Malcolm Acock attempts to show that three widely accepted “solutions” to the philosophical problem of theory choice between the ordinary account of the age of the universe, and “Russell's hypothesis” that the world sprang into existence five minutes ago, are unsatisfactory. In the following paper we shall attempt to show why “Russell's hypothesis” is defective as a cosmological explanation of the age of the universe.

Arguing for a new direction in postmodern theological thinking, away from the liberalism and nihilism of those who name themselves postmodern theologians, the ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Moral Distress for the Physician AssistantSharyn L. KurtzMy morning rounds as an inpatient medical oncology physician assistant began as usual. I arrived at the hospital early to receive 7 a.m. sign out from the covering resident. The overnight report began favorably. All patients remained stable. Even my patient, whom I will call Mrs. Walker,* had a quiet night. However, given her tenuous admission presentation, including altered mental status, hypercalcemia (...) (high levels of calcium in the blood), atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response (irregular, rapid heart function), widespread metastatic lung cancer, and recent neurosurgery to stabilize her spine, I decided to prioritize Mrs. Walker’s morning evaluation.Examining her medical chart proved reassuring. Her tachycardia (rapid heart rate) had been better controlled over the past two days. Her hypercalcemia had been treated, such that she was no longer somnolent. In fact, she was now arousable, conversant, and able to offer some input regarding her healthcare wishes. However, because she was experiencing intermittent delirium, her husband continued to act as her primary medical decision–maker.As her health care proxy, Mr. Walker had experienced conflict with the medical team during his wife’s prior hospital admission. However, even though Mr. Walker lived greater than 45 minutes from the hospital and was not able to visit regularly, he and I spoke daily by phone, which allowed me the opportunity to offer regular medical updates. Mr. Walker felt overwhelmed with his wife’s condition, but he was comfortable with the care the medical team had provided thus far. He was encouraged by the small improvements we had noted since her hospital admission five days prior.Mr. Walker stated on hospital admission that he wished for DNR/I orders to be placed, since this cohered with his wife’s previously stated wishes. However, he still wanted “everything else done” in terms of treating his wife’s medical conditions, including treatment of her atrial fibrillation, pain, and electrolyte anomalies. Most of all, he hoped Mrs. Walker would soon have increased mobility, which he felt would grant his wife the best quality of life possible. He was adamant that “being active” was what Mrs. Walker wished for, and that she had never wanted to be confined to bed.Mr. Walker’s requests seemed reasonable. Although Mrs. Walker’s lung cancer was widespread, and although many on the medical team felt she would not improve to the point where palliative chemotherapy could be considered, [End Page E13] she had stabilized. Her recent spine surgery had been successful, and she was healing adequately. The neurosurgeons had cleared Mrs. Walker for increased activity out of bed as soon as she could be fitted with a lumbar brace. The pain and palliative care specialists felt that Mrs. Walker’s residual back pain and delirium could be well managed with oral medications.Prior to my entering Mrs. Walker’s room to begin her physical evaluation, I was met by her seasoned nurse, whom I will call Amy. “Sharyn,” Amy warned, “Mrs. Walker’s heart rate is 150 and she is complaining of chest pain.” I entered Mrs. Walker’s room, and she was notably uncomfortable, grasping her chest. The monitor showed that Mrs. Walker’s heart rate was in fact in the 150’s. She was pale, short of breath, and wheezing. “Mrs. Walker,” I asked, “how severe is your chest pain on a scale from 1 to 10?” Mrs. Walker replied, “Nine.” I asked Amy to obtain an EKG, to provide oxygen, and to administer an IV medication that would slow Mrs. Walker’s heart rate. I stepped out of the room to place the computer orders, and I paged my attending physician to let him know about Mrs. Walker’s change in status. After hearing the update, my attending physician, whom I will call Dr. Clark, stated that he agreed with all of my treatment decisions thus far. He was on his way into the hospital. I planned out my next steps with him on the phone and returned to the patient’s room.The monitor gave evidence that Mrs. Walker’s heart rate was improving. Mrs. Walker reported that her pain was now “4 out of... (shrink)

