it relates to the implementation of ACDs. Despite there being differences in relation to the legal answer and its certainty, clinical and ethical factors guided decision-making over and above the law in both vignettes. More education and training to guide junior doctors’ clinical decision-making and ensure compliance with the law is required. (shrink)

Objective Cluster randomised trial (CRT) investigators face challenges in seeking informed consent from individual patients (cluster members). This study examined associations between reporting of patient consent in healthcare CRTs and characteristics of these trials. Study design Consent practices and study characteristics were abstracted from a random sample of 160 CRTs performed in primary or hospital care settings that were published from 2000 to 2008. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine associations between reporting of patient consent and methodological characteristics, as (...) well as publication features such as date and journal of publication. Results 82 (53.8%) of 160 studies reported obtaining informed consent from individual patients. Reporting of patient consent was independently and positively associated with: smaller cluster size, the evaluation of experimental interventions targeted at patients, data collection from individual patients, publication later than 2004 and publication in higher-impact journals. Conclusions Reporting of consent practices in published CRTs should be improved. Consent practices in published CRTs appear to be related to the type of interventions under study, as well as journal impact and trends in research ethics practices. These findings will inform best practices in trial conduct and ethics review, remediation of errors in consent practices and ethics review and the development of regulatory guidance for CRTs. (shrink)

Robert Bass argues that the evidential problem of evil can be strengthened by the application of a Bayesian conditionalization argument. I argue that, whatever the merits of Bayesian conditionalization arguments, they are unsuccessful in substantiating the evidential problem of evil because the problem of evil doesn’t meet the necessary conditions for applying the formula informatively. I offer two examples to show that a successful application of the Bayesian formula must pass two tests, the competency test and the connection test. I (...) then show that the problem of evil passes neither, and is therefore not strengthened by the Bayesian analysis. I conclude that Bass’s reformulated argument poses no substantive threat to theism. (shrink)

Robert Talisse’s recent attempt to justify liberal democracy in epistemic terms is in many ways a breath of fresh air. However, in the present paper we argue that his defense faces two inter-related problems. The first problem pertains to his defense of liberalism, and owes to the fact that a commitment to the folk-epistemological norms in terms of which he makes his case does not commit one to partaking in liberal institutions. Consequently, our (alleged) commitment to the relevant epistemic norms (...) does not justify liberal democracy. The second problem pertains to his defense of democracy. The problem is that, if Talisse provides what we take to be the most plausible response to the first problem, framed in terms of his acceptance of a form of epistemic perfectionism, he is able to maintain his commitment to liberal institutions, but at the price of leaving democracy behind in favor of what we will refer to as a liberal epistocracy. (shrink)

Robert Talisse’s recent attempt to justify liberal democracy in epistemic terms is in many ways a breath of fresh air. However, in the present paper we argue that his defense faces two inter-related problems. The first problem pertains to his defense of liberalism, and owes to the fact that a commitment to the folk-epistemological norms in terms of which he makes his case does not commit one to partaking in liberal institutions. Consequently, our (alleged) commitment to the relevant epistemic norms (...) does not justify liberal democracy. The second problem pertains to his defense of democracy. The problem is that, if Talisse provides what we take to be the most plausible response to the first problem, framed in terms of his acceptance of a form of epistemic perfectionism, he is able to maintain his commitment to liberal institutions, but at the price of leaving democracy behind in favor of what we will refer to as a liberal epistocracy. (shrink)

In the history of science, only three hundred years separate the discoveries of Galileo and Albert Einstein. Recent science has brought us relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and elementary particle physics-in a radical and mercurial departure from earlier developments. In this collection of essays, four philosophers and one physicist consider the interactions of mathematics and physics with logic and philosophy in the rapidly changing environment of modern science.

Jamie Carlin Watson has recently challenged my Bayesian formulation of the evidential argument from evil. My approach depends upon certain critical assumptions, but Watson argues that I am not entitled to those assumptions. I reply briefly, showing why I am entitled to those assumptions, and thus, why my argument survives his critique.

