I summarize recent discussion in this journal and in Woolcock(1999) of the relevance of evolution to the question of thereality of moral rightness and wrongness. I show thata satisfactory version of Ruse-type evolutionaryethics has been adequately defended.

Much of our everyday, embodied action comes in the form of smooth coping. Smooth coping is skillful action that has become habituated and ingrained, generally placing less stress on cognitive load than considered and deliberative thought and action. When performed with skill and expertise, walking, driving, skiing, musical performances, and short-order cooking are all examples of the phenomenon. Smooth coping is characterized by its rapidity and relative lack of reflection, both being hallmarks of automatization. Deliberative and reflective actions provide the (...) contrast case. In Dreyfus’ classic view, smooth coping is “mindless” absorption into action, being in the flow, and any reflective thought will only interrupt this flow. Building on the pragmatist account of Dewey, others, such as Sutton, Montero, and Gallagher, insist on the intelligent flexibility built into smooth coping, suggesting that it is not equivalent to automatization. We seek to answer two complementary challenges in this article. First, how might we model smooth coping in autonomous agents at fine granularity? Second, we use this model of smooth coping to show how we might implement smooth coping in artificial intelligent agents. We develop a conceptual model of smooth coping in LIDA. LIDA is an embodied cognitive architecture implementing the global workspace theory of consciousness, among other psychological theories. LIDA’s implementation of consciousness enables us to account for the phenomenology of smooth coping, something that few cognitive architectures would be able to do. Through the fine granular analysis of LIDA, we argue that smooth coping is a sequence of automatized actions intermittently interspersed with consciously mediated action selection, supplemented by dorsal stream processes. In other words, non-conscious, automatized actions often require occasional bursts of conscious cognition to achieve the skillful and flexible adjustments of smooth coping. In addition, never-conscious dorsal stream information and associated sensorimotor processes provide further online adjustments during smooth coping. To achieve smooth coping in LIDA we introduce a new module to the LIDA cognitive architecture the Automatized Action Selection sub-module. Our complex model of smooth coping borrows notions of “embodied intelligence” from enactivism and augments these by allowing representations and more detailed mechanisms of conscious control. We explore several extended examples of smooth coping, starting from basic activities like walking and scaling up to more complex tasks like driving and short-order cooking. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose that an increasingly regarded theoretical framework in neuroscience—the predictive processing framework—can help to advance an understanding of the foundations of critical thinking as well as provide a mechanistic hypothesis for how education may increase a learner’s subsequent use of critical thinking outside of an educational context. We begin by identifying a lacuna in the understanding of critical thinking: a causal account of the internal triggers to think critically. We then introduce the predictive processing framework to (...) address this lacuna, and unpack the implications of this framework for understanding the deployment of critical thinking skills in situ, in the real world. (shrink)

Historical demographic research shows that the factors influencing mortality risk are labile across time and space. This is particularly true for datasets that span societal transitions. Here, we seek to understand how marriage, migration, and the local economy influenced mortality dynamics in a rapidly changing environment characterized by high in-migration and male-biased sex ratios. Mortality records were extracted from a compendium of historical vital records for the Baja California peninsula (Mexico). Our sample consists of 1,201 mortality records spanning AD 1835–1900. (...) Findings from Cox proportional hazard models indicate that (1) marriage was associated with a protective effect for both sexes; (2) residing in a mining town was associated with higher mortality for men, but not women; (3) migration was associated with decreased mortality risk for women, but not men; and (4) the risk of mortality increased in the face of infectious disease, but decreased over time. Despite the early initiation of reproduction for women, marriage had a protective effect, likely because marriage linked women to resources. Although mining boomtowns were associated with elevated risk factors generally, only men experienced greater mortality risk, likely due to dangerous working conditions that women did not experience. Last, female, but not male, migrants experienced greater longevity, possibly because exposure to harsh labor conditions eroded the protective effect of selection bias for men. Together, these results shed light on an understudied historical population and broaden our understanding of demographic dynamics in preindustrial settings. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in improving cognitive abilities across the lifespan through training, the benefits of cognitive training are inconsistent. One powerful contributor may be that individuals arrive at interventions with different baseline levels of the cognitive skill being trained. Some evidence suggests poor performers benefit the most from cognitive training, showing compensation for their weak abilities, while other evidence suggests that high performers benefit most, experiencing a magnification of their abilities. Whether training leads to compensation or magnification effects may depend (...) upon the specific cognitive domain being trained and the training approach implemented. To clarify the association between individual differences in baseline cognitive ability and training gains as well as potential moderators, we conducted a systematic meta-analysis of the correlation between these two variables. We found evidence of a significant meta-correlation demonstrating a compensatory effect, a negative association between initial ability on a trained cognitive process and training gains. Too few papers met our search criteria across the levels of proposed moderators of cognitive domain and training approach to conduct a reliable investigation of their influence over the meta-analytic effect size. We discuss the implications of a compensatory meta-correlation, potential reasons for the paucity of qualifying papers, and important future directions for better understanding how cognitive trainings work and for whom. (shrink)