An important volume connecting classical studies with feminism, Feminism and Ancient Philosophy provides an even-handed assessment of the ancient philosophers' discussions of women and explains which ancient views can be fruitful for feminist theorizing today. The papers in this anthology range from classical Greek philosophy through the Hellenistic period, with the predominance of essays focusing on topics such as the relation of reason and the emotions, the nature of emotions and desire, and related issues in moral psychology. The volume contains (...) some new, ground-breaking essays on Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, as well as previously published pieces by established scholars like Martha Nussbaum and Julia Annas. It promises to be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience including those working in classics, ancient philosophy, and feminist theory. (shrink)

Discussions of sexual ethics often focus on the wrong of treating another as a mere object instead of as a person worthy of respect. On this view, the task of sexual ethics becomes putting the other’s subjectivity above their status as erotic object so as to avoid the harms of objectification. Ward and Anderson argue that such a view disregards the crucial, moral role that erotic objecthood plays in sexual encounters. Important moral features of intimacy are disclosed through the (...) experience of being an erotic object for another, as well as in perceiving another as an erotic object. Drawing on phenomenology, especially the insights of Simone de Beauvoir, Ward and Anderson argue that erotic encounters are shaped by the human condition of ambiguity, where being an object for others is intertwined with bodily agency. Because sexual agency is complex in this way, theories of sexual ethics and responsibility must widen their focus beyond transparent communication and authoritative expressions of will. (shrink)

This study explores possible links between educational background and ethics among marketing professionals. Data from two surveys of members of the American Marketing Association suggest that marketing professionals with master's degrees and higher are similar to their less educated counterparts in both their ethical standards and their intended ethical behaviors. Marketers with business degrees, however, have lower ethical standards than do graduates of non-business programs, though they report behavior as ethical as that of their non-business educated peers. Business schools may (...) be producing cynics likely to accept marginal behaviors of colleagues though not likely to engage in such behaviors themselves. (shrink)

Global Media Ethics is the first comprehensive cross-cultural exploration of the conceptual and practical issues facing media ethics in a global world. A team of leading journalism experts investigate the impact of major global trends on responsible journalism. The first full-length, truly global textbook on media ethics; Explores how current global changes in media promote and inhibit responsible journalism; Includes relevant and timely ethical discussions based on major trends in journalism and global media; Questions existing frameworks in media ethics in (...) light of the impact of global media; Contributors are leading experts in global journalism and communication. (shrink)

A short definitive account of Keith Ward's theology, based on the philosophy of Personal Idealism. It records Ward's views about God, revelation, the kingdom of God, life after death, the incarnation, atonement, and Trinity. In summary, it is a concise and clear account of most central Christian doctrines, formed in the light of modern science and Idealist philosophy.

Clough shows how inadequate empirical philosophy is in creating real change in the sciences. Instead, she supports a more pragmatic approach based on the work of Richard Rorty and Donald Davidson. This work encourages Clough's fellow feminists to refocus their critiques and discard their philosophical debates about epistemology.

Molecular motor proteins, fueled by energy from ATP hydrolysis, move along actin filaments or microtubules, performing work in the cell. The kinesin microtubule motors transport vesicles or organelles, assemble bipolar spindles or depolymerize microtubules, functioning in basic cellular processes. The mechanism by which motor proteins convert energy from ATP hydrolysis into work is likely to differ in basic ways from man‐made machines. Several mechanical elements of the kinesin motors have now been tentatively identified, permitting researchers to begin to decipher the (...) mechanism of motor function. The force‐producing conformational changes of the motor and the means by which they are amplified are probably different for the plus‐ and minus‐end kinesin motors. BioEssays 25:1212–1219, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Within the New Zealand curriculum, hauora has been co-opted as an underlying and interdependent concept at the heart of the learning area of health and physical education. Hauora is identified as a Māori philosophy of well-being, advocating a Māori world view of hauora. Contemporary understandings of hauora as a Māori philosophy of health are constructed within dominant English-medium curriculum discourses. At first glance the juxtaposition of ‘hauora’ with ‘well-being’, and hauora being defined as ‘a Māori philosophy of health’ seems like (...) an opportunity to promote an indigenous perspective of health into English-medium curriculum, but the philosophical questions of what knowledge is valued, why we should teach it, and its worth of what is taught for human well-being, remain fraught. The notion of hauora is much richer than the word ‘health’ allows. I explore some issues associated with the equivalence between hauora and health, and some of the potential nuances of hauora in light of a counter-colonial Māori philosophy of holism. I invite the reader to consider the terms ‘whakapapa’ and ‘wairua’ in light of a proposed metaphysics. I show that the terms—and the objects they point to—share a relationship with each other and that recognition of that interdependence are necessary to their well-being. (shrink)

