When two people move in synchrony, they become more social. Yet it is not clear how this effect scales up to larger numbers of people. Does a group need to move in unison to affiliate, in what we term unitary synchrony; or does affiliation arise from distributed coordination, patterns of coupled movements between individual members of a group? We developed choreographic tasks that manipulated movement synchrony without explicitly instructing groups to move in unison. Wrist accelerometers measured group movement dynamics and (...) we applied cross-recurrence analysis to distinguish the temporal features of emergent unitary synchrony and distributed coordination. Participants’ unitary synchrony did not predict pro-social behavior, but their distributed coordination predicted how much they liked each other, how they felt toward their group, and how much they conformed to each other's opinions. The choreography of affiliation arises from distributed coordination of group movement dynamics. (shrink)

Daniel Sperling discusses the legal status of posthumous interests and their possible defeat by actions performed following the death of a person. The author first explores the following questions: Do the dead have interests and/or rights, the defeat of which may constitute harm? What does posthumous harm consist of and when does it occur, if at all? This is followed by a more detailed analysis of three categories of posthumous interests arising in the medico-legal context: the proprietary interest (...) in the body of the deceased, the testamentary interest in determining the disposal of one's body after death and the interest in post-mortem medical confidentiality. Sperling concludes that if we acknowledge the interest in one's symbolic existence and legally protect it, not only do some interests survive a person's death but we should also enjoy a peremptory legal power to shape in advance our symbolic existence after death. (shrink)

BackgroundFollowing the increased presence of the Right-to-Die Movement, improved end-of-life options, and the political and legal status of aid-in-dying around the globe, suicide tourism has become a promising alternative for individuals who wish to end their lives. Yet, little is known about this from the perspective of those who engage in the phenomenon.MethodsThis study applied the qualitative research approach, following the grounded theory tradition. It includes 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Israeli members of the Swiss non-profit Dignitas who contemplated traveling (...) to Switzerland for aid-in-dying.ResultsSeven themes emerged from the data analysis, including health and functioning; feelings regarding survivorship and existence; interacting with the health sector; attitudes regarding death and dying; suicide; choosing death; and choosing suicide tourism. A significant portion of the participants had experienced suicidal thoughts and had even previously attempted suicide, some more than once. Most of them referred to chronic illnesses, functional disability, and social isolation. They understand suffering within the subjective dimension, namely only by the person who is actually subjected to the disease, ailments, and disability. Participants regarded aid-in-dying in Switzerland as positive thanks to its guaranteed outcome: "beautiful death", compared to "disadvantaged dying" which places a burden on the participants' loved ones throughout the prolonged dying. Most of them do not necessarily want to have their loved ones beside them when they die, and they see no significant meaning in dying in a foreign country to which they have no emotional or civil attachment.ConclusionThe desirable approval or tragic refusal by Dignitas to participants' requests for suicide tourism enhances the paradox between the perception of aid-in-dying as a mechanism for fulfilling controlled death and its bureaucratic and materialistic characteristics specifically reflected in a paid, formalized approach to aid-in-dying that cultivate dependency and collaboration. (shrink)

As of June 2009, Israel’s population was 7,424,400 people, 5,604,900 of which were Jewish, 1,502,400 were Arabs, and approximately 317,200 had no religion or are non-Arab Christians. Established in 1948, Israel is a highly urban and industrialized country. Its gross domestic product per capita is US$23,257, positioning it among the European developed countries. Life expectancy is 79 years for males and 82 years for females, with infant mortality rate of 4 cases per 1,000 live births. Of Israel’s GDP, 7.7% is (...) spent on health. (shrink)

