In this essay the Co-chair of Ethics Working Group 17 of the Health Care Task Force discusses the formation, organization processes and activities of the group, and provides an analysis and critique of the experience. It is suggested that the creation of the group and its inclusion in the process made a social statement which legitimized ethics as a significant part of public policy deliberations. At the same time, major questions are raised about the role of ethics in public policy (...) arenas in which strategic compromise becomes the order of the day. Balanced and objective involvement may be illusory. Ethics, like informed consent, is a process, not an event and is ever evolving. Those who attempt to bring ethical considerations to the world of public policy have an obligation to think carefully about what should constitute an appropriate theoretical framework, make efforts to determine what is unique about ethics, and consider mechanisms for the various ethics disciplines to work effectively together. From this experience, the author developed a personal commitment to focus upon the critical importance of universal coverage for all Americans. Keywords: Clinton health plan, health care reform, universal access CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In June 2002, the University of Minnesota hosted a conference to explore the implications of using genetic technologies and genealog.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S3-S11, March‐April 2022.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S83-S88, March‐April 2022.

What is animal welfare? Why has it proved so difficult to find a definition that everyone can agree on? This concise and accessible guide is for anyone who is interested in animals and who has wondered how we can assess their welfare scientifically. It defines animal welfare as 'health and animals having what they want', a definition that can be easily understood by scientists and non-scientists alike, expresses in simple words what underlies many existing definitions, and shows what evidence we (...) need to collect to improve animal welfare in practice. Above all, it puts the animal's own point of view at the heart of an assessment of its welfare. But, can we really understand what animals want? A consistent theme running through the book is that not only is it possible to establish what animals want, but that this information is vital in helping us to make sense of the long and often confusing list of welfare measures that are now in use such as 'stress' and 'feel good hormones', expressive sounds and gestures, natural behaviour, cognitive bias, and stereotypies. Defining welfare as 'health and what animals want' allows us to distinguish between measures that are simply what an animal does when it is alert, aroused, or active and those measures that genuinely allow us to distinguish between situations the animals themselves see as positive or negative. Sentience (conscious feelings of pleasure, pain, and suffering) is for many people the essence of what is meant by welfare, but studying consciousness is notoriously difficult, particularly in non-human species. These difficulties are discussed in the context of our current - and as yet incomplete - knowledge of human and animal consciousness. Finally, the book highlights some key ideas in the relationship between animal welfare science and animal ethics and shows how closely the well-being of humans is linked to that of other animals. The Science of Animal Welfare is an ideal companion for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in animal behaviour and welfare, as well as for professional researchers, practitioners and animal welfare consultants. At the same time, it is easily understandable to non-scientists and anyone without prior knowledge but with an interest in animals and the rapidly evolving science of animal welfare. (shrink)

A 20th anniversary edition of the art classic that celebrates the intersection of creative expression and spirituality—from one of the greatest living artists of our time Twenty years after the original publication of The Mission of Art, Alex Grey’s inspirational message affirming art’s power for personal catharsis and spiritual awakening is stronger than ever. In this special anniversary edition, Grey—visionary painter, spiritual leader, and best-selling author—combines his extensive knowledge of art history with his own experiences in creating art at the (...) boundaries of consciousness. Grey examines the roles of conscience and intention in the creative process, including practical techniques and exercises useful in exploring the spiritual dimensions of art. Challenging and thought-provoking, The Mission of Art will be appreciated by everyone who has ever contemplated the deeper purpose of creative expression. (shrink)

MacIntyre is a major defender of the resurgence of the Aristotelian approach in ethical and political theory. He considers Aristotelianism not only a feasible, but also an intellectually superior alternative to most contemporary dominant ideologies, and to liberalism in particular. There is, however, an important and instructive modification to his view of what is admissible from Aristotle that should be accounted for. The paper traces MacIntyre’s search for a defensible restatement of the Aristotelian ethics and examines in particular his changing (...) attitude to metaphysics as the basis for ethics within his project. Different stages of the development to his proposed Aristotelian alternative are analyzed and evaluated. The paper tries to show that despite the fact that MacIntyre initially repudiated Aristotle’s metaphysical biology, nevertheless his account has always been (implicitly or explicitly) metaphysical. (shrink)

In a world increasingly concerned with the human species and its future, Marian Stamp Dawkins argues that we need to rethink some of the fundamental questions regarding animal welfare. How are we justified in projecting human emotions on to animals? What kind of mental lives do they have? What can science tell us about their quality of life?

