Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative (...) outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme. (shrink)

A demonstration of how Jung's quest for wholeness through the four faculties he saw in every psyche can be seen in the growth of the ideas of 12 key philosophers. The author examines and compares the 12 philosophers and gives an explanation of the development of their thought.

This book assesses how Vatican II opened up the Catholic Church to encounter, dialogue, and engagement with other world religions. Opening with a contribution from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, it next explores the impact, relevance, and promise of the Declaration Nostra Aetate before turning to consider how Vatican II in general has influenced interfaith dialogue and the intellectual and comparative study of world religions in the postconciliar decades, as well as the contribution (...) of particular past and present thinkers to the formation of current interreligious and comparative theological methods. Additionally, chapters consider interreligious dialogue vis-à-vis theological anthropology in conciliar documents; openness to the spiritual practices of other faith traditions as a way of encouraging positive interreligious encounter; the role of lay and new ecclesial movements in interreligious dialogue; and the development of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Finally, it includes a range of perspectives on the fruits and future of Vatican’s II’s opening to particular faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. (shrink)

What endogenous factors contribute to minority (Red Queen) or majority (Red King) domination under conditions of coercive bargaining? We build on previous work demonstrating minority disadvantage in non-coercive bargaining games to show that under neutral initial conditions, majorities are advantaged in high conflict situations, and minorities are advantaged in low conflict games. These effects are a function of the relationship between (1) relative proportions of the majority and minority groups and (2) costs of conflict. Although both Red King (...) and Red Queen effects can occur, we further show that agents’ increased initial propensity toward conflict advantages majorities. (shrink)

The prospect of using cell-based interventions to treat neurological conditions raises several important ethical and policy questions. In this target article, we focus on issues related to the unique constellation of traits that characterize CBIs targeted at the central nervous system. In particular, there is at least a theoretical prospect that these cells will alter the recipients' cognition, mood, and behavior—brain functions that are central to our concept of the self. The potential for such changes, although perhaps remote, is cause (...) for concern and careful ethical analysis. Both to enable better informed consent in the future and as an end in itself, we argue that early human trials of CBIs for neurological conditions must monitor subjects for changes in cognition, mood, and behavior; further, we recommend concrete steps for that monitoring. Such steps will help better characterize the potential risks and benefits of CBIs as they are tested and potentially used for treatment. (shrink)

This paper reviews the experience of an integrated approach to CSR in the U.S. electric utility sector. The authors report on the results of Southern Company’s historical definition of CSR as a dynamic model, balancing stakeholder needs through shifting pressures to assure long-term shareholder value, superior customer, price performance, and sustainable economic development. Using financial and utility sector measures, the paper assesses the company’s “balancing” approach to addressing CSR, which weights corporate, environmental, community, and economic factors in driving successful and (...) sustained financial, social, and environmental performance. The paper concludes by suggesting that CSR success in this sector requires, first, that the global warming issue be governed by the same balancing considerations to which all stakeholders and their legitimate interests are subject, and second, an energy policy that embraces both atechnology policy and appropriate regulatory incentives. (shrink)

Nanomedicine is yielding new and improved treatments and diagnostics for a range of diseases and disorders. Nanomedicine applications incorporate materials and components with nanoscale dimensions where novel physiochemical properties emerge as a result of size-dependent phenomena and high surface-to-mass ratio. Nanotherapeutics and in vivo nanodiagnostics are a subset of nanomedicine products that enter the human body. These include drugs, biological products, implantable medical devices, and combination products that are designed to function in the body in ways unachievable at larger scales. (...) Nanotherapeutics andin vivonanodiagnostics incorporate materials that are engineered at the nanoscale to express novel properties that are medicinally useful. These nanomedicine applications can also contain nanomaterials that are biologically active, producing interactions that depend on biological triggers. Examples include nanoscale formulations of insoluble drugs to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetics, drugs encapsulated in hollow nanoparticles with the ability to target and cross cellular and tissue membranes and to release their payload at a specific time or location, imaging agents that demonstrate novel optical properties to aid in locating micrometastases, and antimicrobial and drug-eluting components or coatings of implantable medical devices such as stents. (shrink)

