Scholars of Plato are divided between those who emphasize the literature of the dialogues and those who emphasize the argument of the dialogues, and between those who see a development in the thought of the dialogues and those who do not. In this important book Russell Dancy focuses on the arguments and defends a developmental picture. He explains the Theory of Forms of the Phaedo and Symposium as an outgrowth of the quest for definitions canvassed in the Socratic (...) dialogues, by constructing a Theory of Definition for the Socratic dialogues based on the refutations of definitions in those dialogues, and showing how that theory is mirrored in the Theory of Forms. His discussion, notable for both its clarity and its meticulous scholarship, ranges in detail over a number of Plato's early and middle dialogues, and will be of interest to readers in Plato studies and in ancient philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does not justify an (...) exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

Objective—To explore the opinions of unpaid healthy volunteers on the payment of research subjects.Design—Prospective cohort.Setting—Southern Alberta, Canada.Participants—Medically eligible persons responding to recruiting advertisements for a randomised vaccine trial were invited to take part in a study of informed consent at the point at which they formally consented or refused trial participation. Of 72 invited, 67 returned questionnaires at baseline and 54 at follow-up.Outcome measures—Proportions of persons who agreed or disagreed with three close-ended statements on the payment of research subjects; themes (...) and categories identified by content analysis of responses to an open-ended question.Results—A minority agreed with paying either patient or healthy volunteer participants. Opinions did not change over time. Participants' comments addressed: benefits and drawbacks to research participation; benefits and drawbacks to paying research participants; conditions under which payment of research subjects would be acceptable, and the nature of acceptable recognition. Acceptable conditions were to improve problematic recruitment, to reimburse costs, and to recognise participants, particularly for their time investment. Both non-monetary and monetary recognition of volunteers were thought to be appropriate.Conclusions—Most unpaid volunteers disagreed with paying research participants. The themes arising from their comments are similar to those that have been raised by ethicists and suggest that recognising the time and effort of participants should receive greater emphasis than presently occurs. (shrink)

There is considerable evidence that animals can time multiple intervals that occur separately or concurrently. Such simultaneous temporal processing occurs both in temporal discrimination procedures and in classical conditioning procedures. The first part of the chapter will consist of the review of the evidence for simultaneous temporal processing, and the conditions under which the different intervals have influences on each other. The second part of the chapter will be a brief description of two timing theories: Scalar Timing Theory and a (...) Packet Theory of Timing. Scalar Timing Theory consists of a pacemaker-switch-accumulator system that serves as a clock, a memory that consists of examples of previously reinforced intervals, and a decision process that involves a comparison of ratios to a criterion; the Packet Theory of Timing consists of a conditional expected time function that serves as a clock, a memory that consists of weighted sums of these values, and a probabilistic decision process that produces packets of responses. Both of these theories will be applied to an example of simultaneous temporal processing by rats, and will serve as the basis for some general comments about the basis for selecting and evaluating quantitative theories of timing. (shrink)

Memory representation for time was studied in two settings. First, an analysis of timing in a laboratory analog of a foraging situation revealed that departure times from a patchy resource followed a Weber Law-like property implied by scalar timing. A trial-by-trial analysis was then pursued in a similar but more structured experimental paradigm, the Peak procedure. Study of covariance structures in the data implicated scalar variance in the memory for time as well as in the decision process, but the correlation (...) pattern ruled out multiple access to memory within a trial. (shrink)

A survey of 106 medical students assessing their interest in and attitudes to medical ethics in the curriculum is reported by the authors. Results indicate that 64 per cent of the students rated the importance of medical ethics to good medical care as high or critical and 66 per cent desired to learn more about the topic. However, in reports of patient encounters identifying ethical issues, less than six per cent of the students reported a frequency of more than one (...) such patient encounter per week. The students also demonstrated a greater awareness of more obvious ethical issues than of more subtle, less publicised issues. When asked how medical ethics should be taught, the students clearly affirmed a desire for an integrated exposure to the subject throughout the medical curriculum. Possible implications of these findings for medical education are discussed. (shrink)

Sharply in focus in the United States right now is the disproportionate COVID‐19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Pacific Islanders living in the United States in contrast to White people. These COVID‐19 disparities are but one example of how systemic racism filters into health outcomes for many Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC). With these issues front and center, more attention is being given to the ways that White medical professionals contribute to these (...) disparities, including their socialization to ignore or deny inequities. As such, the present study sought to understand how educating White health‐care pre‐professionals about systemic racism might influence their understanding of and responsibility for disrupting White supremacy. Data were drawn from 49 White‐identified nursing students who participated in a mapping project that uncovered instantiations of systemic racism in the United States. Participant written reflections were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that mapping projects can develop White people's knowledge and understanding of systemic racism. We introduce the construct, transformative dissonant encounters, to describe how this project precipitated shifts in world view necessary for White people to confront systemic racism. Implications for nursing educators, psychological researchers, and antiracist activists are discussed. (shrink)

Inspired by the hugely popular sitcom The Good Place, which uses a comic format to examine moral dilemmas and schools of ethical thought, this is a brief tour of the main issues that face humans when we try to "do the right thing." Using traditional and modern thought experiments, as well as 21st century dilemmas from the etiquette of texting to the narcissism of "selfie" culture, here is everything you need to know about reaching a good place in life.

This book sets high standards for itself. Regrettably it fails to meet them: apart from a few displays of thorough and competent research, it is generally based on substandard scholarship.

ARISTOTLE'S PROGRAM Aristotle says outright that the law of non-contradiction cannot be demonstrated: you can't prove everything, and among the things you ...

Dancy (philosophy, Florida State U.) presents two new interpretations of the evidence regarding the metaphysical ideas of two important figures in Plato's Academy, Eudoxus and Speusippus, and of Aristotle's reaction to those ideas.

Language, Duty, and Value Jonathan Dancy, J. M. E. Moravcsik James Opie Urmson, Edited by Jonathan Dancy, J. M. E. Moravcsik, and C. C. W. Taylor. reasons in general. This is freedom in the sense of acting on reasons, yet not those ...