There is a belief that exercise has a major role to play in the current health and wellbeing agendas. Consequently, health interventions are implemented based upon the recommendations of the ACSM and similar exercise research organizations. However this development has been challenged through both social and political perspectives. Specifically accusations of medicalization have been raised against the increasing relationship between the exercise and medical domains. The purpose of this article is to present a similar critique of the growing emergence of (...) a medical paradigm within the exercise domain. In this instance the focus will examine the relationship between exercise professional, exercise science and the proposed medical paradigm. Through the use of philosophical essay and systematic review of literature, it is argued that a continuing shift by exercise science to mirror the medical paradigm will cause a number of issues and potential hazards in the working practices of its professionals. (shrink)

A great philosopher will change the way you think about your life. For most of human history, religion provided a clear explanation of life and death. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries new ideas -- from psychiatry to evolution to Communist -- seemed to suggest that our fate was now in our own hands. We would ourselves become God. This is the theme of a remarkable new book by one of the world's greatest lving philosophers. It is (...) a brilliant and frightening look at the problems and opportunities of a world coming to grips with humankind's now solitary, unaided place in the universe. Gray takes two major examples: the belief that the science-backed Communism of the new USSR could reshape the planet, and the belief among a group of Edwardian intellectuals -- popularized through mediums and automatic writing -- that there was a non-religious form of life after death. Gray presents an extraordinary cast of philosophers, journalists, politicians, charlatans and mass murderers, all of whom felt driven by a specifically scientific and modern world view. He raises a host of fascinating questions about what it means to be human. The implications of Gray's book will haunt its readers for the rest of their lives. (shrink)

Frege's Puzzle is a founding problem in analytic philosophy. It lies at the intersection of central topics in the philosophy of language and mind: the theory of reference, the nature of propositional attitudes, the nature of semantic theorizing, the relation between semantics and pragmatics, etc. This chapter is an overview of the puzzle and of the space of contemporary approaches to it.

Reviews the values that Hegel considered preeminently characteristic of Greek culture and traces the way in which those values helped to determine his judgment of modern civilization.

This book provides an eye-opening look at the outsized role that seven Presidents played in shaping the policies and practices relative to school desegregation through their bully pulpit.

In 1976, I met John Bell several times in CERN and we talked about a possible violation of optical theorem, purity tests, EPR paradox, Bell’s inequalities and their violation. In this review, I resume our discussions, and explain how they were related to my earlier research. I also reproduce handwritten notes, which I gave to Bell during our first meeting and a handwritten letter he sent to me in 1982. We have never met again, but I have continued to discuss (...) BI-CHSH inequalities and their violation in several papers. The research stimulated by Bell’s papers and experiments performed to check his inequalities led to several important applications of quantum entanglement in quantum information and quantum technologies. Unfortunately, it led also to extraordinary metaphysical claims and speculations which in our opinion John Bell would not endorse today. BI-CHSH inequalities are violated in physics and in cognitive science, but it neither proved the completeness of quantum mechanics nor its nonlocality. Quantum computing advantage is not due to some magical instantaneous influences between distant physical systems. Therefore one has to be _cautious in drawing-far-reaching philosophical conclusions from Bell’s inequalities_. The true resource for quantum computing is contextuality and not nonlocality. (shrink)

Gdy kartkuje się tę książkę, to od razu rzuca się w oczy mieszanie treści biblijnych z szeregiem pojęć matematycznej i fizycznej natury. Gdy zaś próbuje się ją podczytywać, wtedy z kolei natrafia się na język filozoficzny. Mamy łączenie radykalnie odmiennych porządków sensu. Z jednej strony staje filozoficzna interpretacja pierwszych dziesięciu zdań Biblii, z drugiej szczególny opis kilku obiektów matematycznych i fizycznych. Pierwszym wrażeniem jest doznanie nieprzystawalności. Co jedno może mieć wspólnego z drugim? Oryginalność zestawienia jest uzasadniona celem prezentowanych rozważań. Najogólniej, (...) chodzi tu o możliwie odpowiedzialną, metodycznie kontrolowaną, racjonalną próbę interpretacji początku Biblii za pomocą pojęć filozoficznych, a następnie o odświeżenie wybranych symboli z początku Genesis za pomocą zmetaforyzowanych pojęć matematycznych i fizycznych. (shrink)

Anger, disgust, elevation, sympathy, relief. If the subjective experience of each of these emotions is the same whether elicited by moral or nonmoral events, then what makes moral emotions unique? We suggest that the configuration of moral emotions is special—a configuration given by the underlying structure of morality. Research suggests that people divide the moral world along the two dimensions of valence (help/harm) and moral type (agent/patient). The intersection of these two dimensions gives four moral exemplars—heroes, villains, victims and beneficiaries—each (...) of which elicits unique emotions. For example, victims (harm/patient) elicit sympathy and sadness. Dividing moral emotions into these four quadrants provides predictions about which emotions reinforce, oppose and complement each other. (shrink)

Marian Hobson's work has made a seminal contribution to our understanding of the European Enlightenment, and of Diderot and Rousseau in particular. This book presents her most important articles in a single volume, translated into English for the first time. Hobson's distinctive approach is to take a given text or problématique and position it within its intellectual, historical and polemical context. From close analysis of the underlying conceptual structures of literary texts, she offers a unique insight into the vibrant (...) networks of people and ideas at work throughout Europe, and across disciplinary boundaries as diverse as literature and mathematics, medicine and music. In their translations of Hobson's essays, Kate Tunstall and Caroline Warman present the primary sources in both the original eighteenth-century French and modern English, making the detail of these debates accessible to everyone, from the specialist to the student, whatever their academic discipline or interest. (shrink)

