Retractions have traditionally been reserved for correcting the scientific record and discouraging research misconduct. Nonetheless, the potential for actual societal harm resulting from accurately reported published scientific findings, so-called information hazards, has been the subject of several recent article retractions. As these instances increase, the extent of support for such decisions among the scientific community and lay public remains unclear. Undergraduates (Study 1) and federally funded researchers (Study 2) reported their support for retraction decisions described as due to misconduct, honest (...) errors, or potential information hazards. Participants supported retraction on the former two grounds more than the latter. Despite limited support, women remained more receptive to retractions based on information hazards. Activist tendencies additionally predicted undergraduate men’s receptivity. Receptivity toward retraction due to information hazards was unrelated to scientists’ engagement in activism, suggesting that formal scientific training affords researchers an ability to separate personal and professional values in scientific discourse. Findings could inform the development of educational materials that may aid less experienced scientists and the lay public in understanding retraction ethics. (shrink)

This editorial introduces the Journal of Consciousness Studies special issue on "Animal Consciousness". The 15 contributors and co-editors answer the question "How should we study animal consciousness scientifically?" in 500 words or fewer.

An essay in descriptive metaphysics, this book offers a sketch of the concept of action embodied in pretheoretical, folk ways of speaking. It focuses on the points of view of the agent and spectator in the kind of action in which the question of what to do can arise for the agent. It explores the relations among such action, inanimate action, and the inanimate action of parts of the body on external objects, finding in them analogous roles for the notion (...) of attributability of effects. It contrasts the roles of theoretical and practical necessity in the accounts of action and causation found in Hume and Collingwood, in the course of suggesting that, over the whole range of the category of human doings for which there can be reasons, the existence of reasons is systematically expressed by use of the modal concepts. It has an analytical table of contents. The book was still caught up in the post-Wittgensteinian denial that the explanation of action in terms of the reasons for action was causal explanation. But that error consists in mistaking for a metaphysical claim a sound epistemological one, the claim that such causal explanations do not rest on inductive evidence of empirical regularities. Rather we are analogue computers of the motivation of others. At that time one thought of Collingwood’s re-enactment version of Verstehen in the philosophy of history; nowadays the idea becomes some version of simulation theory. (shrink)

The current study sought to determine research scientists’ sensitivity to various justifications for engaging in behaviors typically considered to be questionable research practices by asking them to evaluate the appropriateness and ethical defensibility of each. Utilizing a within-subjects design, 107 National Institutes of Health principal investigators responded to an invitation to complete an online survey in which they read a series of research behaviors determined, in prior research, to either be ambiguous or unambiguous in their ethical defensibility. Additionally, each behavior (...) was paired with either an ostensibly sound or unsound reason for the behavior. Consistent with hypotheses, the results indicated that scientists perceived QRPs as more appropriate and defensible when paired with a justifiable motive relative to when paired with a clearly unethical motive, particularly for QRPs that are more ambiguous in their ethicality. In fact, ambiguous QRPs were perceived as categorically defensible when given a justifiable motive. This suggests scientists are sensitive to contextual factors related to QRPs’ appropriateness, which could inform how institutions develop appropriate training modules for research integrity. (shrink)

Professor Brown in this volume discusses one of the most difficult questions in metaphysics, “what is action?” His analysis proceeds along three main lines of thought: the point of view of the agent, the primacy of inanimate action, and the pervasiveness of explanatory insight in the description of action.

Part 1. Introduction -- Introduction: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate -- Thirty-Five Year Climate Change Policy Debate -- Part 2. Priority Ethical Issues -- Ethical Problems with Cost Arguments -- Ethics and Scientific Uncertainty Arguments -- Atmospheric Targets -- Allocating National Emissions Targets -- Climate Change Damages and Adaptation Costs -- Obligations of Sub-national Governments, Organizations, Businesses, and Individuals -- Independent Responsibility to Act -- Part 3. The Crucial Role of Ethics in Climate (...) Change Policy Making -- Why Has Ethics Failed to Achieve Traction? -- Conclusion: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm. (shrink)