Some argue that law is the discipline which has mixed most prominently with bioethics, and that bioethicists can be seduced by the law and by legal procedures. While there is a great consensus that law has influenced bioethics in significant and important ways, certainly much more than it influenced other "law and..." disciplines, scholars dispute as to the exact role which the law plays in bioethics, the goals it purports to achieve and the implications of its relationship with the discipline (...) of bioethics. This Article aims to explore the relationship between law and bioethics and calls for a careful evaluation of the law's contributions to bioethics. Specifically, it will be argued that while the law contributed extensively to the development of bioethics it introduced a language and a way of thinking that are not necessarily appropriate to handle and resolve bioethical issues, and which, in significant portion of cases, was irrelevant and had little impact on decision-making and behavioral patterns of patients. Moreover, law's interference with and shape of bioethical issues resulted in serious threats to some of the major characteristic of such issues and brought about to other societal concerns which the law did not consider seriously. The article will conclude that it is now time to re-evaluate the direction in which bioethics should take in the next years, specifically whether it should continue to integrate with law or other disciplines, or alternatively become a more autonomous and independent discipline. (shrink)

Although transplantation surgeries are relatively successful and save the lives of many, only few are willing to donate organs. In order to better understand the reasons for donation or refusing donation and their implications on and influence by public policy, we conducted a survey examining public views on this issue in Israel. Between January and June 2010, an anonymous questionnaire based on published literature was distributed among random and selected parts of Israeli society and included organ recipients, organ donors, soldiers, (...) university and high school students, and the general population. The analysis of 799 questionnaires revealed that, although 74.7 percent have not signed a donor card, 60.8 percent of participants consider doing so. Additionally, 54.3 percent of respondents objected to giving or receiving compensation for donation, and, if at all, priority in transplantation care is the most desired form of such compensation. The health status of the donor and knowing that donation saves lives or that there exists a shortage of organs for transplantation are the two factors most affecting motivation to donate. Lack of information, relatives’ views on donation, and type of organ involved in donation are factors most inhibiting donation. Willingness to donate is significantly affected by the proximity of the recipient to the donor. With regard to most organs, their contribution to one’s sense of “self” and its symbolic role strongly affects motivation to donate, except for donation to relatives. Compensation for organ donation has little effect on motivation to donate during life and after death. Our findings suggest new ways to construct a more effective public policy on this issue. (shrink)

Recent professional guidelines published by the General Medical Council instruct physicians in the UK to be honest and open in any financial agreements they have with their patients and third parties. These guidelines are in addition to a European policy addressing disclosure of physician financial interests in the industry. Similarly, In the US, a national open payments program as well as Federal regulations under the Affordable Care Act re-address the issue of disclosure of physician financial interests in America. These new (...) professional and legal changes make us rethink the fiduciary duties of providers working under new organizational and financial schemes, specifically their clinical fidelity and their moral and professional obligations to act in the best interests of patients. The article describes the legal changes providing the background for such proposals and offers a prima facie ethical analysis of these evolving issues. It is argued that although disclosure of conflicting interest may increase trust it may not necessarily be beneficial to patients nor accord with their expectations and needs. Due to the extra burden associated with disclosure as well as its implications on the medical profession and the therapeutic relationship, it should be held that transparency of physician financial interest should not result in mandatory disclosure of such interest by physicians. It could lead, as some initiatives in Europe and the US already demonstrate, to voluntary or mandatory disclosure schemes carried out by the industry itself. Such schemes should be in addition to medical education and the address of the more general phenomenon of physician conflict of interest in ethical codes and ethical training of the parties involved. (shrink)

BackgroundEnd-stage renal disease (ESRD) is the final stage of chronic kidney disease. Yet dialysis is not suitable for all ESRD patients. Moreover, while shared decision-making (SDM) is the prefer...

BackgroundNurse champions are front-line practitioners who implement innovation and reconstruct policy.PurposeTo understand through a network theory lens the factors that facilitate nurse champions’ engagement with radical projects, representing their actions as street-level bureaucrats.Materials and methodsA personal-network survey was employed. Ninety-one nurse champions from three tertiary medical centers in Israel participated.FindingsGiven high network density, high levels of advice play a bigger role in achieving high radicalness compared with lower levels advice. High network density is also related to higher radicalness when networks (...) have high role diversity.DiscussionUsing an SLB framework, the findings suggest that nurse champions best promote adoption of innovation and offer radical changes in their organizations through professional advice given by colleagues in their field network. Healthcare organizations should establish the structure and promote the development of dense and heterogeneous professional networks to realize organizations’ goals and nurses’ responsibility to their professional employees, patients, and society. (shrink)