Within the New Zealand curriculum, hauora has been co-opted as an underlying and interdependent concept at the heart of the learning area of health and physical education. Hauora is identified as a Māori philosophy of well-being, advocating a Māori world view of hauora. Contemporary understandings of hauora as a Māori philosophy of health are constructed within dominant English-medium curriculum discourses. At first glance the juxtaposition of ‘hauora’ with ‘well-being’, and hauora being defined as ‘a Māori philosophy of health’ seems like (...) an opportunity to promote an indigenous perspective of health into English-medium curriculum, but the philosophical questions of what knowledge is valued, why we should teach it, and its worth of what is taught for human well-being, remain fraught. The notion of hauora is much richer than the word ‘health’ allows. I explore some issues associated with the equivalence between hauora and health, and some of the potential nuances of hauora in light of a counter-colonial Māori philosophy of holism. I invite the reader to consider the terms ‘whakapapa’ and ‘wairua’ in light of a proposed metaphysics. I show that the terms—and the objects they point to—share a relationship with each other and that recognition of that interdependence are necessary to their well-being. (shrink)

Nietzsche distinguished between two forces in art: Apollonian, which represents order and reason, and Dionysian, which represents chaos and energy. Economists, Ward argues, have operated for too long under the assumption that their work reflects the scientific, Apollonian principals that inform physics when they simply do not apply to economics: 'constants' in economics stand in for variables, and the core scientific principles of prediction and replication are all but ignored by economists. Ward encourages economists to reintegrate the standard (...) rigor of the scientific method into their work while embracing the fact of the shape-shifting changeability of human beings. Economists can still aspire to scientific standards, as is demonstrated by the success of biology, in which there is considerable Dionysian variability. Economists must avoid the temptation to wish away dynamic complexity and diversity and must recognize, among other things, that the desire to take risks is fundamentally human. The second half of the book takes some first steps toward creating this new Dionysian Economics. (shrink)

Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in science. Intemann properly endorses feminist standpoint theory over Longino’s empiricism, insofar as the former better addresses embodiment. I argue that a pragmatist analysis further improves standpoint theory: Pragmatism avoids the radical subjectivity that otherwise leaves us unable to account for our ability to share scientific knowledge across bodies of different kinds; and it allows us to argue for the inclusion, not just of the knowledge produced (...) from marginalised bodies, but of the marginalised themselves. (shrink)

While feminist epistemologists have made important contributions to the deconstruction of the traditional representationalist model, some elements of the Cartesian legacy remain. For example, relativism continues to play a role in the underdetermination thesis used by Longino and Keller. Both argue that because scientific theories are underdetermined by evidence, theory choice must be relative to interpretive frameworks. Utilizing Davidson's philosophy of language, I offer a nonrepresentationalist alternative to suggest how relativism can be more fully avoided.

Some of the series' finest lectures have been lost for many years, unavailable to the public in any form -- until now.

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

Racist beliefs express value judgments. According to an influential view, value judgments are subjective, and not amenable to rational adjudication. In contrast, we argue that the value judgments expressed in, for example, racist beliefs, are false and objectively so. Our account combines a naturalized, philosophical account of meaning inspired by Donald Davidson, with a prominent social-psychological theory of values pioneered by the social-psychologist Milton Rokeach. We use this interdisciplinary approach to show that, just as with beliefs expressing descriptive judgments, beliefs (...) expressing value judgments have empirical content, or can be inferentially linked to beliefs that do; the truth or falsity of that content can be objectively assigned; and that assignment is amenable to rational assessment. While versions of this objective view of value judgments have been defended by moral realists of various metaphysical stripes, our argument has the virtue of appealing, instead, to accounts that are as naturalistically informed as possible. And, unlike the influential subjective view of value judgments, and racist beliefs more particularly, our arguments are better able to account for instances where rational, persuasive strategies have been effective in reducing the ubiquity of racism in American culture. (shrink)

