In this paper, we assume that organ donation policy in the United States will continue to be based on an opt-in model, requiring express consent to donate, and that families will continue to have the prerogative to make donation decisions whenever the deceased person has not recorded his or her own preferences in advance. The limited question addressed here is what should be done when a potential donor dies unexpectedly, without any recorded expression of his or her wishes at hand, (...) while a family decision is being sought. (shrink)

The results of an exploratory study examining the role of trust in stakeholder satisfaction are reported. Customers, stockholders, and employees of financial institutions were surveyed to identify management behaviors that lead to stakeholder satisfaction. The factors critical to satisfaction across stakeholder groups are the timeliness of communication, the honesty and completeness of the information and the empathy and equity of treatment by management.

The gap between the number of organs available for transplant and the number of individuals who need transplanted organs continues to increase. At the same time, thousands of transplantable organs are needlessly overlooked every year for the single reason that they come from individuals who were declared dead according to cardio pulmonary criteria. Expanding the donor population to individuals who die uncontrolled cardiac deaths will reduce this disparity, but only if organ preservation efforts are utilized. Concern about potential legal liability (...) for temporary preservation of organs pending a search for family members appears to be one of the impediments to wider use of donation in cases of uncontrolled cardiac death in states without statutes explicitly authorizing such action. However, we think that the risk of liability for organ preservation under these circumstances is de minimis, and that concerns about legal impediments to preservation should yield to the ethical imperative of undertaking it. (shrink)

Clark Glymour, Richard Scheines, Peter Spirtes and Kevin Kelly. Discovering Causal Structure: Artifical Intelligence, Philosophy of Science and Statistical Modeling.

In an attempt to learn from COVID-19, this essay features six responses to the question: what did COVID-19 teach us, expose in us, or purge out of us when it comes to spiritual formation in Christ? Each response was written independently of the others by one of the coauthors. Diane J. Chandler focuses in on how COVID-19 exposed grievous inequities for ethnic groups in the American church and broader society. Kelly M. Kapic reminds us of the goodness of human (...) finitude and how COVID restrictions have forced many of us to embrace our limitations. Siang-Yang Tan reflects on eight lessons he has learned during this pandemic year in his role shepherding a local church. James C. Wilhoit calls us to consider the structures that are needed for local church leadership to make wise and godly decisions in times of crisis. Richard Peace draws our attention to what might be learned from the forced monasticism brought about by COVID-19 quarantines. Finally, Ruth Haley Barton pauses to consider the interdependence of human life that has been dramatically illustrated by this pandemic. While these six responses certainly do not exhaust all there is for the church to learn from COVID, we present them in the spirit of “O Lord, teach us what we do not see” and hope they will inspire your own reflections. (shrink)

This paper outlines the experience of four universities that collaborated on a pre-arrival shared reading project, the Big Read, in 2018/2019. They did so primarily to promote student engagement and retention and also to ease the transition into higher education, particularly for first-generation students, to promote staff connectedness, and to provide a USP for their institution. The paper covers all the associated processes, from isolating the respective aims of the collaborators to the choosing and sharing of a single agreed title. (...) In analysing the outcomes, recommendations are made for future cross-institutional projects of this kind. (shrink)

This study assessed the validity of instrument including various negative psychological and physical behaviors of commuters due to the public transport delay. Instruments have been mostly evaluated by parametric method of item response theory. However, the IRT has been characterized by some restrictive assumptions about the data, focusing on detailed model fit evaluation. The Mokken scale analysis, as a scaling procedure is a non-parametric method, which does not require adherence to any distribution. The results of the study show that in (...) most regards, our instrument meets the minimum requirements highlighted by the MSA. However, the instrument did not adhere to the minimum requirements of the “scalability” for two variables including “stomach pain” and “increased heart rate”. So, modifications were proposed to address the violations. Although MSA technique has been used frequently in other fields, this is one of the earliest studies to implement the technique in the context of transport psychology. (shrink)

Unit 731, a biological warfare research organisation that operated under the authority of the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s and 1940s, conducted brutal experiments on thousands of unconsenting subjects. Because of the US interest in the data from these experiments, the perpetrators were not prosecuted and the atrocities are still relatively undiscussed. What counts as meaningful moral repair in this case—what should perpetrators and collaborator communities do decades later? We argue for three non-ideal but realistic forms of moral repair: (...) (1) a national policy in Japan against human experimentation without appropriate informed and voluntary consent; (2) the establishment of a memorial to the victims of Unit 731; and (3) US disclosure about its use of Unit 731 data and an apology for failing to hold the perpetrators accountable. (shrink)

Sober (1992) has recently evaluated Brandon's (1982, 1990; see also 1985, 1988) use of Salmon's (1971) concept of screening-off in the philosophy of biology. He critiques three particular issues, each of which will be considered in this discussion.

Eleven leading philosophers, including Basil Mitchell, Mortimer Adler, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Richard Swinburne, describe why they have embraced Christian belief and offer fascinating insights into their individual spiritual journeys.