The present article describes and critically evaluates the medical/social distinction as used in the context of embryo selection through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis . According to such a distinction, while embryo selection for medical purposes, for example preventing the birth of a child with severe genetic disease, may be ethically justified, screening and the selection of embryos for social reasons, such as the implantation of an embryo of specific gender or one that carries the gene responsible for intelligence, should not be (...) allowed. The article challenges the automatic and repeated use of such a distinction in ethical debates concerning PGD. It is argued that existing justifications for the medical/social distinction seem not to support the conclusion that such a distinction should determine whether embryos should be returned for implantation or misused by genetic parents in a conclusive way. The article further analyzes alternative proposals to the medical/social distinction in light of which embryo selection should be ethical, and concludes with the author’s own proposal for ethical reasoning in the area of embryo selection. Under such a proposal, any embryo selection that would, on balance, increase the variety of potential life plans for the future child from which he or she will be able to choose is prima facie ethically justifiable. (shrink)

The article examines the writings of one of the most influential political philosophers, Hannah Arendt, and specifically focuses on her views regarding the distinction between the private and the public and the transformation of the public to the social by modernity. Arendt’s theory of human activity and critique of modernity are explored to critically evaluate the social contributions and implications of reproductive technologies especially where the use of such technologies is most dominant within Western societies. Focusing on empirical studies on (...) new reproductive technologies in Israel, it is argued, powerfully demonstrates Arendt’s theory, and broadens the perspectives through which society should evaluate these new technologies towards a more reflective understanding of its current laws and policies and their affect on women more generally. (shrink)

Dance provides natural conditions for studying relationships between coordination patterns and human experience. von Zimmermann and colleagues investigate whether relatively simple or more complex forms of movement coordination are related to pro‐social experiences during group dance. They find that pro‐social experience depends on the degree to which movement patterns are distributed and diversified, but not the degree to which movement patterns are simply unitary.

Recent food emergencies throughout the world have raised some serious ethical and legal concerns for nations and health organizations. While the legal regulations addressing food risks and foodborne illnesses are considerably varied and variously effective, less is known about the ethical treatment of the subject. The purpose of this article is to discuss the roles, justifications, and limits of ethics of food safety as part of public health ethics and to argue for the development of this timely and emergent field (...) of ethics. The article is divided into three parts. After a short introduction on public health ethics, all levels of food safety processes are described and the role that ethics play in each of these levels is then analyzed. In the second part, different models describing the function of food law are examined. The relationship between these models and the role of ethics of food safety is assessed and discussed in the final part, leading to some relevant comments on the limits of the role and effect of ethics of food safety. (shrink)

It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic (...) norms governing belief, I argue against certain prominent specifications of belief 's aim given in terms of truth, and advance a neglected alternative. (shrink)

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of (...) cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. -/- Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic. (shrink)

Sometimes, learning about the origins of a belief can make it irrational to continue to hold that belief—a phenomenon we call ‘genealogical defeat’. According to explanationist accounts, genealogical defeat occurs when one learns that there is no appropriate explanatory connection between one’s belief and the truth. Flatfooted versions of explanationism have been widely and rightly rejected on the grounds that they would disallow beliefs about the future and other inductively-formed beliefs. After motivating the need for some explanationist account, we raise (...) some problems for recent versions of explanationism. Learning from their failures, we then produce and defend a more resilient explanationism. (shrink)

Examines the lived experience of social encounters drawing on phenomenological insights.

Infallibilism is the view that a belief cannot be at once warranted and false. In this essay we assess three nonpartisan arguments for infallibilism, arguments that do not depend on a prior commitment to some substantive theory of warrant. Three premises, one from each argument, are most significant: if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then the Gettier Problem cannot be solved; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then its warrant can be transferred (...) to an accidentally true belief; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then it can be warranted and accidentally true. We argue that each of these is either false or no more plausible than its denial. Along the way, we offer a solution to the Gettier Problem that is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts—good deeds “beyond the call of duty”—are a part of moral common sense, but conceptually puzzling. I propose a unified solution to three of the most infamous puzzles: the classic Paradox of Supererogation (if it’s so good, why isn’t it just obligatory?), Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, and Kamm’s Intransitivity Paradox. I conclude that supererogation makes sense if, and only if, the grounds of rightness are multi-dimensional and comparative.