In an era of climate change, deforestation, melting ice caps, poisoned environments, and species loss, many people are turning to the power of the arts and humanities for sustainable solutions to global ecological problems. Introduction to the Environmental Humanities offers a practical and accessible guide to this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. This book provides an overview of the Environmental Humanities' evolution from the activist movements of the early and mid-twentieth century to more recent debates over climate change, sustainability, energy policy, (...) and habitat degradation in the Anthropocene era. The text introduces readers to seminal writings, artworks, campaigns, and movements while demystifying important terms such as the Anthropocene, environmental justice, nature, ecosystem, ecology, posthuman, and non-human. Emerging theoretical areas such as critical animal and plant studies, gender and queer studies, Indigenous studies, and energy studies are also presented. Organized by discipline, the book explores the role that the arts and humanities play in the future of the planet. Including case studies, discussion questions, annotated bibliographies, and links to online resources, this book offers a comprehensive and engaging overview of the Environmental Humanities for introductory readers. For more advanced readers, it serves as a foundation for future study, projects, or professional development. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease 2019 can lead to respiratory failure. Some patients require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. During the current pandemic, health care resources in some cities have been overwhelmed, and doctors have faced complex decisions about resource allocation. We present a case in which a pediatric hospital caring for both children and adults seeks to establish guidelines for the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation if there are not enough resources to treat every patient. Experts in critical care, end-of-life care, bioethics, and (...) health policy discuss if age should guide rationing decisions. (shrink)

St. Amand could count among his many feats the extraordinary achievement of social equilibrium. “The way he was in the midst of the rich and the poor,” his hagiographer marveled, “the poor saw him as a poor man, and the rich treated him as their better.” On a résumé of miracles performed and peoples converted, this accomplishment was no less impressive. Bishops in the post-Roman kingdoms of Gaul/Francia maintained an ongoing balancing act between seeking social and political distinction, on the (...) one hand, and fulfilling their obligation to defend the poor, on the other. Their authority increasingly depended upon both, even as it engendered a tension between elitism and inclusivity. To study bishops' choice of company is therefore to highlight the difficulty inherent in an ambitious pastoral and political positioning. Linked to the subject of the episcopal entourage, and to the issue of episcopal authority and its representation more generally, was a change in the culture of Merovingian government, for bishops were becoming more and more valuable to a monarchy that confronted new standards of responsibility toward its subjects. (shrink)

This paper addresses the potentially interactive effects of descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions on an unethical workplace behavior: counterproductive work behavior perpetration. We draw on the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct and its conceptual distinction between norm types to refine research on this topic. We also test a person-by-environment interaction to determine whether the interactive effects of these norms for CWB are enhanced among employees reporting a stronger need to belong to social groups. In two studies, predictors were assessed in (...) an initial survey and the dependent variable was assessed weeks later. Individuals employed across a range of industries served as participants. In Study 1, descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions of CWB interacted to predict CWB perpetration. This finding was replicated in Study 2. Additionally, Study 2 demonstrated that the interaction between the two norm types was especially strong among individuals high in NTB. Results suggest that to decrease CWB perpetration, organizations may profitably leverage the persuasive effects of “social norms marketing” to alter employee perceptions of the typicality and level of approval for CWBs. This is the first study to demonstrate that both descriptive and injunctive norm perceptions predict CWB perpetration. The demonstrated three-way interaction between the two norm types and NTB advances existing theory regarding the cognitive and motivational mechanisms underlying normative social influence. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This book addresses the problem of how to make democratically-legitimate public policy on issues of contentious bioethical debate. It focuses on ethical contests about research and their legitimate resolution, while addressing questions of political legitimacy. How should states make public policy on issues where there is ethical disagreement, not only about appropriate outcomes, but even what values are at stake? What constitutes justified, democratic policy in such conflicted domains? Case studies from Canada and Australia demonstrate that two countries sharing historical (...) and institutional characteristics can reach different policy responses. This book is of interest to policymakers, bioethicists, and philosophers, and will deepen our understanding of the interactions between large-scale socio-political forces and detailed policy problems in bioethics. (shrink)

