Rogers, C. R. and Skinner, B. F. Some issues concerning the control of human behavior.--Broudy, H. S. Didactics, heuristics, and philetics.--Craig, R. An analysis of the psychology of moral development of Lawrence Kohlberg.--Scudder, J. R., Jr. Freedom with authority: a Buber model for teaching.--Hook, S. Some educational attitudes and poses.--Strike, K. A. Freedom, autonomy, and teaching.--Elkind, D. Piaget and Montessori.--Raywid, M. A. Irrationalism and the new reformism.--Doll, W. E., Jr. A methodology of experience: the process of inquiry.--Neff, F. C. (...) Competency-based teaching and trained fleas.--Brown, A. "What could be bad?" Some reflections on the accountability movement. (shrink)

In the semantic literature, there is a class of examples involving anaphora in intensional contexts, i.e. under the scope of modal operators or propositional attitude predicates, which display anaphoric relations that appear at first glance to violate otherwise well-supported generalizations about operator scope and anaphoric potential. In Section 1,I will illustrate this phenomenon, which, for reasons that should become clear below, I call modal subordination; I will develop a general schema for its identification, and show how it poses problems for (...) most theories of scope and anaphoric relations. In Section 2, I will review the main approaches which have been considered in attempting to account for modal subordination and argue that only an approach involving accommodation can account for the full range of examples. The notion of accommodation is due to Lewis, who defines it as follows: If at time t something is said that requires presupposition P to be acceptable, and if P is not presupposed just before t, then - ceteris paribus and within certain limits - presupposition P comes into existence at t.(Lewis 1979: 340) The interesting question, of course, is what the limits on accommodation might be. I believe that the proper account of modal subordination has something to say about this. I will argue this briefly in section 3, where I draw some conclusions and also sketch some ... (shrink)

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

In this conversation, four experts in animal research oversight—Christopher Stodgell, Lori Hill, Robert Kesterson, and Angelika Rehrig—discuss the complexities of stem cell-based chimeric animal experiments, especially in relation to traditional animal welfare practices. Each expert shares their experiences and suggestions for how best to conduct chimeric animal research, including discussing the importance of communication and collaboration between experts in animal behavior and welfare and the investigators conducting or proposing chimeric research studies.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

Bioethicists function in an environment in which their peers - healthcare executives, lawyers, nurses, physicians - assert the integrity of their fields through codes of professional ethics. Is it time for bioethics to assert its integrity by developing a code of ethics? Answering in the affirmative, this paper lays out a case by reviewing the historical nature and function of professional codes of ethics. Arguing that professional codes are aggregative enterprises growing in response to a field's historical experiences, it asserts (...) that bioethics now needs to assert its integrity and independence and has already developed a body of formal statements that could be aggregated to create a comprehensive code of ethics for bioethics. A Draft Model Aggregated Code of Ethics for Bioethicists is offered in the hope that analysis and criticism of this draft code will promote further discussion of the nature and content of a code of ethics for bioethicists. (shrink)

In "The Compatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (Dec. 2003) , Brian Holtz offers two objections to my argument in "The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (in Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal , edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Routledge, 2000). His responses are: (1) my argument can be deflected by adopting a pragmatic or empiricist "definition" of "truth", and (2) the extra-spatiotemporal cause of the simplicity of the laws need not be God, or any other (...) personal being. (shrink)

Seven features which in practice seem to differentiate belief systems from knowledge systems are discussed. These are: nonconsensuality, “existence beliefs,” alternative worlds, evaluative components, episodic material, unboundedness, and variable credences. Each of these features gives rise to challenging representation problems. Progress on any of these problems within artificial intelligence would be helpful in the study of knowledge systems as well as belief systems, inasmuch as the distinction between the two types of systems is not absolute.

In this book it is argued that this picture of Feyerabend is false.

This book argues that the primary function of human thinking in language is to make judgments, which are logical-normative connections of concepts. Robert Abele points out that this presupposes cognitive conditions that cannot be accounted for by empirical-linguistic analyses of language content or social conditions alone. Judgments rather assume both reason and a unified subject, and this requires recognition of a Kantian-type of transcendental dimension to them. Judgments are related to perception in that both are syntheses, defined as the (...) unity of representations according to a rule/form. Perceptual syntheses are simultaneously pre-linguistic and proto-rational, and the understanding makes these syntheses conceptually and thus self-consciously explicit. Abele concludes with a transcendental critique of postmodernism and what its deflationary view of ontological categories—such as the unified and reasoning subject—has done to political thinking. He presents an alternative that calls for a return to normativity and a recognition of reason, objectivity, and the universality of principles. (shrink)

This book argues that the last eight years in particular have shown us that our democracy has largely evaporated, leaving behind only an exoskeleton that was once its original vertebrae of ends and principles. It is critical to our form of democracy in the U.S. that citizens become active participants.

