Should engineering ethics be taught? Despite the obvious truism that we all want our students to be moral engineers who practice virtuous professional behavior, I argue, in this article that the question itself obscures several ambiguities that prompt preliminary resolution. Upon clarification of these ambiguities, and an attempt to delineate key issues that make the question a philosophically interesting one, I conclude that engineering ethics not only should not, but cannot, be taught if we understand “teaching engineering ethics” to mean (...) training engineers to be moral individuals (as some advocates seem to have proposed). However, I also conclude that there is a justification to teaching engineering ethics, insofar as we are able to clearly identify the most desirable and efficacious pedagogical approach to the subject area, which I propose to be a case study-based format that utilizes the principle of human cognitive pattern recognition. (shrink)

It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about and (...) fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God. 1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune. 2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses. 3. (shrink)

Man has the urge to thrust against the limits of language. Think for instance about one's astonishment that anything exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question and there is no answer to it. Anything we can say must, a priori, be nonsense.

Despite its importance, the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution has until now been little explored. An understanding of this linkage is needed to extend evolutionary theory so that it can deal for the first time with the phenomena of mind and human social history. We characterize the process of gene-culture coevolution, in which culture is shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural history. A case is made from both theory (...) and evidence that genetic and cultural evolution are inseverable, and that the human mind has tended to evolve so as to bias individuals toward certain patterns of cognition and choice rather than others. With the aid of mathematical models we trace the coevolutionary circuit: The genes prescribe structure in developmental pathways that lay down endocrine and neural systems, imposing regularities in the development of cognition and behavior; these regularities translate upward into holistic patterns of culture, which can be predicted in the form of probability density distributions ; natural selection acts within human history to favor certain epigenetic rules over others; and the selection alters the frequencies of the underlying genes. The effects of genetic and cultural changes reverberate throughout the circuit and are consequently tested with the passage of each life cycle. In addition to modeling gene-culture coevolution, we apply methods from island biogeography and information theory to examine the cultural capacity of the genes, the factors determining the magnitude of cultural diversity, and the possible reasons for the uniqueness of the human achievement. (shrink)

Friendship, in its nature, purpose, and effects, has been an important concern of philosophy since antiquity. It was of particular significance in the life of Gilles Deleuze, one of the most original and influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. Taking L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze -- an eight-hour video interview that was intended to be aired only after Deleuze's death -- as a key source, Charles J. Stivale examines the role of friendship as it appears in Deleuze's work and (...) life. Stivale develops a zigzag methodology practiced by Deleuze himself to explore several concepts as they relate to friendship and to discern how friendship shifts, slips, and creates movement between Deleuze and specific friends. The first section of this study discusses the elements of creativity, pedagogy, and literature that appear implicitly and explicitly in his work. The second section focuses on Deleuze's friendships with Foucault, Derrida, Claire Parnet, and Félix Guattari and reveals his conception of friendship as an ultimately impersonal form of intensity that goes beyond personal relationships. Stivale's analysis offers an intimate view into the thought of one of the greatest thinkers of our time. (shrink)

Memory exhibits episodic superposition, an analog of the quantum superposition of physical states: Before a cue for a presented or unpresented item is administered on a memory test, the item has the simultaneous potential to occupy all members of a mutually exclusive set of episodic states, though it occupies only one of those states after the cue is administered. This phenomenon can be modeled with a nonadditive probability model called overdistribution (OD), which implements fuzzy-trace theory's distinction between verbatim and gist (...) representations. We show that it can also be modeled based on quantum probability theory. A quantum episodic memory (QEM) model is developed, which is derived from quantum probability theory but also implements the process conceptions of global matching memory models. OD and QEM have different strengths, and the current challenge is to identify contrasting empirical predictions that can be used to pit them against each other. (shrink)

