In the early days of ethics consultation, two pioneer consultants noted that one of their important functions was to gather missing information and correct misinformation relevant to the facts of t...

The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment Paradigm is designed to improve end-of-life care by converting patients' treatment preferences into medical orders that are transferable throughout the health care system. It was initially developed in Oregon, but is now implemented in multiple states with many others considering its use. An observational study was conducted in order to identify potential legal barriers to the implementation of a POLST Paradigm. Information was obtained from experts at state emergency medical services and long-term care organizations/agencies (...) in combination with a review of relevant state law. (shrink)

The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment Paradigm is designed to improve end-of-life care by converting patients’ treatment preferences into medical orders that are transferable throughout the health care system. It was initially developed in Oregon, but is now implemented in multiple states with many others considering its use. Accordingly, an observational study was conducted in order to identify potential legal barriers to the implementation of a POLST Paradigm. Information was obtained from experts at state emergency medical services and long-term care (...) organizations/agencies in combination with a review of relevant state law. Legal analysis of survey responses and existing laws identified several potential state legal barriers to a POLST Paradigm implementation. The most potentially problematic barriers are detailed statutory specifications for out-of-hospital DNR protocols. Other potential barriers include limitations on the authority to consent to forgo life-sustaining treatments, medical preconditions, and witnessing requirements for out-of-hospital DNR protocols. (shrink)

Written by a non-Jewish analytic philosopher, this book addresses the issue of whether, and to what extent, current opposition to Israel on the liberal-left embodies anti-Semitic stances. It argues that the dominant climate of liberal opinion disseminates, however inadvertently, a range of anti-Semitic assertions and motifs of the most traditional kind. It advocates a return to an unrestricted anti-racism which would allow liberals to defend Palestinian interests without demonizing Jews.

Public health responses to the Covid‐19 pandemic included various measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. Among these, the most restrictive was a broad category referred to as “lockdowns.” We argue that the reasoning offered in favor of extended lockdowns—those lasting several months or longer—did not adequately account for a host of countervailing considerations, including the impact on mental illness, education, employment, and marginalized communities as well as health, educational, and economic inequities. Furthermore, justifications offered for extended lockdowns set (...) aside a basic tenet of public health ethics: restrictions on liberty and autonomy should be the least intrusive means of achieving the desired end. Since it is now clear that extended lockdowns cause severe harm to many vulnerable populations, the burden of proof is on those who would advocate for them, and there must be a much higher bar to implement an extended lockdown, with high‐quality evidence that the benefit would substantially exceed its harm. (shrink)

Foundation models such as GPT-4 are fine-tuned to avoid unsafe or otherwise problematic behavior, so that, for example, they refuse to comply with requests for help with committing crimes or with producing racist text. One approach to fine-tuning, called reinforcement learning from human feedback, learns from humans' expressed preferences over multiple outputs. Another approach is constitutional AI, in which the input from humans is a list of high-level principles. But how do we deal with potentially diverging input from humans? How (...) can we aggregate the input into consistent data about "collective" preferences or otherwise use it to make collective choices about model behavior? In this paper, we argue that the field of social choice is well positioned to address these questions, and we discuss ways forward for this agenda, drawing on discussions in a recent workshop on Social Choice for AI Ethics and Safety held in Berkeley, CA, USA in December 2023. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This manuscript develops the concept of organizational virtue orientation (OVO) and examines differences between family and non-family firms on the six organizational virtue dimensions of Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, Courage, Conscientiousness, and Zeal. Using content analysis of shareholder letters fromS&P 500companies, our analyses find that there are significant differences between family and non-family firms in their espoused OVO, with family firms generally being higher. Specifically, family firms were significantly higher on the dimensions of Empathy, Warmth, and Zeal, but lower on Courage. (...) Based on these findings we further develop the OVO concept through the discussion of implications and areas for future research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This manuscript develops the concept of organizational virtue orientation (OVO) and examines differences between family and non-family firms on the six organizational virtue dimensions of Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, Courage, Conscientiousness, and Zeal. Using content analysis of shareholder letters fromS&P 500companies, our analyses find that there are significant differences between family and non-family firms in their espoused OVO, with family firms generally being higher. Specifically, family firms were significantly higher on the dimensions of Empathy, Warmth, and Zeal, but lower on Courage. (...) Based on these findings we further develop the OVO concept through the discussion of implications and areas for future research. (shrink)

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

The concept of the gene has been the central organizing theme of 20th century biology. Biology has become increasingly influential both for philosophers seeking a naturalized basis for epistemology, ethics, and the understanding of the mind, as well as for the human sciences generally. The central task of this work is to get the story right about genes and in so doing provide a critical and enabling resourse for use in the further pursuit of human self-understanding. ;The work begins with (...) a wide-ranging historical reconstruction and conceptual analysis of the meaning of "the gene" that results in defining and distinguishing two different "genes". Each of these can be seen as an heir to one of the two major historical trends in explaining the source of biological order---preformationism and epigenesis. The preformationist gene predicts phenotypes but only on an instrumental basis where immediate medical and/or economic benefits can be had. The gene of epigenesis , by contrast, is a developmental resource that provides templates for RNA and protein synthesis but has in itself no determinate relationship to organismal phenotypes. The seemingly prevalent idea that genes constitute information for traits is based, I argue, upon an unwarranted conflation of these two senses which is in effect held together by rhetorical glue. Beyond this historical, conceptual, and rhetorical inquiry the bulk of the dissertation then concerns itself with an empirically up-to-date analysis of the cell and molecular basis of biological order and of the pathological loss of same. In each of these chapters I structure my analysis with the idea in mind that the "conflated" view can be held empirically accountable. Major touchpoints in this work include the ideas of I. Kant, J. Blumenbach, K. E. von Baer, J. Muller, R. Virchow, W. Johannsen, R. Falk, J. Sapp, E. Schrodinger, M. Delbruick, G. Gamow, R. Doyle, L. Kay, S. Kauffman, E. Jablonka, J. Rothman, K. Yamamoto, P. Rous, H. Temin, J. M. Bishop, H. Harris, E. Stanbridge, D. L. Smithers, B. Vogelstein, E. Farber and H. Rubin. (shrink)

This thesis is intended t0 help develop the theory 0f coalgebras by, Hrst, taking classic theorems in the theory 0f universal algebras amd dualizing them and, second, developing an interna] 10gic for categories 0f coalgebras. We begin with an introduction t0 the categorical approach t0 algebras and the dual 110tion 0f coalgebras. Following this, we discuss (c0)a,lg€bra.s for 2. (c0)monad and develop 2. theory 0f regular subcoalgebras which will be used in the interna] logic. We also prove that categories 0f (...) coalgebras are completc, under reasonably weak conditions, and simultaneously prove the wellknown dual result for categories 0f algebras. We dose the second chapter with 2. discussion 0f bisimulations in which we introduce a weaker 110tion 0f bisimulaticn than is current in the literature, but which is w€H—b€ha.v€d and reduces t0 the standard defmition under the assumption 0f choice. (shrink)