Ageism within the context of care has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Similarly, autonomy has developed into a prominent concept within health care law and ethics. This paper explores the way that ageism, understood as a set of negative attitudes about old age or older people, may impact on an older person’s ability to make maximally autonomous decisions within health care. In particular, by appealing to feminist constructions of autonomy as relational, I will argue that the key to establishing (...) this link is the concept of self-relations such as self-trust, self-worth and self-esteem. This paper aims to demonstrate how these may be impacted by the internalisation of negative attitudes associated with old age and care. In light of this, any legal or policy response must be sensitive to and flexible enough to deal with the way in which ageism impacts autonomy. (shrink)

Human faces are one of the most prominent stimuli in the visual environment of young infants and convey critical information for the development of social cognition. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask wearing has become a common practice outside the home environment. With masks covering nose and mouth regions, the facial cues available to the infant are impoverished. The impact of these changes on development is unknown but is critical to debates around mask mandates in early childhood settings. As infants grow, (...) they increasingly interact with a broader range of familiar and unfamiliar people outside the home; in these settings, mask wearing could possibly influence social development. In order to generate hypotheses about the effects of mask wearing on infant social development, in the present work, we systematically review N = 129 studies selected based on the most recent PRISMA guidelines providing a state-of-the-art framework of behavioral studies investigating face processing in early infancy. We focused on identifying sensitive periods during which being exposed to specific facial features or to the entire face configuration has been found to be important for the development of perceptive and socio-communicative skills. For perceptive skills, infants gradually learn to analyze the eyes or the gaze direction within the context of the entire face configuration. This contributes to identity recognition as well as emotional expression discrimination. For socio-communicative skills, direct gaze and emotional facial expressions are crucial for attention engagement while eye-gaze cuing is important for joint attention. Moreover, attention to the mouth is particularly relevant for speech learning. We discuss possible implications of the exposure to masked faces for developmental needs and functions. Providing groundwork for further research, we encourage the investigation of the consequences of mask wearing for infants’ perceptive and socio-communicative development, suggesting new directions within the research field. (shrink)

This paper articulates what it would take to defend representationalism in the case of emotions – i.e. the claim that emotions attribute evaluative properties to target objects or events. We argue that representationalism faces a significant explanatory challenge that has not yet been adequately recognized. Proponents must establish that a representation relation linking emotions and value is explanatorily necessary. We use the case of perception to bring out the difficulties in meeting this explanatory challenge.

This systematic review identifies and critically evaluates instruments that have been developed to measure clinical trial informed consent comprehension in non-cognitively-impaired adults.Literature searches were carried out on Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo, CINHAL, ERIC, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane Library for English language articles published between January 1980 and September 2008. Instruments were excluded if they focused on consent onto paediatric trials, the construct under study was primarily capacity or competency, or the instrument was developed specifically for psychiatric or cognitively-impaired populations. Instruments selected for (...) review were evaluated against the following criteria: (1) method of item generation; (2) type and format of test items; (3) administration and interpretation of test results; and (4) psychometric properties.Three instruments met our defined inclusion criteria: the Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test (DICCT), the Quality of Informed Consent (QuIC) questionnaire and the Brief Informed Consent Protocol (BICEP). Each instrument varied in terms of content measured. Significantly, these are the first standardized instruments developed to assess comprehension in non-cognitively-impaired adults. Yet, each instrument had its own set of limitations such as the lack of generalizability and the absence of details pertaining to how test results should be used to guide clinical decision-making.Standardized clinical trial informed consent comprehension assessments have been developed to identify gaps in research participants' understanding and ensure that respect for patient autonomy is satisfied. (shrink)

There are important synergies for the next generation of ethical leaders based on the alignment of modified or adjusted mental models. This entails a synergistic application of moral imagination through collaborative input and critique, rather than "me too" obedience. In this article, we will analyze the Milgram results using frameworks relating to mental models (Werhane et al., Profitable partnerships for poverty alleviation, 2009), as well as work by Moberg on "ethics blind spots'' (Organizational Studies 27(3): 413-428, 2006), and by Bazerman (...) and Chugh on "bounded awareness" (Harvard Business Review, 2006; Mind & Society 6: 1-18, 2007) Using these constructs to examine the Milgram experiment, we will argue that the ways in which the experiments are framed, the presence of an authority figure, the appeal to the authority of science, and the situation in which the naïve participant finds herself or himself, all create a bounded awareness, a narrow blind spot that encourages a climate for obedience, brackets out the opportunity to ask the moral question: "Am I hurting another fellow human being?" and may preclude the subject from utilizing moral imagination to opt out of the experiment. We will conclude that these forms of almost blind obedience to authority are correctable, but with difficulty. We will argue that linking the modification of mental models to an unbinding of awareness represents an important synergistic relationship and one that can build effectively on the lessons learned from our experience with moral imagination. (shrink)