The Belmont Report’s distinction between research and the practice of accepted therapy has led various authors to suggest that these purportedly distinct activities should be governed by different ethical principles. We consider some of the ethical consequences of attempts to separate the two and conclude that separation fails along ontological, ethical, and epistemological dimensions. Clinical practice and clinical research, as with yin and yang, can be thought of as complementary forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole (...) exceeds the sum of its parts. Just as effective clinical practice cannot exist without clinical research, meaningful clinical research requires the context of clinical practice. We defend this thesis by triangulation, that is, by outlining how multiple investigators have reached this conclusion on the basis of varied theoretical and applied approaches. More confidence can be placed in a result if different methods/viewpoints have led to that result. (shrink)

The Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants (Statement 1C) promulgated by the National Association of Accountants on June 1, 1983, are described and critiqued in this article. Four major issues related to the issuance of the standards are discussed: (1) What are the basic requirements of any ethical system? Does Statement IC meet these requirements? (2) Should a professional be ethical? (3) If ethical behavior is desirable for management accountants, should such standards be formally expressed in writing? (4) If (...) the standards are expressed in writing, what format should be adopted for the content and how should the standards be expressed? (shrink)

In this essay, we defend the design of the Salk polio vaccine trial and try to put some limits on the role schemata should play in designing clinical research studies. Our presentation is structured as a response to de Freitas and Pietrobon who identified the CONSORT statement as a schema that would have, had it existed at the time, ruled out the design of the Salk polio vaccine trial of 1954 in favor of a completely randomized controlled clinical trial. We (...) argue that large-scale public health interventions often require evidence beyond simple efficacy, the limit of what an RCT can provide, and that the design actually adopted for the Salk trial represented a reasonable—albeit imperfect—compromise. This is of more than historical interest in that many contemporary studies are of the scale and scope to require a more pragmatic, rather than explanatory, approach to study design. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution has until now been little explored. An understanding of this linkage is needed to extend evolutionary theory so that it can deal for the first time with the phenomena of mind and human social history. We characterize the process of gene-culture coevolution, in which culture is shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural history. A case is made from both theory (...) and evidence that genetic and cultural evolution are inseverable, and that the human mind has tended to evolve so as to bias individuals toward certain patterns of cognition and choice rather than others. With the aid of mathematical models we trace the coevolutionary circuit: The genes prescribe structure in developmental pathways that lay down endocrine and neural systems, imposing regularities in the development of cognition and behavior; these regularities translate upward into holistic patterns of culture, which can be predicted in the form of probability density distributions ; natural selection acts within human history to favor certain epigenetic rules over others; and the selection alters the frequencies of the underlying genes. The effects of genetic and cultural changes reverberate throughout the circuit and are consequently tested with the passage of each life cycle. In addition to modeling gene-culture coevolution, we apply methods from island biogeography and information theory to examine the cultural capacity of the genes, the factors determining the magnitude of cultural diversity, and the possible reasons for the uniqueness of the human achievement. (shrink)

This volume sets Berkeley's philosophy in its historical context by providing selections from: firstly, works that deeply influenced Berkeley as he formed his main doctrines; secondly, works that illuminate the philosophical climate in which those doctrines were formed; and thirdly, works that display Berkeley's subsequent philosophical influence. The first category is represented by selections from Descartes, Malebranche, Bayle, and Locke; the second category includes extracts from such thinkers as Regius, Lanion, Arnauld, Lee, and Norris; while reactions to Berkeley, both positive (...) and negative, are drawn from a wide range of thinkers - Leibniz, Baxter, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, Reid, Kant, Herder, and Mill. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze is now regarded as one of the most radical philosophers of the twentieth century. His work has become hugely influential across a range of subjects, from philosophy and literature to art, architecture and cultural studies. Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts brings together leading specialists from a variety of disciplines to introduce the central concepts in the work of Deleuze. The short and accessible chapters in this book each focus on a single concept and show not only what the concept (...) is but what it does. The contributors consider how the concepts are engaged, intersect, link and how they may deviate from other areas of postmodern thought. The concepts Deleuze employs in his writings are key to understanding his philosophical approach: they work to unsettle particular bodies of knowledge, to open them up and to link them to other concepts within and outside that body of knowledge. Aimed at a readership new to Deleuze and from disciplines outside philosophy, Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts offers an easy to access primer to reading Deleuze. (shrink)

