AimsThis study evaluates a protocol for early, routine ethics consultation for patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to support decision-making in the context of clinical uncertainty with the aim of mitigating ethical conflict and moral distress.MethodsWe conducted a single-site qualitative analysis of EC documentation for all patients receiving ECMO support from 15 August 2018 to 15 May 2019. Detailed analysis of 20 ethically complex cases with protracted ethics involvement identifies four key ethical domains: limits of prognostication, bridge to nowhere, burden of (...) treatment and system-level concerns. There are three subthemes: relevant contextual factors, the role of EC and observed outcomes. Content analysis of transcripts from interviews with 20 members of the multidisciplinary ECMO team yields supplemental data on providers’ perceptions of the impact of the early intervention protocol.ResultsLimited outcome data for ECMO, unclear indications for withdrawal, adverse effects of treatment and an obligation to attend to programme metrics present significant ethical challenges in the care of this patient population. Upstream EC mitigates ethical conflict by setting clear expectations about ECMO as a time limited trial, promoting consistent messaging among multiple services and supporting surrogate decision-makers. When ECMO becomes a ‘bridge to nowhere’, EC facilitates decision-making that respects patient values yet successfully sets limits on non-beneficial use of this novel therapy.ConclusionData from this study support the conclusion that ECMO poses unique ethical challenges that necessitate a standardised protocol for early, routine EC—at least while this medical technology is in its nascent stages. (shrink)

I argue for a teleological account of events in progress. Details aside, the proposal is that events in progress are teleological processes. It follows from this proposal that final causes are ubiquitous: anything happening at any time is an event with a telos.

The problem of indistinguishable participants is a well-known problem for D-type theories of donkey pronouns. Recently, Paul Elbourne has offered a D-type theory that purports to dissolve the problem of indistinguishable participants. I argue against Elboune’s solution.

This collection of essays looks at the distinctively English intellectual, social and political phenomenon of Latitudinarianism, which emerged during the Civil War and Interregnum and came into its own after the Restoration, becoming a virtual orthodoxy after 1688. Dividing into two parts, it first examines the importance of the Cambridge Platonists, who sought to embrace the newest philosophical and scientific movements within Church of England orthodoxy, and then moves into the later seventeenth century, from the Restoration onwards, culminating in essays (...) on the philosopher John Locke. These new contributions establish a firmly interdisciplinary basis for the subject, while collectively gravitating towards the importance of discourse and language as the medium for cultural exchange. The variety of approaches serves to illuminate the cultural indeterminacy of the period, in which inherited models and vocabularies were forced to undergo revisions, coinciding with the formation of many cultural institutions still governing English society. (shrink)

Reorienting the Political examines the reception of two controversial German philosophers, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, in the Chinese-speaking world. This volume explores the powerful resonance of both thinkers in Chinese political thought from a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.

