J. F. C. Harrison has written that ‘for each age there is a new view of Mr Owen’, which is proof of the fertility and continuing relevance of his ideas. Not just in Britain and America but today around the world anti-poverty campaigners, birth-controllers, collectivists, communitarians, co-operators, ecologists, educationalists, environmentalists, feminists, humanitarians, internationalists, paternalistic capitalists, secularists, campaigners for social justice, trade unionists, urban planners, utopians, welfare reformers can all find something to admire and inspire in the treasure trove that is (...) the thought and actions of Robert Owen. Owen was a creative genius of global significance, a radical writer and activist of international reputation and reach who has inspired those seeking to change human society for the better. The contributors to this volume include not only many of the recognized experts on the life, work and legacy of Owen, but also work from younger scholars or scholars coming to the field afresh. The volume presents the most recent and original research on Owen. Owen notoriously (and impressively) dabbled in many spheres, and this is reflected in the its breadth of content. The unifying themes are Owen’s profile in his own time, and the relevance of his ideas for the generations that followed. His importance for educational and social philosophy, for political economy and for the political theory of socialism are all discussed, as are his contribution as a philanthropic employer, his political activities and the specificities of his historical context. (shrink)

Western societies today are coming unmoored in the face of an earth-shaking ethical and cultural paradigm shift. At its core is the question of what it means to be human and how we are meant to live. The old answers are no longer accepted; a dizzying array of options are offered in their stead. Underpinning this smorgasbord of lifestyles is a thicket of unquestioned assumptions, such as the separation of gender from biological sex, which not so long ago would have (...) been universally rejected as radical notions. In the spring of 2019, a group of Orthodox Christian scholars drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines met together to offer responses to the moral crisis our generation faces, elaborating upon its various forms and facilitating a fuller understanding of some of its theological and philosophical foundations. In doing so they offer support to all those who question the claims that are so forcefully insisted upon today--a clarity that will aid them in standing up and resisting trends that have already shown to be the cause of great suffering and unhappiness. (shrink)

Early in World War I, Virginia Woolf wrote these words: ‘The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be […]’. It is tempting to assume that darkness simply hides the unknown and the threatening. It is more challenging to think of it as Woolf did: rich with possibility in even the most desperate times.We live in what many would readily describe as dark times. These times have brought (among much else) a once-in-a-century public (...) health crisis, the continued redemption of toxic white supremacy, declining trust in and support for public institutions, and growing evidence of impending climate devastation. ‘Dark Futures’ will consider some of the scenes of this devastation and mine them for insights into our predicaments and our prospects. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone abordar la obra de Adam Smith con el objeto de identificar una posible “teoría sobre la igualdad” en el corpus del filósofo escocés. Nuestro planteamiento cuestiona el ideario colectivo en torno a este autor, según el cual se lo caracteriza como cercano al anti-igualitarismo de ciertas corrientes liberales. Basándonos en investigaciones hechas en los últimos años por algunos estudiosos de Smith, expondremos argumentos e ideas presentes en su obra que se pueden asociar a posiciones igualitaristas (...) y que muestran que su postura sobre este tema es más compleja de lo que se cree. En esta línea, con el fin de evidenciar la posición de Smith acerca de la igualdad, presentaremos su concepción sobre el surgimiento de la desigualdad y ciertas ideas plasmadas en La Riqueza de las Naciones y en Teoría de los Sentimientos Morales relevantes para la discusión. En esta tarea, tomaremos como principal referente el trabajo de Samuel Fleischacker, cuya interpretación de Smith -que será complementada con análisis propios- tenemos también el objeto de difundir. (shrink)

What is compassion? I suggest that it is, as Adam Smith and David Hume once argued, a moral sentiment that is subject to a great many constraints and variations but is nonetheless “natural.” I also consider Nietzsche's rather vehement attack on Mitleid and current social psychological literature on empathy.

There seems to be no end to moralizing about the vices, but there is too little appreciation of them as mere human foibles and an essential part of the “human circus.” There are also serious questions about whether some of the so-called deadly sins are sinful at all.