Remaking the Global Economy Jamie Peck & Henry Wai-chung Yeung London, Thousand Oaks and Delhi, Sage Publications, 2003, xviii + 256 pp., cloth, $109.00, paper $43.95 The Imagined Economies o...

In this work, Jamie Mayerfeld undertakes a careful inquiry into the meaning and moral significance of suffering. Understanding suffering in hedonistic terms as an affliction of feeling, he claims that it is an objective psychological condition, amenable to measurement and interpersonal comparison, although its accurate assessment is never easy. Mayerfeld goes on to examine the content of the duty to prevent suffering and the weight it has relative to other moral considerations. He argues that the prevention of suffering is (...) morally more important than the promotion of happiness, and that the duty to relieve suffering is much stronger than most of us acknowledge. (shrink)

Amongst intellectuals and activists, neoliberalism has become a potent signifier for the kind of free-market thinking that has dominated politics for the past three decades. Forever associated with the conviction politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the free-market project has since become synonymous with the 'Washington consensus' on international development policy and the phenomenon of corporate globalization, where it has come to mean privatization, deregulation, and the opening up of new markets. But beyond its utility as a protest slogan (...) or buzzword as shorthand for the political-economic Zeitgeist, what do we know about where neoliberalism came from and how it spread? Who are the neoliberals, and why do they studiously avoid the label? Constructions of Neoliberal Reason presents a radical critique of the free-market project, from its origins in the first half of the 20th Century through to the recent global economic crisis, from the utopian dreams of Friedrich von Hayek through the dogmatic theories of the Chicago School to the hope and hubris of Obamanomics. The book traces how neoliberalism went from crank science to common sense in the period between the Great Depression and the age of Obama. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason dramatizes the rise of neoliberalism and its uneven spread as an intellectual, political, and cultural project, combining genealogical analysis with situated case studies of formative moments throughout the world, like New York City's bankruptcy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Wall Street crisis of 2008. The book names and tracks some of neoliberalism's key protagonists, as well as some of the less visible bit-part players. It explores how this adaptive regime of market rule was produced and reproduced, its logics and limits, its faults and its fate. (shrink)

There was a methodological revolution in the mathematics of the nineteenth century, and philosophers have, for the most part, failed to notice.2 My objective in this chapter is to convince you of this, and further to convince you of the following points. The philosophy of mathematics has been informed by an inaccurately narrow picture of the emergence of rigour and logical foundations in the nineteenth century. This blinkered vision encourages a picture of philosophical and logical foundations as essentially disengaged from (...) ongoing mathematical practice. Frege is a telling example: we have misunderstood much of what Frege was trying to do, and missed the intended significance of much of what he wrote, because our received stories underestimate the complexity of nineteenth-century mathematics and mislocate Frege’s work within that context. Given Frege’s perceived status as a paradigmatic analytic philosopher, this mislocation translates into an unduly narrow vision of the relation between mathematics and philosophy. This chapter surveys one part of a larger project that takes Frege as a benchmark to fix some of the broader interest and philosophical significance of nineteenth-century developments. To keep this contribution to a manageable.. (shrink)

In this article, I consider how the epistemic problem of religious disagreement has been viewed within the Islamic tradition. Specifically, I consider two religious epistemological trends within the tradition: Islamic Rationalism and Islamic Traditionalism. In examining the approaches of both trends toward addressing the epistemic problem, I suggest that neither is wholly adequate. Nonetheless, I argue that both approaches offer insights that might be relevant to building a more adequate response. So, I attempt to combine insights from both by drawing (...) a distinction between inferential and noninferential reflective responsibility. Given this distinction, I argue that it may be possible for a theist to remain steadfast in upholding their tradition-specific theistic belief, without having to hold that belief by way of inference; but nevertheless, having to be sufficiently reflectively responsible in forming their theistic belief noninferentially. (shrink)