Corporations significantly influence the public and political spheres. In light of this corporate power in society, academics have criticized the lack of legitimization (i.e., the legitimacy gap) and highlighted a potential divergence between corporate resource allocation and the needs and preferences of the public (i.e., the social issues gap). To address these problems, democratizing organizations has been proposed as a potential solution. In line with this, the authors argue that an increase in corporate power outside the economic realm should be (...) counterbalanced by more democratic corporate governance (i.e., an internalization of democracy). While important groundwork exists, academic attention to these topics remains limited. The authors provide an overview of the literature linking corporate power and the claim for democratizing organizations, advocate for legitimization, identify research gaps, and develop a research agenda to inspire and guide future research efforts. The paper's findings suggest the importance of conceptual and empirical research on the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels and the cross-level effects, which is needed to advance this incipient research area. Future research must (1) clearly define corporate power and discuss how democratizing organizations can contribute to more legitimate organizational decisions, (2) unveil novel approaches for more democratic corporate governance, and (3) understand the organizational- and individual-level factors necessary for the successful realization of democratic organizations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 159-160 [Access article in PDF] The Nine Lives of the Dynamic Unconscious Jerome Kroll IN THEIR PROVOCATIVE ARTICLE "Dispensing with the Dynamic Unconscious," O'Brien and Jureidini offer two basic arguments against the existence or, more accurately, because we are dealing here with constructs, the plausibility, of the dynamic unconscious. First, they assert, in contradistinction to the psychoanalytic claim that evidence of a cognitive (...) unconscious supports the claim for a dynamic unconscious, that the notion of a cognitive unconscious is incompatible with that of a dynamic unconscious. Second, they argue on the grounds of parsimony that the phenomena explained by a dynamic unconscious can be better explained (accounted for) by other mechanisms.I would argue that neither of their contentions is correct. O'Brien and Jureidini have essentially taken data and evidence from cognitive science, issued a new vocabulary, and then asserted that their vocabulary is superior and constitutes better explanations for the phenomena and observations under question. They have failed to show any incompatibility between the two explanatory constructs. O'Brien and Jureidini agree with the basic Freudian tenet that most mental activity is unconscious, that is, out of consciousness, and that much of what is out of consciousness can be brought into consciousness with proper cueing. No problem so far.The problem with the dynamic unconscious, as O'Brien and Jureidini see it, is that the cognitive unconscious is modular, best described as a series of subpersonal systems akin to a set of narrowly focused computational specialists, whereas the dynamic unconscious contains fully formed repressed memories. What O'Brien and Jureidini have now given us are multiple homunculi rather than just one CEO or executive homunculus. How literally do we want to take these subpersons? Are subpersonal mental states more satisfactory scientifically than personal-level mental states? Second, O'Brien and Jureidini unfairly attribute to the psychoanalytic position the claim that the dynamic unconscious "is presumed to contain fully formed repressed memories." With the compelling evidence from psychology and neuroscience that all memory is a reconstruction, I do not think that any contemporary psychodynamicist makes a case for fully formed repressed memories, nor is this notion essential to a theory of a dynamic unconscious. O'Brien and Jureidini invoke Occam's razor by invoking a straw horse argument. Their description of the action of subpersonal parts doing sufficient specific cuing sounds suspiciously like the work done in the dynamic unconscious. In the next section, an emotional response is described as pushing images out of mind before they can be reported on (assumedly, before they become conscious). What is doing the pushing here? Upon what principles or priorities are images pushed out of mind?The authors explain that mental "representations are inaccessible to consciousness by virtue [End Page 159] of architectural constraints rather than the operation of a repressive force." But architectural constraints sounds like another way of describing neural facilitation and inhibition. Certainly most neural activity, perhaps all, involves facilitation and inhibition of signals at multiple synapses. Repression is just a psychological construct to describe what the processes of facilitation and inhibition bring about in terms of meaningful mental activity. While we are on the topic of choice of words, the repeated description of the dynamic unconscious as subterranean is an inflammatory locution designed to rally opposition to the notion. The cognitive unconscious is equally subterranean.To look further into the supposed superiority of explanation via the cognitive unconscious, we see that O'Brien and Jureidini attribute the following processes to the cognitive unconscious: evaluation, decision making, editing out, filling in, reconstruction, and reconfiguration. But what are the bases of these processes? What guides or influences the way ideas, images, and emotions are reconstructed and reconfigured? It does not appear to be done randomly. When the reconstructive narrative becomes "significantly distorted" because the memory to be retrieved is fraught with distress, what accounts for the shape of the distortion and what (dare we say who?) recognizes that a memory is about to be distressing? We may all be unhappy with the notion of a dynamic unconscious... (shrink)

Szabó (Philos Rev 120(2):247–283, 2011) and Santorio (Philos Stud 164(1):41–59, 2013) have revived the case for Fodor’s (The linguistic description of opaque contexts, Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1970) _specific yet opaque_ readings of determiner phrases in intensional constructions. Szabó claims that the existence of such readings gives reason to abandon standard theories of movement. Santorio claims that such readings imply that a quantification analysis of indefinites is false. I’m not so sure. To make my case, I supply a (...) situation semantics for these readings that both respects standard theories of movement and a quantificational analysis of indefinites. (shrink)