Too often, since the 19th century, sensitivity is dismissed as mere “sentimentality” in philosophy and in literature. It is charged that sentimentality is distorting, self-indulgent, self-deceptive. I argue that all of these charges are misplaced or themselves distorted and betray a suspicion of emotions and the tender sentiments that is unwarranted.

Do we love for reasons? Most romantics would insist not. In fact, we love despite good reasons not to love. I argue that love necessarily involves reasons. I discuss the problem of loving someone for his or her looks and what I call Plato's Problem, loving only the properties of a person. I end by discussing some dubious and perverse reasons for love.

Spirituality is often dismissed as mere sentimentality. It is also often opposed to science and the scientific worldview, as if the one is anathema to the other. I suggest that spirituality has distinct advantages over religion and is not at all opposed to science or scientific thinking.

Basic Cartesian intuitions are directed at simple natures, not truths; but intuitions are also a foundation for propositional knowledge. There are two basic objectives of this chapter: to show how Descartes gets from intuitions to propositional knowledge, and to show how his solution to this problem structures his thinking on the main issues in Cartesian epistemology. I maintain that the solution to is to be found in the principle if we perceive the presence of an attribute A, there must be (...) an actually existing substance to which A is attributed. This principle gets its clearest expression in the Principles of Philosophy but also appears in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind and in the Meditations where, I argue, it appears in the form of the Rule of Truth. I show how this principle is derived from the cogito, understood both as inference and as intuition, how this principle plays a role in Descartes theory of consciousness and self‐knowledge, in the case for substance dualism, and in the theory of clear and distinct ideas. (shrink)

The leading idea of this chapter is that, for Descartes, intellectual ideas make it obvious what metaphysical category the properties they disclose to the mind fall into but not whether they are actually exemplified; sensations make it obvious whether the properties they disclose to the mind are exemplified but not what their metaphysical category is. This idea is worked out through a discussion of three stages in the development of Descartes's doctrine of the material falsity of sensory ideas, the core (...) concept of his error explanation of the senses. Material falsity is a set of three defects that sensations have in comparison with intellectual ideas, ideas that fully discharge the role, which Descartes assigns to ideas in his philosophical system. The first stage, reflected in Meditation III, identifies material falsity with two defects: nonrepresentation and misrepresentation ; the second stage, reflected in the Reply to Arnauld, identifies material falsity with obscure ideas ; the third stage, reflected in the Principles of Philosophy I, sees the terminology of material falsity disappear and the terminology of clear but not distinct ideas appear. Other topics discussed include a special application of the rule of truth and skepticism. (shrink)

How can a Cartesian idea represent ordinary physical objects? One possibility is that Descartes holds a theory of natural signs according to which ideas, including sensations, represent states of the external world that are correlated with them. I deny that Descartes has a theory of natural signs in this sense, arguing, instead, that our perception of ordinary physical objects is achieved not through ideas, properly speaking, but through a special act of the mind which projects its sensations onto objects in (...) the external world, objects truly represented by ideas of primary qualities alone. This ”projection” comprises referral judgments that account for the characteristic phenomenology of experience of the physical world but in a way that misleads us to think that our ideas bear a resemblance to the underlying metaphysical reality of the physical world. Other issues discussed include Descartes's taxonomy of ideas. (shrink)

Cartesian epistemology comprises three main divisions: an a priori theory, discussed in Chs. 1–3, a psychological theory of error explanations in judgment induced by features of our sense experience discussed in Chs. 4, 5 and 7, and a theory of natural reasons, discussed here. The theory of natural reasons, based on Descartes's notion of natural inclinations, is expressed here in terms of a series of warrant principles of which there are two main kinds: those that warrant action and those that (...) warrant claims for what is true. This chapter traces Descartes's epistemically ambivalent attitude to cognitive dispositions from the early treatment in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind through to the final treatment in The Passions of the Soul. The chapter focuses special attention on the appearance of one kind of natural reason, reasons of truth, in the proof of the external world in Meditation VI and the striking absence of same in the proof of the external world in the Principles of Philosophy II. The chapter also considers whether natural reasons apply to particular aspects of corporeal things, concluding with a discussion of the Cartesian Circle. (shrink)

Louis Bautain (1796–1867) has been described as the “French Newman” because of the resemblances between their lives and writings. This essay compares three aspects of the thought of Newman and Bautain: their respective understanding of faith, reason, and development. Both thinkers understood faith and reason in relation to conversion and the realities of life and viewed faith and reason as functioning in tandem with doctrinal development.