This paper reviews the experience of an integrated approach to CSR in the U.S. electric utility sector. The authors report on the results of Southern Company’s historical definition of CSR as a dynamic model, balancing stakeholder needs through shifting pressures to assure long-term shareholder value, superior customer, price performance, and sustainable economic development. Using financial and utility sector measures, the paper assesses the company’s “balancing” approach to addressing CSR, which weights corporate, environmental, community, and economic factors in driving successful and (...) sustained financial, social, and environmental performance. The paper concludes by suggesting that CSR success in this sector requires, first, that the global warming issue be governed by the same balancing considerations to which all stakeholders and their legitimate interests are subject, and second, an energy policy that embraces both atechnology policy and appropriate regulatory incentives. (shrink)

"The fixed person for fixed duties, who in older societies was such a godsend, in the future ill be a public danger." Twenty years ago, a single legal metaphor accurately captured the role that American society accorded to physicians. The physician was "c- tain of the ship." Physicians were in charge of the clinic, the Operating room, and the health care team, responsible - and held accountabl- for all that happened within the scope of their supervision. This grant of responsibility (...) carried with it a corresponding grant of authority; like the ship's captain, the physician was answerable to no one regarding the practice of his art. However compelling the metaphor, few would disagree that the mandate accorded to the medical profession by society is changing. As a result of pressures from a number of diverse directions - including technological advances, the development of new health professionals, changes in health care financing and delivery, the recent emphasis on consumer choice and patients' rights - what our society expects phy- cians to do and to be is different now. The purpose of this volume is to examine and evaluate the conceptual foundations and the moral imp- cations of that difference. Each of the twelve essays of this volume assesses the current and future validity of the "captain of the ship" metaphor from a different perspective. The essays are grouped into four sections. In Section I, Russell Maulitz explores the physician's role historically. (shrink)

Mental timing studies may be influenced by powerful cognitive illusions that can produce an asymmetry in their rate of progress relative to neuronal timing studies. Both types of timing research are also governed by a temporal asymmetry, expressed by the fact that the direction of causation must follow time's arrow. Here we refresh our earlier suggestion that the temporal asymmetry offers promise as a means of timing mental activities. We update our earlier analysis of Libet's data within this framework. Then (...) we consider the surprises which often occur on those rare occasions when neural timing experiments parallel mental timing work exactly. Together, these surprises and asymmetries prescribe a relentlessly meticulous and fully transparent exposition of timing methods, terms, and concepts which shuns plausible narratives, even when buttressed by rigorous formal models, unless guided by apposite empirical evidence. (shrink)

Gene therapy is still a very crude way of treating very complicated problems. It's hard to get new genes to go where they're needed, and hard to keep them from going where they're not wanted. The worst‐case scenario is that they find their way into a patient's germ cells—eggs or sperm—and end up harming the patient's offspring. Yet this possibility is hard to study in human trials, and would be hard to deal with in the clinic. It should, instead, simply (...) be avoided. Doing so requires fundamentally changing our approach to gene therapy. (shrink)

Clinical gene transfer research has both a unique history and a complex and layered system of research oversight, featuring a unique review body, the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. This paper briefly describes the process of decision-making about clinical GTR, considers whether the questions, problems, and issues raised in clinical GTR are unique, and concludes by examining whether the RAC's oversight is a useful model that should be reproduced for other similar areas of clinical research.Clinical GTR is governed by the same (...) oversight system as most clinical trials, with a significant addition: the RAC. Like other research with human subjects, GTR, if it is affiliated with a federally funded institution, must be approved by an institutional review board whose activities are governed by the common rule, that is, the federal regulations for protection of human subjects in research. Like other research intended to produce a drug, device, or biologic to be marketed in the United States, GTR is also overseen by the Food and Drug Administration. (shrink)

Preparing the Next Generation of Oral Historians is an invaluable resource to educators seeking to bring history alive for students at all levels. Filled with insightful reflections on teaching oral history, it offers practical suggestions for educators seeking to create curricula, engage students, gather community support, and meet educational standards. By the close of the book, readers will be able to successfully incorporate oral history projects in their own classrooms.