This paper examines the theoretical background and actual behavior in a gaming tournament with endogenous timing where a person has more incentive, structure, and time to form a strategy. The baseline treatment suggests that subgame perfection is a reasonable predictor of behavior –- subjects made 170 of 208 theoretically predicted choices of best actions, with the majority of mistakes made in timing choices by the players who did not survive the cut to the second round. Four sensitivity treatments established that (...) the design feature that lead to more predictable behavior was time to think –- 745 of 960 correctly predicted decisions with more time versus 595 of 960 with less time. A random effects Probit model suggests that the key design feature that closed the gap between predicted and observed behavior was not necessarily the non-linear payoffs created by the tournament design, but rather that the key was providing people with more time to think about their strategy. (shrink)

I offer a novel account of temporal passage. According to this account, time passes in virtue of there being events in progress. I argue that such an account of temporal passage can explain the direction and whoosh of temporal passage. I also consider two prominent accounts of temporal passage and argue that they amount to special versions of the thesis that time passes in virtue of there being events in progress.

This paper examines the theoretical background and actual behavior in a gaming tournament with endogenous timing where a person has more incentive, structure, and time to form a strategy. The baseline treatment suggests that subgame perfection is a reasonable predictor of behavior –- subjects made 170 of 208 theoretically predicted choices of best actions, with the majority of mistakes made in timing choices by the players who did not survive the cut to the second round. Four sensitivity treatments established that (...) the design feature that lead to more predictable behavior was time to think –- 745 of 960 correctly predicted decisions with more time versus 595 of 960 with less time. A random effects Probit model suggests that the key design feature that closed the gap between predicted and observed behavior was not necessarily the non-linear payoffs created by the tournament design, but rather that the key was providing people with more time to think about their strategy. (shrink)

Ziel des PVS Sonderheftes ist es, die seit einiger Zeit boomende Konjunktur des Verantwortungsbegriffs zu reflektieren, die Relevanz dieses Begriffes zu analysieren und seinen Wandel angesichts gesellschaftlicher und technischer Veranderungen zu erfassen. Eines der wichtigsten Kriterien zur Beurteilung politischer Entscheidungen ist deren Verantwortlichkeit. Der Begriff der Verantwortung bezieht sich auf einen Rahmen normativer Erwartungen, die je nach Politikfeld starker rechtlich oder moralisch ausgepragt sind. Verantwortung bedeutet insbesondere, einem Akteur die Folgen seines Handels zuschreiben zu konnen. Ein Kernproblem aktueller Verantwortungskonzeptionen besteht (...) in der Diffusion von Verantwortung. Einerseits sind immer mehr Akteure an immer mehr Handlungszusammenhangen beteiligt, aber gleichzeitig sind immer weniger Akteure fur ihre Handlungsfolgen allein verantwortlich. Die Beitrage des Heftes diskutieren die Folgen dieser Dilemmata sowohl in ihren theoretischen Konsequenzen als auch empirisch anhand verschiedener Felder lokaler, nationaler und internationaler Politik. Der Band versammelt Expertinnen und Experten aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen: von der Politikwissenschaft uber die Rechtswissenschaft bis hin zur Soziologie und Philosophie. (shrink)

The notion of singular (or de re) thought has become central in philosophy of mind and language, yet there is still little consensus concerning the best way to think about the nature of singular thought. Coinciding with recognition of the need for more clarity about the notion, there has been a surge of interest in the concept of a mental file as a way to understand what is distinctive about singular thought. What isn't always clear, however, is what mental files (...) are meant to be, and why we should believe that thoughts that employ them are singular as opposed to descriptive. This volume brings together original chapters by leading scholars which aim to examine and evaluate the viability of the mental files framework for theorizing about singular thought. (shrink)