The law of excluded middle is usually considered as intrinsically connected with the realistic standpoint and incompatible with the idealistic position. This is just what Ajdukiewicz claims in his critique of transcendental idealism. The analysis of Ajdukiewicz's argumentation raises the problem of validity of the law of excluded middle for vague (or incomplete) languages. The problem is being solved by differentiating between the logical (or ontological) and the metalogical (or semantical) law of excluded middle: in contrast to the former, the (...) latter is claimed to be invalid for the languages in question, without thereby embracing the idealist position. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader Psychopaths versus Psychotics The Psychopath Language and the Emotional Brain Empathy, Lack of Shame, Insincerity Fantasies The Serial Killer and Nietzsche.

This book explores how changes that occurred around 1989 shaped the study of the social sciences, and scrutinizes the impact of the paradigm of neoliberalism in different disciplinary fields. The contributors examine the ways in which capitalism has transmuted into a seemingly unquestionable, triumphant framework that globally articulates economics with epistemology and social ontology. The volume also investigates how new narratives of capitalism are being developed by social scientists in order to better understand capitalism's ramifications in various domains of knowledge. (...) At its heart, Beyond Neoliberalism seeks to unpack and disaggregate neoliberalism, and to take readers beyond the analytical limitations that a traditional framework of neoliberalism entails. (shrink)

"Originally published in 2015 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Great Britain"--Title page verso.

Der Titel stellt die alte Pilatusfrage «Was ist Wahrheit?» im Zeitalter interdisziplinärer Umbrüche aus heutiger Sicht neu. Dazu wird die Wahrheit in der Ästhetik, Ethik, im Gewissen, in Technik und Hermeneutik neu reflektiert. Der Bogen spannt sich über klassische Begriffe bis zu den soziologischen Deformationen der Wahrheit durch den Pluralismus. Die Globalisierung der heutigen Informationsgesellschaft über PC und Internet brachte die Wahrheit aus der «Mode». Dazu wird ein Paradigmenwechsel vorgeschlagen, der auf Zusammenhängen zwischen apriorischen Erkenntnissen, unentscheidbaren Aussagen und dem Mysterium (...) beruht. Letztlich wird die Frage nach der «Wahrheit des Seins» als ihr transzendentales Spezifikum gestellt. Das objektive Maß der Wahrheit berührt neu die Klarheit der Wahrheit des Seins gegenüber der Widersprüchlichkeit des Irrtums. Titel und Thematik sind ein wissenschaftlich kompatibler Beitrag im Dialog zwischen Vernunft und Glaube als interdisziplinäre neue Antwort auf die alte Pilatusfrage. (shrink)

In the mid 1960s two artists associated with Fluxus, Milan Knk and Ken Friedman, began corresponding about the possibilities for conceptual and material exchange through the new media, or intermedia, of actions and correspondence art. To make connections across the geographic and political barrier between Eastern Europe and the West, they used flexible media within a distributive cognitive network to communicate about living and working counter to conformity and inertia in both places. Their use of intermedia reveals a pattern of (...) international information exchange that distinguishes contemporary art and experience from the modern. (shrink)

Ryan Johnson and Biko Mandela Gray study the relationship between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Black Thought from Frederick Douglass to Angela Davis. This staging of an elongated dialectical parallelism between Hegel's classic text and major 19th-20th-century Black thinkers explodes the western canon of philosophy. Johnson and Mandela Gray show that Hegel's abstract dialectic is transformed and critiqued when put into conversation with the lived dialectics of Black Thought: from Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs through to Malcolm X (...) and Angela Davis. While Hegel articulates the dynamic logics that we see in these Black thinkers, when they are placed in parallel and considered together, the whiteness, both explicit and implicit, of Hegelianism itself is revealed. Forcing Hegelianism into the embodied history of Black Thought reveals a phenomenology of America whose spirit is Black. (shrink)

On the ethics of extending human life: healthy people have a right to carry on livingHumanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of a healthy human lifespan. Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion—a dream beyond all others at first blush, but actually something we are better off without. The prevailing pace of biotechnological progress is bringing ever closer the day when humanity will be able (...) to act on the latter view by rejecting a clear and present opportunity for much longer healthy lives. Indeed, some biogerontologists contend that that day has already arrived, to the extent that our hesitation in embarking on a vigorous “war on ageing” is already delaying the point at which a cure for ageing will be developed. Here I consider whether our present caution concerning the wisdom of truly curing ageing is likely to survive the increased scrutiny that it will receive in coming years as a result of these technical advances. I conclude that it will not, because of its irreconcilability with values that are more deeply held by the large majority of humanity than any values that argue against the quest for a cure. I further conclude that all the major current reasons given for not curing ageing are mere crutches to help us cope with the immutability of ageing that we have been brought up to accept. Our failure to set aside such irrationality is already shortening potential longevity—quite probably of those already alive today—to a staggering degree. Once we realise this, our determination to consign human ageing to history will be second …. (shrink)