This paper investigates how deans and directors at the top 50 global MBA programs (as rated by the "Financial Times" in their 2006 Global MBA rankings) respond to questions about the inclusion and coverage of the topics of ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability at their respective institutions. This work purposely investigates each of the three topics separately. Our findings reveal that: (1) a majority of the schools require that one or more of these topics be covered in their MBA (...) curriculum and one-third of the schools require coverage of all three topics as part of the MBA curriculum, (2) there is a trend toward the inclusion of sustainability-related courses, (3) there is a higher percentage of student interest in these topics (as measured by the presence of a Net Impact club) in the top 10 schools, and (4) several schools are teaching these topics using experiential learning and immersion techniques. We note a fivefold increase in the number of stand-alone ethics courses since a 1988 investigation on ethics, and we include other findings about institutional support of centers or special programs; as well as a discussion of integration, teaching techniques, and notable practices in relation to all three topics. (shrink)

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 86-89.

Using fMRI, we investigated how right temporal lobe gliomas affecting the posterior superior temporal sulcus alter neural processing observed during speech perception and production tasks. Behavioural language testing showed that three pre-operative neurosurgical patients with grade 2, grade 3 or grade 4 tumours had the same pattern of mild language impairment in the domains of object naming and written word comprehension. When matching heard words for semantic relatedness (a speech perception task), these patients showed under-activation in the tumour infiltrated right (...) superior temporal lobe compared to 61 neurotypical participants and 16 patients with tumours that preserved the right postero-superior temporal lobe, with enhanced activation within the (tumour-free) contralateral left superior temporal lobe. In contrast, when correctly naming objects (a speech production task), the patients with right postero-superior temporal lobe tumours showed higher activation than both control groups in the same right postero-superior temporal lobe region that was under-activated during auditory semantic matching. The task dependent pattern of under-activation during the auditory speech task and over-activation during object naming was also observed in eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that affected the right postero-superior temporal lobe compared to eight stroke patients with right hemisphere infarcts that spared it. These task-specific and site-specific cross-pathology effects highlight the importance of the right temporal lobe for language processing and motivate further study of how right temporal lobe tumours affect language performance and neural reorganisation. These findings may have important implications for surgical management of these patients, as knowledge of the regions showing functional reorganisation may help to avoid their inadvertent damage during neurosurgery. (shrink)

Experiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better (...) understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain. Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter. This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers. (shrink)

BackgroundThere has been media coverage surrounding the dangers of heavy drinking and benefits of moderation, with TV and radio presenter, Adrian Chiles, documenting his experience of moderating alcohol consumption in an online article for the Guardian. By analysing the comments in response to Chiles’ article, this study aimed to explore posters’ attitudes or beliefs toward moderating alcohol and posters’ experiences of moderating or abstaining from alcohol.MethodA secondary qualitative analysis of online comments in response to an article about moderating alcohol consumption. (...) Main outcome measures: Comments in response to a United Kingdom online news article about moderating alcohol consumption were extracted and inductive thematic analysis was used.ResultsFor aim one, two themes were developed; “general attitudes toward drinking” and “general attitudes toward reducing consumption”. These themes reflect negative perceptions of alcohol and issues around changing attitudes. For aim two, three themes were developed: “moderation vs. abstention”, “reflection on past drinking behaviours”, and “current drinking behaviours”. These themes represent posters’ experiences and implications changing their drinking habits.ConclusionOur analysis provides a novel insight into perceptions and experiences of moderating or abstaining from alcohol. Alcohol is embedded within United Kingdom culture, creating difficulties for those who choose to moderate or abstain from alcohol. Our analysis highlights the need for public health to focus on shifting the current drinking culture, through clearer drinking guidelines and a wider availability of alcohol-free alternatives. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the intrinsic value of truth from the perspective of the emotion studies in virtue epistemology. The strategy is the one that looks at epistemic emotions as driving forces towards truth as the most valuable epistemic good. But in doing so, a puzzle arises: how can the value of truth be intrinsic and instrumental? My answer lies in the difference established by Duncan Pritchard between epistemic value and the value of the epistemic applied to the (...) case of subjective motivations to knowing. I argue that the value of truth is intrinsic as epistemic value and that this is not only compatible with the idea that truth can have different kinds of instrumental values but also that the subjective value of truth, disclosed by epistemic emotions, can make the value of truth stronger if regulated within patterns of virtuous enquiry. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the affective experience that permeates the employment of Assistive Technology (AT) in special needs education is crucial for the integration of AT. “AT integration” generally means the fluid and automatic employment of AT for fulfilling certain tasks. Pritchard et al. ( 2021 ) have proposed a more specific conceptualisation of AT integration by saying that AT is integrated when it is part of the user’s cognitive character. By discussing their proposal, we argue that (...) the user’s affective experience is crucial for AT integration. To better appreciate the relevance of the affective experience in AT integration, we suggest shifting the perspective from the functionalist extended cognition framework, as Pritchard et al. ( 2021 ) propose, to affective scaffoldings. In doing so we focus on the feeling of agency as the key experience to consider for understanding what AT does to the agent. We will put forth the hermeneutical tool of “phenomenal transformation” to explain how and why AT as an affective scaffolding can support the fundamental “I can” of the experience. (shrink)