The co-occurrence of stress-induced posttraumatic stress disorder and obesity is common, particularly among military personnel but the link between these conditions is unclear. Individuals with comorbid PTSD and obesity manifest other physical and psychological problems, which significantly diminish their quality of life. Current understanding of the pathways connecting stress to PTSD and obesity is focused largely on behavioral mediators alone with little consideration of the biological regulatory mechanisms that underlie their co-occurrence. In this work, we leverage prior knowledge to systematically (...) highlight such bio-behavioral mechanisms and inform on the design of confirmatory pilot studies. We use natural language processing to extract documented regulatory interactions involved in the metabolic response to stress and its impact on obesity and PTSD from over 8 million peer-reviewed papers. The resulting network describes the propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity through 34 metabolic mediators using 302 documented regulatory interactions supported by over 10,000 citations. Stress jointly affected both conditions through 21 distinct pathways involving only two intermediate metabolic mediators out of a total of 76 available paths through this network. Moreover, oxytocin, Neuropeptide-Y, and cortisol supported an almost direct propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity with different net effects. Although stress upregulated both NPY and cortisol, the downstream effects of both markers are reported to relieve PTSD severity but exacerbate obesity. The stress-mediated release of oxytocin, however, was found to concurrently downregulate the severity of both conditions. These findings highlight how a network-informed approach that leverages prior knowledge might be used effectively in identifying key mediators like OXT though experimental verification of signal transmission dynamics through each path will be needed to determine the actual likelihood and extent of each marker’s participation. (shrink)

The name of the third author was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Recent global events demonstrate that analytical frameworks to aid professionals in healthcare ethics must consider the pervasive role of social structures in the emergence of bioethical issues. To address this, the authors propose a new sociologically informed approach to healthcare ethics that they term “social bioethics.” Their approach is animated by the interpretive social sciences to highlight how social structures operate vis-à-vis the everyday practices and moral reasoning of individuals, a phenomenon known as social discourse. As an exemplar, the authors (...) use social bioethics to reframe common ethical issues in psychiatric services and discuss potential implications. Lastly, the authors discuss how social bioethics illuminates the ways healthcare ethics consultants in both policy and clinical decision-making participate in and shape broader social, political, and economic systems, which then cyclically informs the design and delivery of healthcare. (shrink)

: In recent literature supporting a hybrid view between metaethical cognitivism and noncognitivist expressivism, much has been made of an analogy between moral terms and pejoratives. The analogy is based on the plausible idea that pejorative slurs are used to express both a descriptive belief and a negative attitude. The analogy looks promising insofar as it encourages the kinds of features we should want from a hybrid expressivist view for moral language. But the analogy between moral terms and pejorative slurs (...) is also problematic. In this paper, I argue for two main ways in which we should distinguish between two different types of pejorative terms: slurs, on the one hand, and what I call general pejorative terms, on the other. I examine the problems with the analogy between slurs and moral terms and conclude that general pejorative terms like ‘jerk’ are a better candidate on which to model the potential dual-use behavior of moral terms. So if hybrid theorists are looking for a dual-use model for moral language, they should be careful to base their analogies on general pejoratives, rather than slurs. (shrink)