In 1839 and 1840, Newman preached four Oxford University Sermons, which critiqued the evidential apologetics advocated by John Locke (1632-1704) and William Paley (1743-1805) and subsequently restated by Richard Whately (1787-1863). In response, Newman drew upon Whately’s earlier works on logic and rhetoric to develop an alternative account of the reasonableness of religious belief that was based on implicit reasoning from antecedent probabilities. Newman’s argument was a creative response to Whately’s contention that evidential reasoning is the only safeguard against superstition (...) and infidelity. (shrink)

Local food systems can have economic and social benefits by providing income for producers and improving community connections. Ongoing global climate change and the acute COVID-19 pandemic crisis have shown the importance of building equity and resilience in local food systems. We interviewed ten stakeholders from organizations and institutions in a U.S. midwestern city exploring views on past, current, and future conditions to address the following two objectives: 1) Assess how local food system equity and resilience were impacted by the (...) COVID-19 pandemic, and 2) Examine how policy and behavior changes could support greater equity and resilience within urban local food systems. We used the Community Capitals Framework to organize interviewees’ responses for qualitative analyses of equity and resilience. Four types of community capital were emphasized by stakeholders: cultural and social, natural, and political capital. Participants stated that the local food system in this city is small; more weaknesses in food access, land access, and governance were described than were strengths in both pre- and post-pandemic conditions. Stakeholder responses also reflected lack of equity and resilience in the local food system, which was most pronounced for cultural and social, natural and political capitals. However, local producers’ resilience during the pandemic, which we categorized as human capital, was a notable strength. An improved future food system could incorporate changes in infrastructure (e.g., food processing), markets (e.g., values-based markets) and cultural values (e.g., valuing local food through connections between local producers and consumers). These insights could inform policy and enhance community initiatives and behavior changes to build more equitable and resilient local food systems in urban areas throughout the U.S. Midwest. (shrink)

In 2011 the English Court of Protection ruled that it would be unlawful to withdraw artificial nutrition and hydration from a woman, M, who had been in a minimally conscious state for 8 years. It was reported as the first English legal case concerning withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration from a patient in a minimally conscious state who was otherwise stable. In the absence of a valid and applicable advance decision refusing treatment, of other life-limiting pathology or excessively burdensome (...) suffering, the judgement makes it clear that the obligation on health professionals falls strongly in favour of preserving life. Although the Court sought to limit the judgement as closely as possible to the facts of the case, it is likely to have a significant impact on life-sustaining treatment decisions for people in states of low awareness. This paper outlines the main legal features of the judgement. (shrink)

The use of platelet rich plasma as a novel treatment is discussed in the context of a qualitative research study comprising 38 interviews with sports medicine practitioners and other stakeholders working within the English Premier League during the 2013–16 seasons. Analysis of the data produced several overarching themes: conservatism versus experimentalism in medical attitudes; therapy perspectives divergence; conflicting versions of appropriate evidence; subcultures; community beliefs/practices; and negotiation of medical decision-making. The contested evidence base for the efficacy of PRP is presented (...) in the context of a broader professional shift towards evidence based medicine within sports medicine. Many of the participants while accepting this shift are still committed to casuistic practices where clinical judgment is flexible and does not recognize a context-free hierarchy of evidentiary standards to ethically justifiable practice. We also discuss a tendency in the data collected to consider the use of deceptive, placebo-like, practices among the clinician participants that challenge dominant understandings of informed consent in medical ethics. We conclude that the complex relation between evidence and ethics requires greater critical scrutiny for this emerging specialism within the medical community. (shrink)

We study the computational complexity of the universal and quasi-equational theories of classes of bounded distributive lattices with a negation operation, i.e., a unary operation satisfying a subset of the properties of the Boolean negation. The upper bounds are obtained through the use of partial algebras. The lower bounds are either inherited from the equational theory of bounded distributive lattices or obtained through a reduction of a global satisfiability problem for a suitable system of propositional modal logic.