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

Rare copy number variants have a prominent role in the aetiology of schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Substantial risk for schizophrenia is conferred by large CNVs at several loci, including microdeletions at 1q21.1, 3q29, 15q13.3 and 22q11.2 and microduplication at 16p11.2. However, these CNVs collectively account for a small fraction of cases, and the relevant genes and neurobiological mechanisms are not well understood. Here we performed a large two-stage genome-wide scan of rare CNVs and report the significant association of copy (...) number gains at chromosome 7q36.3 with schizophrenia. Microduplications with variable breakpoints occurred within a 362-kilobase region and were detected in 29 of 8,290 patients versus 2 of 7,431 controls in the combined sample. All duplications overlapped or were located within 89 kilobases upstream of the vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor gene VIPR2. VIPR2 transcription and cyclic-AMP signalling were significantly increased in cultured lymphocytes from patients with microduplications of 7q36.3. These findings implicate altered vasoactive intestinal peptide signalling in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and indicate the VPAC2 receptor as a potential target for the development of new antipsychotic drugs. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. (shrink)

One of my favorite bioethics quotes is nearing 50 years old:Let us not forget that progress is an optional goal, not an unconditional commitment, and that its tempo in particular, compulsive as it may become, has nothing sacred about it. Let us also remember that a slower progress in the conquest of disease would not threaten society, grievous as it is to those who have to deplore that their particular disease be not yet conquered, but that society would indeed be (...) threatened by the erosion of those moral values whose loss, possibly caused by too ruthless a pursuit of scientific progress, would make its most dazzling triumphs not worth having.Despite its age, this invocation seems to me increasingly relevant as time... (shrink)

The inaugural collection in an exciting new exchange between philosophers and geographers, this volume provides interdisciplinary approaches to the environment as space, place, and idea. Never before have philosophers and geographers approached each other's subjects in such a strong spirit of mutual understanding. The result is a concrete exploration of the human-nature relationship that embraces strong normative approaches to environmental problems.

Current scholarship has focused on analyzing how Arendt's storytelling corresponds to her political arguments. In following up this discussion, I offer a closer examination of the unusual myth Arendt uses to explain the condition of the modern age, a myth she refers to as the ?political nature of history.? I employ literary terms along with the standard vocabulary of political theory in shaping this reading of Arendt. Following Robert C. Pirro, I also consider Arendt's story as a tragedy, but in (...) the broadest sense, that of a collision of two goods, freedom and security. By describing Arendt's thought in this manner, I hope to reveal another way in which Arendt represents the call to action that she believes so crucial to humanity, as a summons to we flawed antiheroes through the device of a heroic myth. (shrink)

Science and revelation have been presented as two books with the same “author,” their reconciliation being called “concordism.” Teilhard opposed concordism, insisting that supposed “revelations” be treated as scientific hypotheses to be verified or not in experience. Applying his criterion for truth (Does it bring “coherence and fecundity” to the phenomena?) to Christian revelation, he told of finding “an explosion of dazzling flashes.” So Teilhard spoke of the hypothesis as the supreme spiritual act wherein the dust of experience takes on (...) form and is kindled at the fire of knowledge. (shrink)

On September 8, 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to revise the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, widely known as the “Common Rule.” The NPRM proposes several changes to the current system, including a dramatic shift in the approach to secondary research using biospecimens and data. Under the current rules, it is relatively easy to use biospecimens and data for secondary research. This approach systematically facilitates secondary research with (...) biospecimens and data, maximizing the capacity for substantial public benefit. However, it has been criticized as insufficiently protective of the privacy and autonomy interests of biospecimen and data sources. Thus, the NPRM proposes a more restrictive regime, although more so for biospecimens than data. Both the status quo and the NPRM's proposal are critically flawed. (shrink)

Biodefense and emerging infectious disease animal research aims to avoid or ameliorate human disease, suffering, and death arising, or potentially arising, from natural outbreaks or intentional deployment of some of the world’s most dreaded pathogens. Top priority research goals include finding vaccines to prevent, diagnostic tools to detect, and medicines for smallpox, plague, ebola, anthrax, tularemia, and viral hemorrhagic fevers, among many other pathogens (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [NIAID] priority pathogens). To this end, increased funding for conducting (...) research, developing research facilities, and purchasing (stockpiling) developed vaccines, diagnostic tools, and therapeutics .. (shrink)

Medical teams care for severely premature infants under conditions of emergency and uncertainty that make parental involvement very difficult. Parents can be invited into a decisional relationship with the team that enables them to assess more fully the meaning of their child's illness.