Questions about when to limit unhelpful treatments are often raised in general medicine but are less commonly considered in psychiatry. Here we describe a survey of U.S. psychiatrists intended to characterize their attitudes about the management of suicidal ideation in patients with severely treatment-refractory illness. Respondents (n = 212) received one of two cases describing a patient with suicidal ideation due to either borderline personality disorder or major depressive disorder. Both patients were described as receiving all guideline-based and plausible emerging (...) treatments. Respondents rated the expected helpfulness and likelihood of recommending each of four types of intervention: hospitalization, additional medication changes, additional neurostimulation, and additional psychotherapy. Across both cases, most respondents said they were likely to provide each intervention, except for additional neurostimulation in borderline personality disorder, while fewer thought each intervention would be helpful. Substantial minorities of respondents indicated that they would provide an intervention they did not think was likely to be helpful. Our results suggest that while most psychiatrists recognize the possibility that some patients are unlikely to be helped by available treatments, many would continue to offer such treatments. (shrink)

Body integrity identity disorder is a very rare condition in which people experience long-standing anguish because there is a mismatch between their bodies and their internal image of how their bodies should be. Most typically, these people are deeply distressed by the presence of what they openly acknowledge as a perfectly normal leg. Some with the condition request that their limb be amputated. 1 We and others have argued that such requests should be acceded to in carefully selected patients.1–4 Consistent (...) with this view, a group at the University of Sydney is developing a programme to better understand and treat BIID and to offer amputation if appropriate. In a recent paper, Patrone argues that such amputations should be prohibited.5 He suggests that authors supporting amputation in BIID depend on analogies with more familiar conditions and then claim that the ‘the desires, choices and requests of BIID patients should be held to exactly the same standards and treated with exactly the same respect as the desires, choices and requests of any more conventional patient’.5 He believes that these analogies are invalid and that therefore the arguments for amputation are invalid.Patrone concentrates a great deal upon whether a decision to have a particular medical intervention is to be regarded as ‘rational’. Unfortunately, he makes no attempt to define what he …. (shrink)

Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) often ruminate about past experiences, especially those with negative content. These repetitive thoughts may interfere with cognitive processes related to attention and conflict monitoring. However, the temporal nature of these processes as reflected in event-related potentials (ERPs) has not been well-described. We examined behavioral and ERP indices of conflict monitoring during a modified flanker task and the allocation of attention during an attentional blink (AB) task in 33 individuals with MDD and 36 healthy controls, (...) and whether their behavioral performance and ERPs varied with level of rumination. N2 amplitude elicited by the flanker task was significantly reduced in participants with MDD compared to healthy controls. Level of self-reported rumination was also correlated with N2 amplitude. In contrast, P3 amplitude during the AB task was not significantly different between groups, nor was it correlated with rumination. No significant differences were found in behavioral task performance measures between groups or by rumination levels. These findings suggest that rumination in MDD is associated with select deficits in cognitive control, particularly related to conflict monitoring. (shrink)

Active inference offers a unified theory of perception, learning, and decision-making at computational and neural levels of description. In this article, we address the worry that active inference may be in tension with the belief–desire–intention model within folk psychology because it does not include terms for desires at the mathematical level of description. To resolve this concern, we first provide a brief review of the historical progression from predictive coding to active inference, enabling us to distinguish between active inference formulations (...) of motor control and active inference formulations of decision processes. We then show that, despite a superficial tension when viewed at the mathematical level of description, the active inference formalism contains terms that are readily identifiable as encoding both the objects of desire and the strength of desire at the psychological level of description. We demonstrate this with simple simulations of an active inference agent motivated to leave a dark room for different reasons. Despite their consistency, we further show how active inference may increase the granularity of folk-psychological descriptions by highlighting distinctions between drives to seek information versus reward—and how it may also offer more precise, quantitative folk-psychological predictions. Finally, we consider how the implicitly conative components of active inference may have partial analogues in other systems describable by the broader free energy principle to which it conforms. (shrink)

This article examines neuroleptics in relation to the histories of biopsychiatry and neoliberalism in the United States. Drawing from Foucault's concept of biopower, I contend that neuroleptics are socially constructed as a mechanism to address underlying biological illnesses in order to achieve neoliberal subjectivity for mad/disabled people. I then argue this biopsychiatric and neoliberal construct dominates services with the expressed goal of creating people who self‐govern their own drug consumption. This, however, contrasts with accounts that depict intersubjective balancing acts between (...) treatment providers and mad/disabled people, who must incorporate the various effects of psychoactive drugs beyond measures of rehabilitation. In doing so, I advocate for new lines of psychological inquiry that critically examine the structural determinants of poverty and the underlying constructions of citizenship and wellness. (shrink)