This investigation is motivated by the lack of scholarship examining the content of what firms are communicating to various stakeholders about their commitment to socially responsible behaviors. To address this query, a qualitative study of the legal, ethical and moral statements available on the websites of Forbes Magazine''s top 50 U.S. and top 50 multinational firms of non-U.S. origin were analyzed within the context of stakeholder theory. The results are presented thematically, and the close provides implications for social responsibility among (...) managers of global organizations as well as researchers interested in business ethics. (shrink)

A cluster of recent papers on Frege have urged variations on the themethat Frege’s conception of logic is in some crucial way incompatible with‘metatheoretic’ investigation. From this observation, significant consequencesfor our interpretation of Frege’s understanding of his enterprise are taken tofollow. This chapter aims to critically examine this view, and to isolate whatI take to be the core of truth in it. However, I will also argue that once wehave isolated the defensible kernel, the sense in which Frege was committedto (...) rejecting ‘metatheory’ is too narrow and uninteresting to support the con-clusions drawn from the thesis by its proponents. (shrink)

Despite the prominence of person‐centred care (PCC) in nursing, there is no general agreement on the assumptions and the meaning of PCC. We sympathize with the work of others who rethink PCC towards relational, embedded, and temporal selfhood rather than individual personhood. Our perspective addresses criticism of humanist assumptions in PCC using critical posthumanism as a diffraction from dominant values We highlight the problematic realities that might be produced in healthcare, leading to some people being more likely to be disenfranchised (...) from healthcare than others. We point to the colonial, homo‐ and transphobic, racist, ableist, and ageist consequences of humanist traditions that have influenced the development of PCC. We describe the deep rooted conditions that structurally uphold inequality and undermine nursing practice that PCC reproduces. We advocate for the self‐determination of patients and emphasize that we support the fundamental mechanisms of PCC enabling patients' choice; however, without critical introspection, these are limited to a portion of humans. Last, we present limitations of our perspective based on our white*‐cisheteropatriarchy** positionality. We point to the fact that any reimagining of models such as PCC should be carefully done by listening, following, and ceding power to people with diversity dimensions*** and the lived experience or expertise that exists from diverse perspectives. We point towards Black, queer feminism, and critical disabilities studies to contextualize our point of critique with humanism and PCC to amplify equity for all people and communities. Theory and philosophy are useful to understand restrictive factors in healthcare delivery and to inform systematic strategies to improve the quality of care so as not to perpetuate the oppression of groups of people with diversity dimensions. *We purposely capitalize Black and use lower case for white to decentre whiteness and as an intentional act of antiracism (see White Homework a podcast series by Tori W. Douglas). **Cisheteropatriarchy describes people with intersecting identities of dominant social groups; cisgender is the gender identity that aligns with the gender you were assigned at birth, hetero means heterosexual, and patriarchy refers to structural systems of power based on maleness where women are often excluded and hold less power. ***With diversity dimensions, we refer to subjective lived experience and material realities of people that exist outside the ‘dominant minorities' of white‐cisheteropatriarchy, meaning groups of people in society who historically and currently hold more power and through this, structurally dominate the norms and possibilities of living for other people. (shrink)

This paper offers a defence of the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons for action from scepticism aired by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. In response it is argued that the Nagelian notion of an agent-neutral reason is not incomprehensible, and that agent-neutral reasons can indeed be understood as obtaining states of affairs that count in favour of anyone and everyone performing the action they favour. Furthermore, I argue that a distinction drawn between agent-neutral and agent-relative reason-statements that express the salient features of (...) reason-constitutive states of affairs is neither reductive in the sense of reducing normative reasons to the propositional content of an agent’s mental state, nor trivial in the sense of locating the distinction merely in an agent’s description of the world. (shrink)