A recent development in the philosophy of religion has been the attempt to justify belief in God using Bayesian confirmation theory. My dissertation critically discusses two prominent spokesmen for this approach--Richard Swinburne and J. L. Mackie. Using probabilistic confirmation theory, these philosophers come to wildly divergent conclusions with respect to the hypothesis of theism; Swinburne contends that the evidence raises the overall probability of the hypothesis of theism, whereas Mackie argues that the evidence disconfirms the existence of God. After (...) a careful analysis of the individual authors, this dissertation critically examines the assumptions of the project. The authors consider arguments for the existence of God separately--the cosmological argument, the argument from design, apparent miracles, the problem of evil, and arguments from religious experience--and then conjoin them to assess the cumulative effect of the arguments. The assumptions are that the probability calculus may be interpreted for a successful inductive argument for or against the existence of God, that inference to best explanation is applicable to the justification of religious belief, that the justification of belief in God is analogous to the justification of a scientific theory, and that a classical foundationalist conception of rationality is correct. It is the contention of this dissertation that all of these assumptions are incorrect. All of the major interpretations of the probability calculus are examined and it is argued that there are either no interpretations for the probability assignments or no interpretations which will advance an argument for or against the existence of God. It is also argued that the usual methods for interpreting the explanatory power of theism will not determine any non-zero probabilities; however, density measuring will provide a non-zero interpretation. In the final chapter it is argued that a subjective Bayesian conception of rationality is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of rationality and that classical foundationalism is self-referentially inconsistent. An alternative approach to the rationality of religious belief is offered that proceeds along Reidian and Plantingan lines, belief in God is properly basic. (shrink)

Humanist sociologists are activists rooted in the reality of history and change and guided by a concern for the 'real life' problems of equality, peace, and social justice. They view people as active shapers of social life, capable of creating societies in which everyone's potential can unfold. Alfred McClung Lee introduces this volume with 'Sociology: Humanist and Scientific' and develops the theme that a sociology that is humanist is also scientific. The other nine selections are grouped into four parts: 'The (...) Individual and Social Life;' 'Social Institutions: Technology, Science, and Formal Organization;' 'Political Structures: Issues of Justice and Equality;' and 'Methodological Critiques and Counterproposals.'. (shrink)

In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty presents powerful arguments against traditional epistemology, conceived as a quest both for empirical grounds that provide certainty and for necessary truths that provide a conceptual framework within which to couch empirical findings. Rorty finds traditional epistemology in general, and specifically any appeal to representation that might ground knowledge, to be an unmitigated failure. In this paper, I show that Rorty at least considered but ultimately rejected the possibility of a type (...) of epistemically relevant, foundational representation with a normative status. Drawing on the work of Tyler Burge, I argue that Rorty was too quick in dismissing the important, epistemically foundational role of perceptual representation. A new and improved picture of foundational epistemology emerges. Throughout the paper, I aim to shed light on the fundamental disconnect between Rorty’s and Burge’s approaches to epistemology, and to philosophical investigation more generally. (shrink)

This study traces the history of Newman’s personal papers that are archived at the Birmingham Oratory. Newman was the “master archivist” who spent considerable time during the last two decades of his life in assembling his papers. Subsequently, three major catalogues of Newman’s papers were prepared: the first began in 1920, under the supervision of Richard Garnett Bellasis and Henry Lewis Bellasis; a second catalogue was compiled in the mid-1950s by Yale University Library for microfilming Newman’s papers; the third (...) catalogue was compiled by Gerard Tracey in 1980. (shrink)

In May 2010, philosophers, family and friends gathered at the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the career and retirement of Alvin Plantinga, widely recognized as one of the world's leading figures in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Plantinga has earned particular respect within the community of Christian philosophers for the pivotal role that he played in the recent renewal and development of philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Each of the essays in this volume engages with some (...) particular aspect of Plantinga's views on metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of religion. Contributors include Michael Bergman, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Richard Otte, Peter VanInwagen, Thomas P. Flint, Eleonore Stump, Dean Zimmerman and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The volume also includes responses to each essay by Bas van Fraassen, Stephen Wykstra, David VanderLaan, Robin Collins, Raymond VanArragon, E. J. Coffman, Thomas Crisp, and Donald Smith. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the social trinitarian account in Richard Swinburne's "The Christian God." After setting out the route Swinburne follows in reaching his conclusions about the Godhead, I endeavour to show two things: (i) that his account does not avoid the charge of tritheism and thus is not faithful to key elements in the Christian creeds; (ii) the philosophical moves behind his conclusions are not compelling if, as we can, we challenge his assumptions about divine necessity. (...) A better account of divine necessity takes us away from Swinburne's version of trinitarianism/tritheism. (shrink)