This commentary serves as a reply to Hoffart and Johnson’s article contending that psychodynamic psychotherapy (PDT) models cannot be examined with regard to mechanism of change or represent within-person causal relationships. Hoffart and Johnson cite purportedly paradigmatic examples of PDT and cognitive therapy and examine them with respect to Kazdin’s requirements for investigation of mechanisms of change. We highlight inaccuracies in Hoffart and Johnson’s representation of PDT and, in doing so, provide reasoning in support of the empirical examinability of PDT. (...) We conclude by recommending a metatheoretical system (i.e., functionalism) and empirical methodologies that clinical scientists may consider when investigating mechanisms of PDT in the future. (shrink)

This article examines a series of Schelling-like models of residential segregation, in which agents prefer to be in the minority. We demonstrate that as long as agents care about the characteristics of their wider community, they tend to end up in a segregated state. We then investigate the process that causes this and conclude that the result hinges on the similarity of informational states among agents of the same type. This is quite different from Schelling-like behavior and suggests that segregation (...) is an instance of macrobehavior that can arise from a wide variety of micromotives. (shrink)

Shows how Deleuze’s engagement with Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas -/- Reveals a lasting influence on Gilles Deleuze by mapping his provocative reading of ancient Stoicism Unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary philosophy and classics by engaging a vital yet recently rising area of scholarship: continental philosophy’s relationship to ancient philosophy Introduces the untranslated Stoic scholarship published by pre- and post-Deleuzian French philosophers of antiquity to the English-reading world -/- Deleuze dramatises the story of ancient (...) philosophy as a rivalry of four types of thinkers: the subverting pre-Socratics, the ascending Plato, the interiorising Aristotle and the perverting Stoics. Deleuze assigns the Stoics a privileged place because they introduced a new orientation for thinking and living that turns the whole story of philosophy inside out. -/- Ryan J. Johnson reveals Deleuze’s provocative reading of ancient Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas. For Deleuze, the Stoics were innovators of an entire system of philosophy which they structured like an egg. Johnson structures his book in this way: Part I looks at physics (the yolk), Part II is logic (the shell) and Part III covers ethics (the albumen). Including previously untranslated French Stoic scholarship, Johnson unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary and ancient philosophy. (shrink)

In the year of our Lord 1862, Polish painter Jan Matejko finished his first famous work, Stańczyk, fully translated into English as “Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk.”1 The piece was painted in oils and depicts a famous political figure of Renaissance Poland, Stańczyk the court jester. Stańczyk, an influential figure of Polish history who was as much a political philosopher as a funny man, is depicted in this (...) scene sitting alone and apoplectic as a royal party rages on just outside his door. As the illustration implies, he and the partygoers have just received some correspondence that declares the Polish territory of Smolensk has been besieged, and, appallingly.. (shrink)

Objectives: The mental health legislation of most developed countries includes either a dangerousness criterion or an obligatory dangerousness criterion (ODC). A dangerousness criterion holds that mentally ill people may be given treatment without consent if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. An ODC holds that mentally ill people may be given treatment without consent only if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. This paper argues that the dangerousness criterion is unnecessary, (...) unethical and, in the case of the ODC, potentially harmful to mentally ill people and to the rest of the community. Methods: We examine the history of the dangerousness criterion, and provide reasoned argument and empirical evidence in support of our position. Results: Dangerousness criteria are not required to balance the perceived loss of autonomy arising from mental health legislation. Dangerousness criteria unfairly discriminate against the mentally ill, as they represent an unreasonable barrier to treatment without consent, and they spread the burden of risk that any mentally ill person might become violent across large numbers of mentally ill people who will never become violent. Mental health legislation that includes an ODC is associated with a longer duration of untreated psychosis, and probably contributes to a poorer prognosis and an increase risk of suicide and violence in patients in their first episode of psychosis. Conclusions: Dangerousness criteria should be removed from mental health legislation and be replaced by criteria that focus on a patient’s capacity to refuse treatment. (shrink)