A contribution to the sixth installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” this article explores the possibilities for quietist narrative. Since quietism suggests resistance or condescension to telos, suspense, will, and the kinds of spirituality, politics, and ways of being associated with them, it seems unlikely that a narrative would be written or read by a practitioner of “ideal indifference” or by anyone averse on principle to initiative. But Gilbert White's text of 1789, The Natural History and Antiquities (...) of Selborne comes as close to being a quietist narrative as is conceivable. Describing the environment of a single English parish, White's text places stillness on exhibit as an indication of commitment to an ethics of self-unregarding attentiveness. But the stillness of Selborne, King argues, is a conspicuous stillness—a practice of being still in face of the natural world. As an Anglican minister, White explicitly demonstrates the arguments of eighteenth-century natural theology. Having stilled his will to interfere, he can observe the activity of God's creations; and White does so in order to understand God better. Thus, White's desisting or withdrawal is in no way based in defeatism, indolence, or aimlessness. Moreover, King argues, White aims to produce stillness as a formal quality of his text and, through it, to produce a like stillness and attentiveness in the reader. Quietist narrative is meant to help the reader still his or her acquisitiveness and develop instead observational capabilities, a capacity simply to admire (or stand apart, in awe), and, above all, patience. To the extent that it fosters in us a principled “do nothing” stance with respect to our natural ecology, King concludes, quietism of Gilbert White's kind may represent the most radical of environmental politics. (shrink)

Augustine’s early works Against the Academicians (386) and The Teacher (389) belong together. In the former, which is directed at Cicero’s Academica, he defends the possibility of knowledge against the skeptical arguments of the New Academy;1 in the latter, directed at Plato’s Meno, he offers his theory of illumination to explain how knowledge is acquired. As a pair, they present Augustine’s alternative to the pose of ironical detachment fashionable among late Roman intellectuals.

In Shaping Our Selves, Erik Parens offers both a personal history of bioethics and a cleverly clarifying lens to train on disputes in bioethics about emerging technologies. The question for readers is whether this lens, as useful as it is, leaves too much outside our field of vision. Parens, born in 1957, comes from the first wave of bioethics scholars—those of us who still mostly happened into bioethics as a field, before it was sufficiently well-established to be identified as a (...) career pathway. Bioethics enjoys a fascinating diversity of origin stories, and Parens’s is no exception. He began his studies at the University of Chicago’s pan-disciplinary Committee on Social Thought, one of a handful.. (shrink)

The target article retains the traditional account of saccades as conjugate eye movements. However, recent single-unit recordings of premotor cells in the saccade pathway (excitatory burster neurons [EBNs]) found that they do not encode conjugate eye velocity, but rather, monocular eye velocity. These data argue against the traditional concept of saccades as inherently conjugate. Instead, they suggest a monocular mechanism in the sensorimotor transformation stage of saccade generation. This commentary will discuss the implications of these data for the saccade generation (...) model proposed in Findlay & Walker's target article. (shrink)

A lecture about the troublesome questions of identity, authenticity and trust.

The intrusive state has long viewed women as fetal containers. The Dobbs decision goes further, essentially causing women to vanish when fetuses are abstracted from their relationships to pregnant persons. The ways in which women are first controlled and then made invisible are clearly connected with the move from obedience to omission that has historically affected black Americans. When personal decisionmaking and participation in democracy are regarded as threats, those threatened restrict decisional freedom and political power, deepening structural injustices relating (...) to sex, race, and poverty. Fear of Dobbs has health effects on conditions unrelated to pregnancy and connects with erasures of human value that are not health-related. We reaffirm solidarity as a countering influence. Taking account of the richly relational context in which issues like abortion and political representation arise should lead to better, more meaningful policies, making so many people impossible to unsee. (shrink)

This article explores the role of an international open society of mental health stakeholders in raising awareness of values and thereby reducing the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse. There is evidence that hidden values play a key role in rendering psychiatry vulnerable to being used abusively for purposes of social or political control. Recent work in values-based practice aimed at raising awareness of values between people of different ethnic origins has shown the importance of what we call “values auto-blindness” – (...) a lack of awareness of one’s own values as a key part of our background “life-world” – in driving differential rates of involuntary psychiatric treatment between ethnic groups. It is argued that the vulnerability of psychiatry to abuse stems from values auto-blindness operating on the judgments of rationality implicit in psychiatric diagnostic concepts. Acting like a “hall of mirrors,” an international open society of mental health stakeholders would counter the effects of values auto-blindness through enhanced mutual understanding of the values embedded in our respective life-worlds across and between the diverse perspectives of its constituents. The article concludes by noting that a model for the required open society is available in the contemporary interdisciplinary field of philosophy and psychiatry. (shrink)