Recent cases in the United States and Australia have catapulted surrogacy into the forefront of debates and public policy regarding new procreative technologies, even though gestating and birthing a baby for another woman does not necessarily involve artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization. Feminists have condemned commercial surrogacy because it borders on baby selling and exploits women. Similar criticism has appeared in the mass media, but these forums, as well as the medical profession, have considered noncommercial surrogacy as more acceptable (...) because of the absence of monetary exchange. Using two cases of surrogacy, this article argues that the distinction between commercial and altruistic surrogacy is socially constructed rather than based on self-evident or intrinsic differences. Both types of surrogacy involve the application of pervasive gender norms specifying that women's motivations to have children should be based on emotion, selflessness, and caring, not on self-interest, financial incentives, or pragmatism. Applying these norms renders commercial surrogacy deviant, but altruistic arrangements more acceptable. However, the article's central argument is that both types of agreement can entail exploitation, the denial of the birth mother's rights, and the severe reduction of her autonomy. (shrink)

Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literature. However, that facts are bearers of empirical content, while values are not, remains a firmly-held distinction. I support a more thorough-going holism: both facts and values can function as empirical claims, related in a seamless, semantic web. I address a counterexample from Kourany where facts and values seem importantly discontinuous, namely, the simultaneous support by the Nazis of scientifically sound cancer research and morally unsound political policies. I (...) conclude that even by the criteria available at the time, Nazi cancer research was empirically weak, and the weaknesses in their research are continuous with their moral failures in just the ways predicted by the holism I support. (shrink)

In assessing the appropriateness of a scientific community's research effort, Solomon considers a number of "decision vectors," divided into the empirical and non-empirical. Value judgments get sorted as non-empirical vectors. By way of contrast, I introduce Anderson's discussion of the evidential role of value judgments. Like Anderson, I argue that value judgments are empirical in the relevant sense. I argue further that Solomon's decision matrix needs to be reconceptualized: the distinction should not be between the empirical vs. non-empirical, but between (...) the relevant vs. irrelevant. Whether particular value judgments are relevant or not is an empirical question, to be decided on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

Despite increasing numbers of women lawyers, gender segregation within the legal profession in the United States continues. The present article examines interorganizational differences in the employment of 34 men and 34 women lawyers in 12 in-house legal departments that varied by size and industry in corporations located in the northeast United States. There were differences among the firms with respect to the number, position, and salary of men and women lawyers. The findings suggest that women in-house counsel do not enter (...) the same type of practice or organizations, obtain the same positions, or earn the same salaries as men. The differential employment patterns, the article concludes, stem largely from organizational contingencies, such as a firm's market position, perceived needs, the kinds of rewards and training offered, and recruitment strategies. It also suggests that men's and women's differential location in the labor pool results not from their own career choices but from employer's hiring and work-allocation decisions that provide them with different experiences and expertise, which in turn constrain future employment options. (shrink)

: The relationship between facts and values—in particular, naturalism and normativity—poses an ongoing challenge for feminist science studies. Some have argued that the fact/value holism of W.V. Quine's naturalized epistemology holds promise. I argue that Quinean epistemology, while appropriately naturalized, might weaken the normative force of feminist claims. I then show that Quinean epistemic themes are unnecessary for feminist science studies. The empirical nature of our work provides us with all the naturalized normativity we need.

This chapter’s main topic revolves around Davidson’s account of radical interpretation and the concept of triangulation as a necessary feature of communication and the formation of beliefs. There are two important implications of this model of belief formation for feminists studying the effects of social location on knowledge production generally, and the production of scientific knowledge in particular. The first is Davidson’s argument that whatever there is to the meaning of any of our beliefs must be available from the radical (...) interpreter’s external, third-person perspective. The second important implication of triangulation is that Davidson’s model is a holistic one that shows that there is no substantive difference in the triangulation process by which we form beliefs concerning basic descriptive features of the world and beliefs concerning evaluative features of the world. (shrink)

In a recent essay — “How Can Feminist Theories of Evidence Assist Clinical Reasoning and Decision-making?” — Maya Goldenberg discusses criticisms of evidence-based medicine (or EBM) (Goldenberg 2013). She is particularly interested in those criticisms that make use of an epistemic appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence...