This paper presents a version of neurophenomenology based on generative modelling techniques developed in computational neuroscience and biology. Our approach can be described as _computational phenomenology_ because it applies methods originally developed in computational modelling to provide a formal model of the descriptions of lived experience in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy (e.g., the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, etc.). The first section presents a brief review of the overall project to naturalize phenomenology. The second section presents and evaluates (...) philosophical objections to that project and situates our version of computational phenomenology with respect to these projects. The third section reviews the generative modelling framework. The final section presents our approach in detail. We conclude by discussing how our approach differs from previous attempts to use generative modelling to help understand consciousness. In summary, we describe a version of computational phenomenology which uses generative modelling to construct a computational model of the inferential or interpretive processes that best explain this or that kind of lived experience. (shrink)

While many of the most important figures in the history of philosophy have employed the concept of the simulacrum in one way or another, a detailed study of this usage has yet to be written. In this essay, I will attempt to tell the story of a sequence in that history of that usage, by focusing on one of Deleuze's case studies of the concept of the simulacrum. To do so, I will focus primarily on one the appendices to The (...) Logic of Sense: ‘Lucretius and the Simulacrum’. In order to understand what I will call the Deleuze–Lucretius encounter, I will proceed as follows. After a few initial guiding remarks regarding the general project of the ‘inversion of Platonism’, we will outline some of the most fundamental features of atomistic physics. This will allow us to discuss Lucretius’ thoughts on the clinamen, the swerve. This, in turn, leads directly to the concept of the simulacrum. With such a picture of Lucretian physics in hand, I will pivot to a discussion of Lucretius’ ethics. The ethics consists of a critique of superstition in terms of a general project of demystification. Although this sequence will concentrate mostly on what became one of the appendices to The Logic of Sense, I will end by looking at the more general usage of Lucretian atomism, especially as it functions in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense. (shrink)

How do the intellect and will remain free while pursuing a life of virtue? This is where the question of prudence comes in. Is the practical wisdom of the prudent man founded upon some kind of innate or acquired instinct, or does it presuppose understanding of intellectually grasped basic principles? And if those principles are presupposed, is reason necessary for applying them in any given instance, or can one solely look to the rightly formed appetites acquired by moral virtue? In (...) answering these questions, Ryan J. Brady looks first and foremost to St. Thomas Aquinas and his ancient and modern interpreters. Brady's way of engaging the question of the interplay between the intellect and reason is by focusing on two apparently conflicting texts of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of which says that synderesis (the habit of the first principles of the practical intellect) appoints the end to the moral virtues and another which says prudence does. The author's conviction is that the correct way of reconciling the two texts not only establishes knowledge not only of the role of conscience, virtue, and natural law in the moral life but also provides insight into the profoundly complementary roles of reason and will within the context of a life of virtue. (shrink)

This case concerns aspects of the treatment of a post-surgical patient in a major public hospital in New Zealand during the author's experiences as a fourth year medical student. This case is used to consider the interlinked ethical issues of sympathy, moral virtue, dignity and how the medical environment can realign these values.

Neurological diseases, particularly in the context of aging, have serious impacts on quality of life and can negatively affect bone health. The brain-bone axis is critically important for skeletal metabolism, sensory innervation, and endocrine cross-talk between these organs. This review discusses current evidence for the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which various neurological disease categories, including autoimmune, developmental, dementia-related, movement, neuromuscular, stroke, trauma, and psychological, impart changes in bone homeostasis and mass, as well as fracture risk. Likewise, how bone may (...) affect neurological function is discussed. Gaining a better understanding of brain-bone interactions, particularly in patients with underlying neurological disorders, may lead to development of novel therapies and discovery of shared risk factors, as well as highlight the need for broad, whole-health clinical approaches toward treatment. (shrink)

There are two intriguing paradoxes in molecular biology-the inconsistent relationship between organismal complexity and (1) cellular DNA content and (2) the number of protein-coding genes-referred to as the C-value and G-value paradoxes, respectively. The C-value paradox may be largely explained by varying ploidy. The G-value paradox is more problematic, as the extent of protein coding sequence remains relatively static over a wide range of developmental complexity. We show by analysis of sequenced genomes that the relative amount of non-protein-coding sequence increases (...) consistently with complexity. We also show that the distribution of introns in complex organisms is non-random. Genes composed of large amounts of intronic sequence are significantly overrepresented amongst genes that are highly expressed in the nervous system, and amongst genes downregulated in embryonic stem cells and cancers. We suggest that the informational paradox in complex organisms may be explained by the expansion of cis-acting regulatory elements and genes specifying trans-acting non-protein-coding RNAs. (shrink)