Retrieval efficiencies of paper-based references in journals and other serials containing 10 scientific names of fossil amphibians were determined for seven major search engines. Retrievals were compared to the number of references obtained covering the period 1895—2006 by a Comprehensive Search. The latter was primarily a traditional library-based search which involved intensive work from 2002—2007. Only a few references originally obtained by search engines were included. Retrieval efficiencies were calculated by comparison to the number obtained through the Comprehensive Search (assumed (...) to be 100%). All percent retrievals were quite low (mean = 11.3%, range = 4.0—22.9%). For all seven search engines combined (duplicate references excluded), the percent retrieval was only 40.7%. There was also retrieval inefficiency and bias of the search engines in: sampling over time, the top five journals containing the most references, the top five most prolific authors, and non-English references. Consequently, all seven search engines were unsatisfactory for retrieval of references for our scientific research. (shrink)

In American Heat, Donald Brown critically analyzes the U.S. response to global warming, inviting readers to examine the implicit morality of the U.S position, and ultimately to help lead the world toward an equitable sharing of the burdens and benefits of protecting the global environment. In short, Brown argues that an ethical focus on global environmental matters is the key to achieving a globally acceptable solution.

Preliminary elements of a practical strategy are described to achieve greater traction for ethical principles to guide international efforts to achieve a just global climate change solution. This paper begins with an ethical review of the major elements of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties 17 outcomes in Durban, South Africa that will be further considered at Conference of Parties 18 in Qatar, December 2012. This analysis then draws conclusions about how to generate greater consideration (...) of the ethical issues that need to be faced if international climate change negotiations have any hope of creating a just global solution to climate change. It will then be argued that the key to obtaining greater traction of ethical principles in climate policy formation is to create greater global awareness of the unjust or ethically unsupportable positions of participants in climate change negotiations, rather than focusing on abstract arguments about what ethics and justice requires. (shrink)

Climate change ethics is an emerging field of applied ethics that examines the ethical implications entailed in the various climate change effects on people around the world, future generations, an...

Because complex environmental problems are relegated to scientific experts, the ethical questions that are embedded in these problems are often hidden or distorted in scientific and administrative methodology and communication. The administrative process requires that facts and values be separated. Those values that cannot simply be ignored are usually translated into technical economic language and settled in terms of economic costs and benefits. Calls for regulatory reform-i.e., to reduce or eliminate environmental regulation--create additional pressures on analysts that encourage them to (...) focus on quantitative questions at the expense of qualitative ones. Distortion can also result from the use of standard risk assessment procedures and from the improper placement of burden of proof on govemment agencies. The greatest problem, nevertheless, is the narrow scientific training of technical experts which frequently leaves them unprepared to deal with the ethical and value issues in environmental public policy. (shrink)

Because complex environmental problems are relegated to scientific experts, the ethical questions that are embedded in these problems are often hidden or distorted in scientific and administrative methodology and communication. The administrative process requires that facts and values be separated. Those values that cannot simply be ignored are usually translated into technical economic language and settled in terms of economic costs and benefits. Calls for regulatory reform-i.e., to reduce or eliminate environmental regulation--create additional pressures on analysts that encourage them to (...) focus on quantitative questions at the expense of qualitative ones. Distortion can also result from the use of standard risk assessment procedures and from the improper placement of burden of proof on govemment agencies. The greatest problem, nevertheless, is the narrow scientific training of technical experts which frequently leaves them unprepared to deal with the ethical and value issues in environmental public policy. (shrink)

What motivated British colonialism? What motivated renaissance Florentines to finance their state? Why did Brazilian men find mixed-race women so attractive? What promotes falsity in reports of human affairs? Why did historical-mindedness develop in ancient Greece and China, but not India? When homosexual communities developed, why did gay men pursue sexual strategies so different from those of lesbians? Why does a Heian-period Japanese description of fear of snakes sound so familiar to a Westerner? Why have rebels tended to be youngest (...) rather than eldest siblings? To each of these(and many others) questions, part of the answer lies in specific, identifiable features of human nature. Thus human nature is and should be a substantial concern to anyone trying to understand the past. But human nature is also an object of scientific study. This paper explores a portion of this convergence of humanistic and scientific concerns by outlining and illustrating interrelations between human nature and history. Exploration of the interrelations between history and human nature requires a detailed understanding of what human nature is. And whatever human nature may be, it is a product of human evolution. Accordingly, key concepts in evolutionary psychology are presented to provide theoretical tools for understanding the centerpiece of human nature, the human mind. As much as the study of history may benefit from an understanding of human nature, the study of history and the use of historical materials may also promote the scientific study of human nature. Examples are given and several suggestions are presented to forward this task. Finally, an argument is made for a sort of back engineering in which historical events and conditions are traced to the specific features of human nature that motivated, facilitated, or shaped them. Insofar as this task is achieved, it closes the gap between recorded history and evolutionary history, between the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