This thesis examines the hogbacks and hammerhead crosses of Viking Age Strathclyde and Northumbria. Both are Insular forms of carved stone sculpture often found in Christian contexts. This thesis aims to highlight the significance of these carved stones within a contemporary landscape dominated by a complex historical and archaeological narrative, with the overall aim of ascribing them functions, beyond those of funerary. The approach this thesis takes is theoretical in its construct, both methodologically and analytically, and is grounded in the (...) phenomenological principles of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It is hoped that this thesis will break down the perceived barrier imposed on research by the modern Scotland-England border, thus potentially alleviate the implied disconnect between Viking Age Strathclyde and Northumbria. While acknowledging the current art-historical work, this thesis archaeologically reappraises hogbacks and provides an original and detailed archaeological treatise of hammerhead crosses. Additionally, this thesis espouses a conceptual framework for approaching, analysing and interpreting carved stones, which considers the idea of what makes space become a place. This framework involves the adoption of a reflexive phenomenological approach to the recording of carved stone monuments in the landscape, and, in approaching material, the adoption and adaption of the concepts of hybrid practice, supervenience, Deleuzian difference, common difference, the third space, and art and agency. In integrating these approaches and concepts, the idea of place-making emerges, discerned via non-dialectical interrelationships between people, material, and space. It is conceptualised here in abstract form as the person/object/place framework. In applying this framework to postulate the functions of hogbacks and hammerhead crosses in the landscape, the following, non-mutually exclusive, themes are considered: commemorative space, economic space, biblical space, mythological space, political space, and sacred space. Considering these themes in the application of the conceptual framework to approaching notable carved stones gives rise to the concept of functional landscapes. These abstract landscapes emerge and are understood through a network of functional places, developing out of particular carved stone monuments inhabiting specific spaces. Ascribing functions to Viking Age carved stones allows for interpretation beyond the traditional and uncritical narrative that hogbacks and hammerhead crosses are simply Viking ‘calling cards’ or gravestones. Furthermore, in considering the Christian context and syncretic nature of many hogbacks, this thesis challenges the common idea that their origins and models often lie solely in Scandinavian paganism and culture. (shrink)

Ethicists, policy-makers, and the general public have questioned whether artificial entities such as robots warrant rights or other forms of moral consideration. There is little synthesis of the research on this topic so far. We identify 294 relevant research or discussion items in our literature review of this topic. There is widespread agreement among scholars that some artificial entities could warrant moral consideration in the future, if not also the present. The reasoning varies, such as concern for the effects on (...) artificial entities and concern for the effects on human society. Beyond the conventional consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethicist ethical frameworks, some scholars encourage “information ethics” and “social-relational” approaches, though there are opportunities for more in-depth ethical research on the nuances of moral consideration of artificial entities. There is limited relevant empirical data collection, primarily in a few psychological studies on current moral and social attitudes of humans towards robots and other artificial entities. This suggests an important gap for psychological, sociological, economic, and organizational research on how artificial entities will be integrated into society and the factors that will determine how the interests of artificial entities are considered. (shrink)

Recent philosophical literature has turned its attention towards assessments of how to judge scientific proposals as worthy of further inquiry. Previous work, as well as papers contained within this special issue, propose criteria for pursuitworthiness (Achinstein, 1993; Whitt, 1992; DiMarco & Khalifa, 2019; Laudan, 1977; Shan, 2020; Šešelja et al., 2012). The purpose of this paper is to assess the grounds on which pursuitworthiness demands can be legitimately made. To do this, I propose a challenge to the possibility of even (...) minimal criteria of pursuitworthiness, inspired by Paul Feyerabend. I go on to provide a framework for identifying the contexts in which pursuitworthiness criteria may promote the efficiency of scientific inquiry. I then spell out some implications this framework has for values and pursuit. (shrink)

Formation of branching epithelial trees from unbranched precursors is a common process in animal organogenesis. In humans, for example, this process gives rise to the airways of the lungs, the urine‐collecting ducts of the kidneys and the excretory epithelia of the mammary, prostate and salivary glands. Branching in these different organs, and in different animal classes and phyla, is morphologically similar enough to suggest that they might use a conserved developmental programme, while being dissimilar enough not to make it obviously (...) certain that they do. In this article, I review recent discoveries about the molecular regulation of branching morphogenesis in the best‐studied systems, and present evidence for and against the idea of there being a highly conserved mechanism. Overall, I come to the tentative conclusion that key mechanisms are highly conserved, at least within vertebrates, but acknowledge that more work needs to be done before the case is proved beyond reasonable doubt. BioEssays 24:937–948, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