Though the overall numbers of women judges remain small, higher proportions of women have been appointed to many lower courts in common law, and particularly in civil law, countries. This paper investigates whether the experiences of judging and judicial work differ among women and men magistrates in Australia’s lower courts. The particular focus is satisfaction with their work as judges. In so doing, it helps build up a picture of the extent of the gendered nature of the judiciary as an (...) occupation. Measures of overall job satisfaction identify few gender differences; more refined measures highlight areas of divergence between men and women magistrates, suggesting gendered experiences of judicial work which result from particular characteristics of the occupation, as presently constituted, rather than the nature of judging itself. (shrink)

Empirical legal research into courts and adjudication starts with a formal model of trial courts and the nature of adjudication. This article discusses empirical legal research on trial courts and adjudication and divides them into three dimensions of analysis, macro, meso, and micro, to frame the discussion of empirical legal studies into courts and adjudication, the various methods researchers use, and significant findings. Empirical research may be theoretical, pragmatic or policy oriented. A large body of research approaches the study of (...) courts and adjudication from an organizational perspective, looking at court structures and how they affect daily operation. Examining trial court judges' approaches to their work, including adjudication, using survey research has also been undertaken in non-English speaking jurisdictions. Each type of research design has specific strengths and advantages, as well as limitations, but each contributes to advancing knowledge about the nature, role, and reality of trial courts and adjudication. (shrink)

The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation, well-established in the industrialized nations of North and West, between increased hygiene and sanitation, and increased rates of asthma and allergies. Recent studies have added to the scope of the hypothesis, showing a link between decreased exposure to certain bacteria and parasitic worms, and increased rates of depression and intestinal auto- immune disorders, respectively. What remains less often discussed in the research on these links is that women have higher rates than (...) men of asthma and allergies, as well as many auto-immune disorders, and also depression. The current paper introduces a feminist understanding of gender socialization to the epidemiological and immunological picture. That standards of cleanliness are generally higher for girls than boys, especially under the age of five when children are more likely to be under close adult supervision, is a robust phenomenon in industrialized nations, and some research points to a cross- cultural pattern. I conclude that, insofar as the hygiene hypothesis successfully identifies standards of hygiene and sanitation as mediators of immune health, then attention to the relevant patterns of gender socialization is important. The review also makes clear that adding a feminist analysis of gender socialization to the hygiene hypothesis helps explain variation in morbidity rates not addressed by other sources and responds to a number of outstanding puzzles in current research. Alternative explanations for the sex differences in the relevant morbidity rates are also discussed (e.g., the effects of estrogens). Finally, new sources of evidence for the hygiene hypothesis are suggested in the form of cross-cultural and other natural experiments. (shrink)

I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of experience and that, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, the inclusion of political values in scientific theorizing can increase the objectivity of research. The position I endorse has been called the “values-as-evidence” approach. In this essay I respond to three kinds of resistance to this approach, using examples of feminist political values. Solomon questions whether values are beliefs that can be tested, Alcoff argues (...) that even if our values are beliefs that can be tested, testing them might not be desirable because doing so assigns these important values a contingency that weakens their normative force, and Yap argues that the approach is too idealistic in its articulation of the role of evidence in our political deliberations. In response, I discuss the ways that values can be tested, I analyze the evidential strength of feminist values in science, and I argue that the evidence-based nature of these values is neither a weakness nor an idealization. Problems with political values affecting science properly concern the dogmatic ways that evaluative beliefs are sometimes held—a problem that arises with dogmatism toward descriptive beliefs as well. I conclude that scientists, as with the rest of us, ought to adopt a pragmatically-inclined appreciation of the fallible, inductive process by which we gather evidence in support of any of our beliefs, whether they are described as evaluative or descriptive. (shrink)

In this paper, an evolutionary multiverse argument against naturalism (EMAAN) is presented: E1. In an evolutionary multiverse, phenomena have variable evolutionary ages. E2. After some time T, the development of the empirical sciences will be evolutionarily conserved. E3. The phenomena with an evolutionary age above T are methodologically supernatural. Entities are classified according to whether they are (1) physical and spatiotemporal, (2) causally efficacious, and (3) either observed by or explanatorily necessary for the empirical sciences. While the conjunction of (1) (...) and (2) is taken to be sufficient for existence in reality, the negation of (3) defines methodological supernaturalness. EMAAN uses a generalization of evolutionary theory, namely cosmological natural selection, to argue that phenomena evolve that fulfill conditions (1) and (2), but not (3). This shows that methodologically supernatural phenomena have a clear epistemology according to a theory that is grounded in the commitments of naturalism. Supernatural phenomena are not observed by the empirical sciences because the empirical sciences themselves are supernaturally guided and predestined to develop according to an evolutionarily conserved plan. In spite of this scientific plan, there is room for afterlives and supernaturality in the everyday experience. (shrink)