This chapter explores one theme that in the author judgment has not received as much sustained attention as it warrants: the distinction between historical and current time slice theories of epistemic justification. It devotes to the hermeneutical tasks of explicating and contextualizing the distinction between historical and current time slice theories. The chapter examines Goldman's longstanding claim that no current time slice theory can possibly do justice to the epistemic role of preservative memory. It argues that a principle governing preservative (...) memory proposed by Goldman. The author argues that a recent attempt by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman to meet Goldman's challenge by providing a current time slice reconstruction of the relevant epistemic phenomena is similarly unsuccessful. The chapter develops argument against current time slice theories, an argument that proceeds from the detailed consideration of certain cases involving temporally extended reasoning. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article I contest a reading of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations —a reading of it as debunking philosophy. I concede that such a reading is not groundless, but I show why it is nonetheless mistaken. To do so, I distinguish two different ways of viewing Philosophical Investigations and its concern with philosophical problems, an External View and an Internal View. On the External View, readers of the book are taken to know ahead of time what philosophical problems are. On (...) the Internal View, readers are not taken to know this ahead of time: the task of the book is to disclose what philosophical problems are, to show them coming into being. One thing disclosed is our participatory role in philosophical problems coming to be. Learning about the nature of philosophical problems is thus learning about our own nature; metaphilosophical knowledge is in part self-knowledge. If the Internal View is correct (as I believe it is), then Philosophical Investigations does not debunk philosophy but provides a different conception of philosophy and the philosopher's task. (shrink)

The word “tragedy,” as Irish critic Shaun Richards points out, “is a term frequently used to describe the contemporary Northern Irish situation. It is applied both by newspaper headline writers trying to express the sense of futility and loss at the brutal extinction of individual lives and by commentators attempting to convey a sense of the country and its history in more general terms.” 1 Since identifying this particular use of the word, it has be- come clear that the Irish (...) are not referring to tragedy in general, but to Greek tragedy in particular. For example, Deaglán de Bréadun writes in The Irish Times: “The whole community knows outright disaster was only narrowly averted at Drumcree last year [1996]. There is also a terrible creeping feeling that Drumcree Three will be upon us soon and that, like a Greek tragedy, this time disaster is inevitable.” 2 Another article the following year, on Sinn Fein’s exclusion from the 1998 Peace Process, reported: “One long-distance peace processor lamented that today’s events were ‘like a Greek tragedy. You can see the end coming but you can’t do any- thing about it.’” This “language of exhausted fatalism” 4 is not unfamiliar to the Irish, and offers an explanation for the more than twenty Irish authors who have translated, produced, or adapted over two dozen Irish versions of Greek tragedies in the last century alone. 5 Irish poets have translated the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, yet all with a distinctly Irish stamp. Moreover, these Irish-Greek adaptations all, in one way or another, comment upon and question the instability of twentieth-century Ireland – the people, the poets, and the divided country. (shrink)

In a number of recent publications, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler have argued for a novel approach to the design of public policy. Their proposal has received a great deal of attention, both within academic circles and the public at large. Drawing upon evidence from behavioral economics and empirical psychology, the authors attempt to demonstrate that the conventional antagonism between libertarians and paternalists within political theory dissolves in conditions that obtain widely in public decision-making. Where free choice and the (...) promotion of individual welfare can coexist, the authors believe that designers of public policy ought to be libertarian paternalists. -/- In this paper I criticize their proposal on grounds that the authors are unable to sufficiently motivate the paternalistic element of their approach. I argue that the empirical evidence cited by the authors is capable of supporting a number of competing approaches, including what I call libertarian utilitarianism and libertarian justice. Since the evidence that the authors draw upon does not provide us any grounds for selecting between these rival approaches, I conclude that Sunstein and Thaler are unable to provide us with a convincing guide for the design of public policy. In order to show that this is the case, I consider three arguments in favor of libertarian paternalism, and find each lacking. I end with some comments about what we can properly conclude on the basis of Sunstein and Thaler’s arguments. (shrink)

Table of contents : 1. The beginnings of phenomenology: Husserl and his predecessors Richard Cobb-Stevens, Boston College 2. Philosophy of existence 1: Heidegger Jacques Taminiaux, University of Louvain, Belgium 3. Philosophy of existence 2: Sartre Thomas Flynn, Emory University 4. Philosophy of existence 3: Merleau-Ponty Bernard Cullen, Queen's University, Belfast 5. Philosophies of religion: Jaspers, Marcel, Levinas William Desmond, Loyola College 6. Philosophies of science: Mach, Duhem, Bachelard Babette Babich, Fordham University 7. Philosophies of Marxism: Gramsci, Lukacs, Benjamin, Althusser (...) Michael Kelly, University of Southampton 8. Critical theory: from Adorno to Habermas David Rasmussen, Boston College 9. Hermeneutics: Gadamer, Ricoeur Gary Madison, McMaster University 10. Italian idealism and after: Croce, Gentile, Vattimo Giacomo Rinaldi, University of Urbino, Italy 11. French structuralism and after: Barthes, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Foucault Hugh Silverman, State University of New York at Stony Brook 12. French feminism and after: de Beauvoir, Kristeva, Irigaray, Cixious Alison Ainley, Oxford Brookes University 13. Deconstruction Simon Critchley, Essex University 14. Derrida Timothy Mooney, Essex University 15. Postmodernist theory: Lyotard, Baudrillard Thomas Docherty, Trinity College, Dublin. (shrink)