The Vitruvian Man is a metaphor for the “ideal man” by feminist posthuman philosopher Rosi Braidotti (2013) as a proxy for eurocentric humanist ideals. The first half of this paper extends Braidotti's concept by thinking about the metaphor of the “ideal nurse” (Vitruvian nurse) and how this metaphor contributes to racism, oppression, and burnout in nursing and might restrict the professionalization of nursing. The Vitruvian nurse is an idealized and perfected form of a nurse with self‐sacrificial language (re)producing self‐sacrificing expectations. (...) The second half of this paper looks at how regulatory frameworks (using the example of UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Conduct) institutionalize the conditions of possibility through collective imaginations. The domineering expectations found within the Vitruvian nurse metaphor and further codified by regulatory frameworks give rise to boredom and burnout. The paper ends by suggesting possible ways to diffract regulatory frameworks to practice with affirmative ethics and reduce feelings of self‐sacrifice and exhaustion among nurses. (shrink)

Recent research has suggested that not all grapheme-colour synaesthetes are alike. One suggestion is that they can be divided, phenomenologically, in terms of whether the colours are experienced in external or internal space. Another suggestion is that they can be divided according to whether it is the perceptual or conceptual attributes of a stimulus that is critical. This study compares the behavioural performance of 7 projector and 7 associator synaesthetes. We demonstrate that this distinction does not map on to behavioural (...) traits expected from the higher–lower distinction. We replicate previous research showing that projectors are faster at naming their synaesthetic colours than veridical colours, and that associators show the reverse profile. Synaesthetes who project colours into external space but not on to the surface of the grapheme behave like associators on this task. In a second task, graphemes presented briefly in the periphery are more likely to elicit reports of colour in projectors than associators, but the colours only tend to be accurate when the grapheme itself is also accurately identified. We propose an alternative model of individual differences in grapheme-colour synaesthesia that emphasises the role of different spatial reference frames in synaesthetic perception. In doing so, we attempt to bring the synaesthesia literature closer to current models of non-synaesthetic perception, attention and binding. (shrink)

Words associated with perceptually salient, highly imageable concepts are learned earlier in life, more accurately recalled, and more rapidly named than abstract words (R. W. Brown, 1976; Walker & Hulme, 1999). Theories accounting for this concreteness effect have focused exclusively on semantic properties of word referents. A novel possibility is that word structure may also contribute to the effect. We report a corpus-based analysis of the phonological and morphological structures of a large set of nouns with imageability ratings (N = (...) 2,023). High- and low-imageability nouns differed by length, etymology, prosody, affixation, phonological neighborhood density, and rates of consonant clustering. On average, nouns denoting abstract concepts were longer, more derivationally complex, and emerged in English from a different distribution of languages than did concrete nouns. We address implications for interactivity of word form and meaning as pertain to theories of word concreteness, lexical acquisition, and word processing. (shrink)

The most public-facing forms of contemporary Darwinism happily promote its worldview ambitions. Popular works, by the likes of Richard Dawkins, deflect associations with eugenics and social Darwinism, but also extend the reach of Darwinism beyond biology into social policy, politics, and ethics. Critics of the enterprise fall into two categories. Advocates of Intelligent Design and secular philosophers (like Mary Midgley and Thomas Nagel) recognise it as a worldview and argue against its implications. Scholars in the rhetoric of science or science (...) communication, however, typically take the view that Darwinism isn't a worldview, but a scientific theory, which has been improperly embellished by some; they uphold the distinction between is and ought and argue that science is restricted to the former. This prompts an is–ought problem on another level. I catalogue the ways in which Darwinism plainly is a worldview and why commentators' beliefs that it ought not to be distorts their analysis. Hence, it is their own worldview that precludes them from accepting Darwinism's worldview implications. (shrink)