Tacitus writes that, by insisting that legionary legates who had not so far held the praetorship should immediately proceed to that office, Asinius Gallus ‘altius penetrare et arcana imperii temptari’. In C.Q. N.S. xvi , 327, I suggested that this demand of Gallus’ was probably probing dangerously deeply into and perhaps threatening to wreck the carefully worked-out imperial promotions system, the working of which has been examined by Birley. It is the purpose of this note to look at a number (...) of examples of such irregularity, which, though not as early as the debate during the course of which Gallus made his suggestion, do at least illustrate the process later in the Julio-Claudian era. (shrink)

Reducing health disparities and improving health outcomes are fundamental principles in global health. Environmental justice remains underrecognized and undervalued as a key driver of health dispar...

A defining characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is difficulty in retrieving semantic memories, or memories encoding facts and knowledge. While it has been suggested that this impairment is caused by a degradation of the semantic store, the precise ways in which the semantic store is degraded are not well understood. Using a longitudinal corpus of semantic fluency data, we derive semantic network representations of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and of healthy controls. We contrast our network-based approach with analyzing fluency data with (...) the standard method of counting the total number of items and perseverations in fluency data. We find that the networks of Alzheimer’s patients are more connected and that those connections are more randomly distributed than the connections in networks of healthy individuals. These results suggest that the semantic memory impairment of Alzheimer’s patients can be modeled through the inclusion of spurious associations between unrelated concepts in the semantic store. We also find that information from our network analysis of fluency data improves prediction of patient diagnosis compared to traditional measures of the semantic fluency task. (shrink)

This paper analyses recent calls for so called “neurorights”, suggested novel human rights whose adoption is allegedly required because of advances in neuroscience, exemplified by a proposal of the Neurorights Initiative. Advances in neuroscience and technology are indeed impressive and pose a range of challenges for the law, and some novel applications give grounds for human rights concerns. But whether addressing these concerns requires adopting novel human rights, and whether the proposed neurorights are suitable candidates, are a different matter. This (...) paper argues that the proposed rights, as individuals and a class, should not be adopted and lobbying on their behalf should stop. The proposal tends to promote rights inflationism, is tainted by neuroexceptionalism and neuroessentialism, and lacks grounding in relevant scholarship. None of the proposed individual rights passes quality criteria debated in the field. While understandable from a moral perspective, the proposal is fundamentally flawed from a legal perspective. Rather than conjuring up novel human rights, existing rights should be further developed in face of changing societal circumstances and technological possibilities. (shrink)

Mainstream interpretations of the Phaedo take the dialogue to have a metaphysical theory at its core, primarily disagreeing on whether this theory is assumed without argument in the dialogue, or whether an attempt is made to justify it. This disagreement particularly bears on the interpretation of the ‘equals argument’ at 74a–c. The present discussion brings out a commitment shared by these different interpretations: they adopt a ‘top-down’ method, according to which the Phaedo must be understood in terms of premises and (...) arguments thought to be set out systematically in a wider group of Plato’s works. A rival ‘groundup’ approach is presented here, one which remains neutral on such questions, and instead makes use of material in the Phaedo itself to provide a philosophically interesting and plausible alternative. This interpretation develops a distinction between dramatic and philosophical levels of argument, and argues for a close connection between the discussion of equality and the ‘final argument’ at 100b–107b; it concludes that in the Phaedo Plato is primarily concerned with questions about explanation, rather than with presenting a metaphysical theory, and that the charges of dogmatism and obscurity occasioned by current interpretations are the result of distorted expectations about Plato’s aims. (shrink)