Songs that combine happy music and sad, violent, or morally disturbing lyrics raise questions about the relationship between music and lyrics in song, including the question of how such songs affect the listener, and of the ethical implications of listening – and perhaps singing along with – such songs. To explore those perplexing cases in which the affective impact of music and lyrics seem entirely incompatible, we first examine how song music – and the sympathetic musical affects it elicits – (...) can influence listener attention to lyrics. We propose that ‘happy’ music and mood in particular may discourage close attention to the semantic contents of lyrics in some cases, and impart a ‘positive glow’ to them in others. We also mine the kinds of moral questions to which emotional and imaginative immersion in fiction can give rise for their potential applicability to songs with disturbing narratives. We then explore how performance and performer may influence the understanding and interpretations of lyrics. This investigation of the complexities of such songs will use Tom Jones’ murder ballad “Delilah” as a template, taking into account both its impact and its presentation. (shrink)

The “modest realism” described by Joe Frank Jones, III offers a sound methodological model for developing both self-understanding and philosophical theories. Claire Chafee’s play Why We Have a Body illustrates the pitfalls of living both a thoroughgoing realism and a thoroughgoing idealism and argues for the conception of a life story as a project in which discovery and invention play side by side.Stanley Cavell argues that the shape of a philosophy mirrors the shape of a philosopher’s life. Thereby he (...) suggests that Ludwig Wittgenstein saw his own revolutionary philosophical work as a species of modest realism, i. e., continuing to turn in fruitful directions,rather than as a species of anti-idealism, i. e., rejecting an entire tradition of philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

David Houston Jones builds a bridge between practices conventionally understood as forensic, such as crime scene investigation, and the broader field of activity which the forensic now designates, for example performance and installation art, as well as photography. Contemporary work in these areas responds both to forensic evidence, including crime scene photography, and to some of the assumptions underpinning its consumption. It asks how we look, and in whose name, foregrounding and scrutinising the enduring presence of voyeurism in visual (...) media and instituting new forms of ethical engagement. Such work responds to the object-oriented culture associated with the forensic and offers a reassessment of the relationship of human voice and material evidence. It displays an enduring debt to the discursive model of testimony which has so far been insufficiently recognised, and which forms the basis for a new ethical understanding of the forensic. Jones's analysis brings this methodology to bear upon a strand of contemporary visual activity which has the power to significantly redefine our understandings of the production, analysis and deployment of evidence. Artists examined include Forensic Architecture, Simon Norfolk, Melanie Pullen, Angela Strassheim, John Gerrard, Julian Charrière, Trevor Paglen, Laura Poitras and Sophie Ristelhueber. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, literary studies, modern languages, photography and critical theory. (shrink)

This paper surveys attempts in the recent literature to offer a modal condition on knowledge as a way of resolving the problem of scepticism. In particular, safety-based and sensitivity-based theories of knowledge are considered in detail, along with the anti-sceptical prospects of an explicitly anti-luck epistemology.

This paper explores the prospects for safety-based theories of knowledge in the light of some recent objections.

Much of the recent debate regarding scepticism has focussed on a certain template sceptical argument and a rather restricted set of proposals concerning how one might deal with that argument. Throughout this debate the ‘Moorean’ response to scepticism is often cited as a paradigm example of how one should not respond to the sceptical argument, so conceived. As I argue in this paper, however, there are ways of resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic. In particular, I consider the prospects (...) for three such proposals in this regard: a classical epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, a classical epistemic externalist neo-Mooreanism, and a non-classical McDowellian epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, and maintain that the last two of these proposals (both of which make appeal to a disjunctivist account of perception, broadly conceived) merit further exploration. Indeed, I claim that a suitably qualified version of neo-Mooreanism would actually sit quite well with the general philosophical motivations behind other key anti-sceptical views and I argue that given this fact neo-Mooreanism is actually at a dialectical advantage relative to other views when it comes to dealing with the sceptical problem as it is typically conceived. (shrink)

It is claimed that McDowell’s treatment of scepticism offers a potential way of resurrecting the much derided ‘Moorean’ response to scepticism in a fashion that avoids the problems facing classical internalist and externalist construals of neo-Mooreanism. I here evaluate the prospects for a McDowellian neo-Mooreanism and, in doing so, offer further support for the view.