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

" Qualia " is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you--the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the (...) moment. The way the milk tastes to you then is another, gustatory quale, and how it sounds to you as you swallow is an auditory quale; These various "properties of conscious experience" are prime examples of qualia. Nothing, it seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia ; let the entire universe be some vast illusion, some mere figment of Descartes' evil demon, and yet what the figment is made of will be the qualia of your hallucinatory experiences. Descartes claimed to doubt everything that could be doubted, but he never doubted that his conscious experiences had qualia, the properties by which he knew or apprehended them. (shrink)

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, (...) the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts are those that lie “beyond the call of duty.” There are two standard ways to define this idea more precisely. Although the definitions are often seen as equivalent, I argue that they can diverge when options are infinite, or when there are cycles of better options; moreover, each definition is acceptable in only one case. I consider two ways out of this dilemma.

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

1. Happiness, then and now -- Happiness, eudaimonia, and practical reasoning -- Happiness as eudaimonia -- Happiness and virtuous activity -- New directions from old debates -- 2. Happiness then: the sufficiency debate -- Aristotle's case against the sufficiency thesis -- 3. Happiness now: rethinking the self -- Socrates' case for the sufficiency thesis -- Epictetus and the stoic self -- The Stoics' case for the sufficiency thesis -- The embodied conception of the self -- The embodied conception and psychological (...) well-being -- The Stoics' case against the embodied conception. (shrink)

Professor Little presents an introduction to the philosophy of social science with an emphasis on the central forms of explanation in social science: rational-intentional, causal, functional, structural, materialist, statistical and interpretive. The book is very strong on recent developments, particularly in its treatment of rational choice theory, microfoundations for social explanation, the idea of supervenience, functionalism, and current discussions of relativism.Of special interest is Professor Little’s insight that, like the philosophy of natural science, the philosophy of social science can profit (...) from examining actual scientific examples. Throughout the book, philosophical theory is integrated with recent empirical work on both agrarian and industrial society drawn from political science, sociology, geography, anthropology, and economics.Clearly written and well structured, this text provides the logical and conceptual tools necessary for dealing with the debates at the cutting edge of contemporary philosophy of social science. It will prove indispensible for philosophers, social scientists and their students. (shrink)

Public discussions of political and social issues are often characterized by deep and persistent polarization. In social psychology, it’s standard to treat belief polarization as the product of epistemic irrationality. In contrast, we argue that the persistent disagreement that grounds political and social polarization can be produced by epistemically rational agents, when those agents have limited cognitive resources. Using an agent-based model of group deliberation, we show that groups of deliberating agents using coherence-based strategies for managing their limited resources tend (...) to polarize into different subgroups. We argue that using that strategy is epistemically rational for limited agents. So even though group polarization looks like it must be the product of human irrationality, polarization can be the result of fully rational deliberation with natural human limitations. (shrink)

From an early age, humans know a surprising amount about basic physical principles, such as gravity, force, mass, and shape. We can see this in the way that young children play, and manipulate objects around them. The same behaviour has long been observed in primates - chimpanzees have been shown to possess a remarkable ability to make and use simple tools. But what does this tell us about their inner mental state - do they therefore share the same understanding to (...) that of a young child? Do they understand the simple, underlying physical principles involved? Though some people would say that they do, this book reports groundbreaking research that questions whether this really is the case. -/- Folk Physics for Apes challenges the assumptions so often made about apes. It offers us a rare glimpse into the workings of another mind, examining how apes perceive and understand the physical world - an understanding that appears to be both similar to, and yet profoundly different from our own. The book will have broad appeal to evolutionary psychologists, developmental psychologists, and those interested in the sub-disciplines of cognitive science (philosophy, anthropology). The book additionally offers for developmental psychologists some valuable new non-verbal techniques for assessing causal understanding in young children. (shrink)