Gulick’s description and analysis of my The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism is largely on target, but in this response I point out several of his misperceptions and elaborate on several points made in my book. For instance, I note that Polanyi’s monetary prescription for stimulating the economy is no longer relevant when so many US jobs have moved offshore. Polanyi’s interest in achieving full employment has been replaced by Federal Reserve policies that keep risk-taking banks solvent.

Contemporary liberal thinkers commonly suppose that there is something in principle unjust about the legal prohibition of putatively victimless crimes. Here Robert P. George defends the traditional justification of morals legislation against criticisms advanced by leading liberal theorists. He argues that such legislation can play a legitimate role in maintaining a moral environment conducive to virtue and inhospitable to at least some forms of vice. Among the liberal critics of morals legislation whose views George considers are Ronald Dworkin, Jeremy (...) Waldron, David A.J. Richards, and Joseph Raz. He also considers the influential modern justification for morals legislation offered by Patrick Devlin as an alternative to the traditional approach. George closes with a sketch of a "pluralistic perfectionist" theory of civil liberties and public morality, showing that it is fully compatible with a defense of morals legislation. Making Men Moral will interest legal scholars and political theorists as well as theologians and philosophers focusing on questions of social justice and political morality. (shrink)

Selected by CHOICE as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1995.

McCullough et al. propose an evolved cognitive revenge system which imposes retaliatory costs on aggressors. They distinguish between this and other forms of punishment (e.g., those administered by judges) which are not underpinned by a specifically designed evolutionary mechanism. Here we outline mechanisms and circumstances through which the revenge system might nonetheless infiltrate decision-making within the criminal justice system.

This article is a response to the Scott and Moleski biography of Michael Polanyi by one of Polanyi’s last students.

In 1945, Michael Polanyi achieved, in Full Employment and Free Trade, the integration of Keynesian and monetarist economics that the economics profession did not ahieve until the 1970s. In yet another field, Polanyi saw the heart of important matters long before anyone else.

"Crease’s brilliantly exploited theatrical analogy places scientific theorizing back into the wider context of experimental inquiry." —Robert C. Scharff Crease attacks the "mystical" account of experimentation embraced by the positivist and Kantian varieties of philosophy of science, according to which experimentation takes a backseat to theory.

Background: Despite a gradual shift in the focus of medical care among terminally ill patients to a palliative model, studies suggest that many children with life-limiting chronic illnesses continue to die in hospital after prolonged periods of inpatient admission and mechanical ventilation.Objectives: To examine the characteristics and location of death among hospitalised children, investigate yearwise trends in these characteristics and test the hypothesis that professional ethical guidance from the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would lead to significant (...) changes in the characteristics of death among hospitalised children.Methods: Routine administrative data from one large tertiary-level UK children’s hospital was examined over a 7-year period for children aged 0–18 years. Demographic details, location of deaths, source of admission , length of stay and final diagnoses were studied. Statistical significance was tested by the Kruskal–Wallis analysis of ranks and median test , χ2 test and Cochran–Armitage test .Results: Of the 1127 deaths occurring in hospital over the 7-year period, the majority were among infants. The main diagnoses at death included congenital malformations , perinatal diseases , cardiovascular disorders and neoplasms . Most deaths occurred in an intensive care unit environment , with a significant increase over the years . There was a clear increase in the proportion of admissions from in-hospital among the ICU cohort . Infants with congenital malformations and perinatal conditions were more likely to die in an ICU , and older children with malignancy outside the ICU . Children stayed for a median of 13 days on a hospital ward before being admitted to an ICU where they died.Conclusions: A greater proportion of hospitalised children are dying in an ICU environment. Our experience indicates that professional ethical guidance by itself may be inadequate in reversing the trends observed in this study. (shrink)

This article is a response to the Scott and Moleski biography of Michael Polanyi by one of Polanyi’s last students.