Explores how Deleuze's thought was shaped by Lucretian atomism – a formative but often-ignored influence from ancient philosophy -/- More than any other 20th-century philosopher, Deleuze considers himself an apprentice to the history of philosophy. But scholarship has ignored one of the more formative influences on Deleuze: Lucretian atomism. Deleuze’s encounter with Lucretius sparked a way of thinking that resonates throughout all his writings: from immanent ontology to affirmative ethics, from dynamic materialism to the generation of thought itself. Filling a (...) significant gap in Deleuze Studies, Ryan J. Johnson tells the story of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter that begins and ends with a powerful claim: Lucretian atomism produced Deleuzianism. (shrink)

This paper analyses the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R v Ryan, 2013 SCC 3. This is a very significant decision from a variety of perspectives. The judgment is an important addition to the Canadian criminal law jurisprudence as it clarifies the scope of the defence of duress. However, from a feminist perspective, the case also highlights issues relating to situations in which victims of domestic violence eventually kill their partners following long cycles (...) of abuse. In addition, the judgment serves as a reminder of the substantial problems which still exist regarding the responses of criminal justice systems to victims of domestic violence and the abuse they have suffered. (shrink)

We propose that the prevalent moral aversion to AWS is supported by a pair of compelling objections. First, we argue that even a sophisticated robot is not the kind of thing that is capable of replicating human moral judgment. This conclusion follows if human moral judgment is not codifiable, i.e., it cannot be captured by a list of rules. Moral judgment requires either the ability to engage in wide reflective equilibrium, the ability to perceive certain facts as moral considerations, moral (...) imagination, or the ability to have moral experiences with a particular phenomenological character. Robots cannot in principle possess these abilities, so robots cannot in principle replicate human moral judgment. If robots cannot in principle replicate human moral judgment then it is morally problematic to deploy AWS with that aim in mind. Second, we then argue that even if it is possible for a sufficiently sophisticated robot to make ‘moral decisions’ that are extensionally indistinguishable from (or better than) human moral decisions, these ‘decisions’ could not be made for the right reasons. This means that the ‘moral decisions’ made by AWS are bound to be morally deficient in at least one respect even if they are extensionally indistinguishable from human ones. Our objections to AWS support the prevalent aversion to the employment of AWS in war. They also enjoy several significant advantages over the most common objections to AWS in the literature. (shrink)

This paper transforms elements of Hegel’s thought into antiracism through the work of James Baldwin in three Acts. Act One offers a Hegelian Account of Honesty that is structurally inspired by “conscience” from his Phenomenology of Spirit. Honesty has two, seemingly paradoxical, dimensions. To address the unacknowledged whiteness in Hegel, we turn to Baldwin in Act Two. Baldwin deepens and problematizes Hegelian Honesty through a conceptual diagnosis of “double misrecognition”: the first is the misrecognition of Blackness as inferior, the second (...) is the misrecognition of whiteness as superior. Act Three articulates how the structure of whiteness forecloses Schuld and shame by connecting this dual foreclosure to the two dimensions of Hegelian honesty and Baldwin’s diagnosis of double misrecognition. We conclude by formulating a sketch of “antiracist idealism” as version of what the Germans call Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung, that is, doing the hard, uncomfortable labor of comprehending how the present is not separate from but completely composed of old scars, wounds, violence, and atrocities. Antiracist idealism enables us to both learn from yet also challenge canonical idealism through contemporary forms of antiracism. (shrink)