The chapter begins by exploring a philosophical case study of the use of intuitions — viz., the debate regarding the problem of radical scepticism, paying particular attention to key figures within this debate such as Barry Stroud, John Austin, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. It contends that this debate demonstrates something interesting about the nature of intuitions and the role that they can play in philosophical inquiry. In particular, the chapter argues that we need to think of the philosophical use of intuitions (...) as at least sometimes involving a significant level of expertise. The chapter closes by considering the relevance of this point about philosophical intuitions to the negative programme in experimental philosophy. (shrink)

A comprehensive exploration of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones’s inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and (...) what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism. “This is a significant extension of the seminal work by Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy. That work has stimulated much literature, all of which Jones manages to review here. He critically extends Stace’s universal core and embeds it in a sophisticated discussion of the extent, range, and metaphysical implications of mysticism.” — Ralph W. Hood, Jr., coauthor of The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. (shrink)

An overview of the import of disjunctivism to the problem of radical scepticism is offered. In particular, the disjunctivist account of perceptual experience is set out, along with the manner in which it intersects with related positions such as naïve realism and intentionalism, and it is shown how this account can be used to a motivate an anti-sceptical proposal. In addition, a variety of disjunctivism known as epistemological disjunctivism is described, and it is explained how this proposal offers a further (...) way of responding to radical scepticism. (shrink)

Scientists have used models for hundreds of years as a means of describing phenomena and as a basis for further analogy. In Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science, Daniela Bailer-Jones assembles an original and comprehensive philosophical analysis of how models have been used and interpreted in both historical and contemporary contexts. Bailer-Jones delineates the many forms models can take (ranging from equations to animals; from physical objects to theoretical constructs), and how they are put to use. She examines (...) early mechanical models employed by nineteenth-century physicists such as Kelvin and Maxwell, describes their roots in the mathematical principles of Newton and others, and compares them to contemporary mechanistic approaches. Bailer-Jones then views the use of analogy in the late nineteenth century as a means of understanding models and to link different branches of science. She reveals how analogies can also be models themselves, or can help to create them. The first half of the twentieth century saw little mention of models in the literature of logical empiricism. Focusing primarily on theory, logical empiricists believed that models were of temporary importance, flawed, and awaiting correction. The later contesting of logical empiricism, particularly the hypothetico-deductive account of theories, by philosophers such as Mary Hesse, sparked a renewed interest in the importance of models during the 1950s that continues to this day. Bailer-Jones analyzes subsequent propositions of: models as metaphors; Kuhn's concept of a paradigm; the Semantic View of theories; and the case study approaches of Cartwright and Morrison, among others. She then engages current debates on topics such as phenomena versus data, the distinctions between models and theories, the concepts of representation and realism, and the discerning of falsities in models. (shrink)

In this paper, I do three things. First, I offer an overview of an anti- luck epistemology, as set out in my book, Epistemic Luck. Second, I attempt to meet some of the main criticisms that one might level against the key theses that I propose in this work. And finally, third, I sketch some of the ways in which the strategy of anti- luck epistemology can be developed in new directions.

In this article, Laura Quintana elaborates on a conceptual distinction between violence and rage. Along with this distinction, she recognises that while rage may possess a destructive potential, it can also be politicised in emancipatory practices that confront conditions of injustice and structural violence. Her analysis centers on contemporary political movements in Latin America, which she views as collective manifestations of rage. Within these movements, the manifestation of rage is intertwined with forms of care and communal labor. Quintana characterises (...) such movements as embodying a “dignified rage” (digna rabia) that calls for an emancipatory transformation of the status quo. She contends that these practices can be understood in terms of the notion of “anti-violence,” as it has been coined by Étienne Balibar. In this she diverges from Judith Butler, since, according to Quintana’s analysis, such practices challenge the demand for non-violence that has often served to neutralise the disruptive force of such manifestations and movements. (shrink)

It is nowadays taken for granted that the core radical sceptical arguments all pivot upon the principle that the epistemic operator in question is 'closed' under known entailments. Accordingly, the standard anti-sceptical project now involves either denying closure or retaining closure by amending how one understands other elements of the sceptical argument. However, there are epistemic principles available to the sceptic which are logically weaker than closure but achieve the same result. Accordingly the contemporary debate fails to engage with the (...) sceptical problem in its strongest form. (shrink)