A view from deep inside the trenches of environmental policy formation leads me to conclude that, ironically, despite the failure of environmental ethics to penetrate public policy discourses, ethical analyses of environmental problems still appear to be more than ever vitally crucial to improving environmental decision making.

An obituary notice outlining the main aspects of Charles Hartshorne's life, career, and thought.

Este ensayo analiza –desde unas lentes éticas- las dos conclusiones posibles sobre los resultados de Cancún. Explicará que, aunque todavía queda alguna esperanza de encontrar soluciones globales al cambio climático debido a las decisiones adoptadas en Cancún, uno debe ver Cancún en el contexto de un error de veinte años en el intento de prevenir un cambio climático peligroso.

Allen Thompson's review of the ClimateEthics article entitled “ A Comprehensive Ethical Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord. ”1 is a welcome response to the objective of ClimteEthics, namely to provo...

Allen Thompson's review of the ClimateEthics article entitled “ A Comprehensive Ethical Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord. ”1 is a welcome response to the objective of ClimteEthics, namely to provo...

After reviewing the basis for urgency of assuring that nations reduce their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions, this paper examines the outcome of UNFCCC COP-20 in Lima in regard to getting traction for ethics and justice in national formulation of climate change commitments. In light of what is actually known about how nations have considered ethics and justice in formulating national climate change policies, this paper critically reviews elements of a Lima decision on what information (...) nations must include when they submit their emissions reductions commitments, now known as Intended Nationally Determined Commitments. The paper argues that some developing countries seeking to preserve distinctions between duties of developed versus developing countries set out in the UNFCCC may have inadvertently undermined a mechanism that had some significant potential to improve the compliance of high-emitting nations on the basis of equity and justice. Relying on recent research on the.. (shrink)

Those designing sustainable development implementation schemes will inevitably look to scientists to help them understand sustainable development problems. Scientists have already made important contributions to the understanding of many serious environmental problems, such as the causal relationship between certain synthetic chemicals and destruction of the ozone layer. If scientists had not identified the relationship between upper atmospheric ozone concentrations and releases of chloroflorocarbons, government decisionmakers would not have agreed to action limiting their production. However, although causes and effects of some (...) environmental problems are understood well, others are not, such as the timing and magnitude of climate change caused by greenhouse gases. If global environmental problems are serious, there is an obvious and urgent need to increase scientific understanding of which human actions cause environmental degradation and how nations can proceed with needed development programs without causing further environmental damage. (shrink)

The National Science Foundation's Second Merit Criterion, or Broader Impacts Criterion , was introduced in 1997 as the result of an earlier Congressional movement to enhance the accountability and responsibility as well as the effectiveness of federally funded projects. We demonstrate that a robust understanding and appreciation of NSF BIC argues for a broader conception of research ethics in the sciences than is currently offered in Responsible Conduct of Research training. This essay advocates augmenting RCR education with training regarding broader (...) impacts. We demonstrate that enhancing research ethics training in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of the ethics relevant to scientific research and prepares scientists to think not only in terms of responsibly conducted science, but also of the role of science in responding to identified social needs and in adhering to principles of social justice. As universities respond to the mandate from America COMPETES to “provide training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research”, we urge institutions to embrace a more adequate conception of research ethics, what we call the Ethical Dimensions of Scientific Research, that addresses the full range of ethical issues relevant to scientific inquiry, including ethical issues related to the broader impacts of scientific research and practice. (shrink)