The rational choice assumption that any chosen behavior can be understood as optimizing material self?interest is not borne out by psychological research. Expressive motives, for example, are prominent in the symbols of politics, in social relationships, and in the arts of persuasion. Moreover, instrumentality is a mindset that is learned (perhaps overlearned), and can be situationally manipulated; because it is valued in our society, it provides a privileged vocabulary for justifying behaviors that may have been performed for other reasons, and (...) encourages the illusory belief in the universality of rational choice. (shrink)

Joseph Newhard (2017) argues that a libertarian anarchist society would be at a serious military disadvantage if it extended the nonaggression principle to include potential foreign invaders. He goes so far as to recommend cultivating the ability to launch a nuclear attack on foreign cities. In contrast, I argue that the free society would derive its strength from a total commitment to property rights and the protection of innocent life. Both theory and history suggest that a free society would be (...) capable of defending itself, and indeed that it would probably use other means to avoid military conflict altogether. (shrink)

QBism is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that posits quantum probabilities as subjective Bayesian probabilities, whence its name. By avoiding experientially unfulfilled speculations about what exists prior to measurement, QBism seems to make a close encounter with the phenomenological method. What follows is an interview with QBism’s founder and principal champion, the physicist Christopher Fuchs.

"Public reason" is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. As articulated by John Rawls, it presents a way to overcome the difficulties created by intractable differences among citizens' religious and moral beliefs by strictly confining the place of such convictions in the public sphere. Identifying this conception as a key point of conflict, this book presents a debate among contemporary natural law and liberal political theorists on the definition and validity of the idea of public reason. (...) Its distinguished contributors examine the consequences of interpreting public reason more broadly as "right reason," according to natural law theory, versus understanding it in the narrower sense in which Rawls intended. They test public reason by examining its implications for current issues, confronting the questions of abortion and slavery and matters relating to citizenship. This energetic exchange advances our understanding of both Rawls's contribution to political philosophy and the lasting relevance of natural law. It provides new insights into crucial issues facing society today as it points to new ways of thinking about political theory and practice. (shrink)

Research on social influences often distinguishes between social and quality incentives to ascribe meaning to the value that popularity conveys. This study examines the neural correlates of those incentives through which popularity influences preferences. This research reports an functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment and a behavioral task in which respondents evaluated popular products with three focus perspectives; unspecified focus, focus on social aspects, and focus on quality. The results show that value derived with a social focus reflects inferences of approval (...) and reward value, and positively affects preferences. Value derived with a quality focus reflects inferences of quality and negatively affects preferences. This study provides evidence of two distinct inferential routes on both a neurological level, represented by different regions in the brain, and a behavioral level. These results provide the first evidence that a single popularity cue can in different ways influence the value derived from product popularity. (shrink)

I am, of course, aware that infanticide was accepted and practiced in ancient Greece and Rome, and is still practiced in places like India and China today; just as I am aware that slavery was accepted and practiced in ancient Greece and Rome , and is still practiced in some places today. But if philosophers, no matter how sophisticated, were to step forward today to argue that slavery is morally acceptable , I would call that madness.Of course, the ‘madness’ I (...) am referring to in condemning the advocacy of infanticide and slavery or their moral permissibility is moral madness. I am not making a clinical diagnosis of a psychiatric condition. I take it that this was obvious, but that Charles Camosy is nevertheless troubled that I would say such a thing. But I do say it. And at the risk of giving offense, I will say it again: advocating the moral permissibility of killing healthy newborn infants is moral madness; and it is scandalous, especially in a journal expressly directed not merely to philosophers but to physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals—people whose attitudes shape decisions they make about the lives of real people, including real infants.Whatever errors of fact and judgment are made possible by the complexities of human development or a prenatal …. (shrink)

For some time now, commentators in and out of the scientific community have been expressing concern over the direction of scientific research. Cogent critics have labeled it excessively commercial, out of touch with its “pure,” public-spirited roots, and generally too much a creature of its entrepreneurial, self-interested times. In most if not all of this hand-wringing, the scientific community's growing reliance on intellectual property rights, especially patents, looms large. Indeed, for many the pursuit of patents is emblematic of just what (...) is rotten in the republic of science today. (shrink)

Francis Bacon proposed to take "all knowledge to be my province." He posed two related questions which he understood better than any other man of his time: can human beings respect and obey nature, and can they also command nature? He asked many other questions considered useless and impractical in his time but vital in ours.