In the midst of recent ethical decision-making failures in business in the past ten or more years, businesses are beginning to prioritize the moral fiber of their new-hire business graduates. In addition to academic performance, intellectual drive, and personality match, perhaps there are other key characteristics that employers seek which speak to the importance of ethical decision makers in practice. The question remains, how can academic institutions help instill such values into their students so that ethical decision making transcends their (...) lives? This article suggests that experiential learning through an institutional-sponsored business forum can help enhance an individual’s self-efficacy and awareness of the school’s value-based education, which ultimately will lead students towards ethical decision making in practice. Five years of survey data collected at business forum events suggests that business forums are making a difference in the students’ self-assessed abilities to show greater self-efficacy, better ethical decision making, and an increased awareness of their institution’s value-based education. Specifically, data collected illustrate a mediating effect of self-efficacy and awareness of a value-based education en route to ethical decision making. Further, support is found for the primary hypothesis that attendance at business forums does result in a higher propensity to make ethical decisions. Because of these positive findings, higher education institutions looking to place a greater emphasis on the ethical leadership of their business students may want to explore adding such experiential learning programs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Aspects of Christian Mystical Rhetoric, Philosophy, and PoetryRyan J. StarkThis is an article about poets and poetic philosophers who make spirited arguments. My purpose in particular is to clarify the nature of mystical rhetoric, which needs to be distinguished from secular rhetoric (i.e., “secular” as nonspiritual). As ways of existing in language, they are ontologically incommensurable, and we should treat them as such. Mystical rhetoric is that into (...) which Spirit enters, conveying to both writer and reader some aspect of providential kairos that cannot otherwise be attained. That is, God completes mystical inferences. God participates, illuminating the hearts of those who open themselves to grace through faith. Or, in other words, writers and readers who want to enter into numinous arguments must shelve the hermeneutics of suspicion. An overly critical stance actually diminishes the possibility of insight, even if it is well intended, much like nervous backseat driving, which—though aimed at producing safety—inevitably works against it. I am not suggesting, however, that skeptics are at a complete loss when approaching mystical rhetorical situations. Rather, they simply do not grasp the metaphysical, enchanted, or occult dimensions of the discourses at work, because they have closed themselves off to Spirit or—more commonly—have attempted to transmogrify Spirit into secular concepts, which distorts spirited language and leads to mischaracterizations of religious experience.1 In contrast, I provide a Christian approach to [End Page 260] mystical rhetoric, one that neither discounts nor sidesteps the real presence of the supernatural.Inspired Rhetoric and HermeneuticsFuror poeticus is a key element of mystical persuasion. The phrase literally means “poetical fury,” and the idea behind it in a Christian framework is that the Holy Spirit aids writers in creating imaginative texts (e.g., sonnets, sermons, essays, novels, blogs, etc.) or, in pernicious instances, demons aid writers.2 In either case, a mysterious force helps the author to compose. Moreover, furor touches readers or listeners, a point seldom emphasized but nonetheless central to this sublime practice of composition. Inspired writing requires inspired reading: furor poeticus needs furor lectoris.3 The Spirit aids readers in understanding mystical rhetoric, as long as those readers participate earnestly in the discourse. John Milton (1674, 7.31), for example, famously envisions such a “fit audience” in the third invocation to the Muse in Paradise Lost (i.e., the “great Argument”), where he calls on the reader for hermeneutical verve, a spirited reading to complement his enthusiastic writing. Søren Kierkegaard also writes to an audience capable of spiritually minded hermeneutics, allowing him to perform various edifying dissimulations through pseudonyms: the despairing aesthete, the unscrupulous seducer, the rigid moralist, and so forth. These inspired writers expect believing readers to contribute to their works, to complete their disputations, in fact, through spirited exegesis. Their methods of composition demand it, which is to say that writers touched by furor leave little room in their arguments for the sustainable disposition of the uninspired reader.Cicero explains spirited rhetoric and hermeneutics in De divinatione, where Quintus talks about how inspired readers experience the same type of furor as inspired writers, seers, and prophets: “Men capable of correctly interpreting all these signs of the future seem to approach very near the divine spirit of the gods whose will they interpret, just as scholars do when they interpret the poets” (1938, 226). Scholarship, in other words, is capable of tapping into mystical energy, making the scholars as prophetic as the vates on which they write. In the second book of On Christian Doctrine (1958, 75–78), Augustine also explains the importance of mystical exegesis as a form of prophecy, where sincere readers undergo the same type of inspiration as mystical writers. For Augustine, spirited reading begins with prayer and ends with revelation. In both accounts of furor, Cicero’s and Augustine’s, [End Page 261] the inspired audience and the inspired writer together experience rapture, a divine vision or illumination, which is precisely the type of communion that occurs during mystical discourses.4Still, the idea of seeking communion with God is potentially unsettling. The notion produces anxieties of psychosis, possession, and self-erasure. Plato famously expresses such concerns in Ion, for example... (shrink)