Introduction -- Contending for moral first things : Christian social ethics and postconsensus culture -- Natural law and the Christian tradition -- Natural law and the Protestant prejudice -- Moral law, Christian belief, and social ethics -- Contending for moral first things in ethical and bioethical debates : critical categories, part 1 -- Contending for moral first things in ethical and bioethical debates : critical categories, part 2 -- Ethics, bioethics, and the natural law, a test case : euthanasia yesterday (...) and today -- The natural law and public morality : second thoughts on what is at stake. (shrink)

This article presents the rationale of a new approach to the debate between sociobiology and religion. In it, I outline a sociobiology that may generate alternative and competing hypotheses about the existence of gods as beings (theisms) and the nature of their participation in the universe. I examine the central theoretical issues of this sociobiology and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a sociobiological approach to theological issues, including problems pertinent to nontheistic theologies. A concluding case is made for an (...) enriched and revitalized agenda in the dialogue between sociobiology and religion. While consistent with current research on gene‐culture coevolution, the article's treatment expands on earlier work to begin incorporating theoretical terms that carry a more direct theological impact. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to review the rising influence of commercialism in American medicine and to examine some of the consequences of this trend. Increased competition subverts physician collegiality, draws hospitals into for-profit ownership and behavior, and leads clinical investigators into secrecy and possibly into bias and abuse. Medicine faces a deprofessionalization evidenced in loss of control over the clinical setting and over self-regulation. Health care becomes a commodity relying on cultivation of desires instead of satisfaction of needs, (...) even as many basic needs go unmet. Patients become consumers empowered with lawsuits and the connection of medicine to the relief of suffering is attenuated. Medical encounters are increasingly impersonal, dominated by specialization, technology, and bureaucracy. Patients are losing their physician-advocates to new conflicts of interests, physicians are losing their impulse to charity, and trust in the doctor-patient relationship and in medicine generally is eroding. (shrink)

We argue that in contemporary business organizations, in which fundamental purpose is construed to be increased value—especially in ‘participative’ organizations, in which non–hierarchal interaction (for example, work teams) is the norm; and in ‘adaptive’ organizations, in which unpredictable change is the rule—a process of values covenanting will be much more valueable than just espoused values or even values covenants. We propose such a process model for organizational values covenanting and argue that such covenanting reflects an anthropomorphism of the human character (...) development process, validated in terms of the theory of viable systems. (shrink)

Although controversy concerning the morality of hunting is generally focused on sport hunting, sport hunting itself is not a morally distinctive kind of hunting. The understanding of hunting in general needs to be supplemented with reference to the goods which hunting seeks. Attempts to draw a moral distinction between sport and subsistence hunting are inadequate and historically suspect. Likewise, trying to establish sport hunting as morally distinctive by emphasizing its similarities to other sports also fails. Nevertheless, there are standards accepted (...) by hunters that support ethical judgments about hunting. Ethical hunting requires reentry into a community of nonhuman beings governed by ecology and evolution, not human constructs, the development of virtues such as tenacity, courage, moderation, and discipline, and the achievement of a heightened respect for the biotic community in which the hunt takes place. By means of such standards, we may yet be able to determine what good hunting is even though we are unable to determine whether sport hunting is good. (shrink)

It is perhaps most useful to approach the Doctor-Patient relationship (DPR) by admitting that it’s complicated. We review some of the strategies that have been employed to mitigate this complexity, zeroing in on one that promises to capture the main features of the DPR without eliminating some of its more important, existential components; pieces of the puzzle that must be retained if we are to avoid oversimplification and the errors that can arise by ignoring important foundational properties. We believe that (...) a useful way to look at the DPR and to capture essential features that must be balanced in the process is provided by Partnership Theory and its definition in terms of the so-called domination and partnership systems. We apply this theory to the DPR and investigate the implications of this application to health care. We see that in the absence of mitigating circumstances, adoption of the patient-as-partner model serves healthcare well and is flexible enough to accommodate circumstances that dictate modifications. (shrink)