Background Few studies have been conducted to assess the quality of orientation practices for ethics advisory committees that conduct ethics consultation. This survey study focused on several Harvard teaching hospitals, exploring orientation quality and committee members’ self-evaluation in the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities ethics consultation competencies. Methods We conducted a survey study that involved 116 members and 16 chairs of ethics advisory committees, respectively. Predictor variables included professional demographics, duration on committees and level of training. Outcome variables included (...) familiarity with and preparedness in the ASBH competencies and satisfaction with orientations. We hypothesised that responses would be associated with both the aforementioned predictors and whether or not participants had encountered the ASBH competencies in training. Results A majority of respondents found their orientation curricula to be helpful, although a significant portion of respondents did not receive any orientation or were unsatisfied with their orientation. Familiarity with ASBH competencies was a statistically significant predictor of respondents’ self-evaluation in particular categories. Standard educational materials were reported as offered during orientation, such as readings and case studies ; different medium resources were less evidenced such as videos on ethics consultation. Conclusions Institutions should re-evaluate orientation practices for ethics committee members that perform ethics consultation. Integrating ASBH competencies and useful methods into a resourceful pedagogy will help improve both member satisfaction with orientation and preparation in consultation. (shrink)

Although it has long been known that time is a cue to causation, recent work with adults has demonstrated that causality can also influence the experience of time. In causal reordering (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2013, 2016) adults tend to report the causally consistent order of events, rather than the correct temporal order. However, the effect has yet to be demonstrated in children. Across four pre-registered experiments, 4- to 10-year-old children (N=813) and adults (N=178) watched a 3-object Michotte-style ‘pseudocollision’. While in (...) the canonical version of the clip object A collided with B, which then collided with object C (order: ABC), the pseudocollision involved the same spatial array of objects but featured object C moving before object B (order: ACB), with no collision between B and C. Participants were asked to judge the temporal order of events and whether object B collided with C. Across all age groups, participants were significantly more likely to judge that B collided with C in the 3-object pseudocollision than in a 2-object control clip (where clear causal direction was lacking), despite the spatiotemporal relations between B and C being identical in the two clips (Experiments 1—3). Collision judgements and temporal order judgements were not entirely consistent, with some participants—particularly in the younger age range—basing their temporal order judgements on spatial rather than temporal information (Experiment 4). We conclude that in both children and adults, rather than causal impressions being determined only by the basic spatial-temporal properties of object movement, schemata are used in a top-down manner when interpreting perceptual displays. (shrink)

Currently, in England and Wales, Court of Protection’s Practice Directive 9E (PD9E) requires all cases of proposed withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment in relation to adults in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) or minimally conscious state be referred to the Court. This paper looks at the origins of PD9E and contrasts the routine requirement to refer cases to court with the complex clinical terrain that comprises those suffering from prolonged disorders of consciousness. We look at the role of the (...) court in decision making in these contexts and we ask what role the courts are called on to play in these decisions. We argue that PD9E, as currently drafted, is too imprecise to achieve its purpose. With our focus always on the best interests of patients, we argue that most decisions of this nature should be made according to a strict protocol but without the need for court approval. Court overview should be reserved for cases of disagreement between those involved in the decision that cannot be resolved by other methods, where there are serious doubts about the individual’s best interests or where there are legally untested aspects to the decision. (shrink)

The attempt to understand and develop Plato's philosophical views has a long history, starting with Aristotle and Plato's institutional successors in the academy towards the end of the fourth century bc. This article traces the history and development of the idea of Platonism. The development of a specifically Platonic philosophy took place mainly within the academy. As a result, the idea that Plato's dialogues already presented a well defined, comprehensive, and essentially correct philosophical system seems not to have arisen until (...) the first century bc. And it was probably not until toward the beginning of the second century ad that a disparate set of philosophers who identified themselves as “Platonists” conceived the project of advocating and defending a specifically Platonic philosophy of this kind by systematically interpreting and explaining Plato's texts. (shrink)