The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is currently facing a significant waiting list backlog following the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, with millions of patients waiting for elective surgical procedures. Effective treatment prioritisation has been identified as a key element of addressing this backlog, with NHS England's delivery plan highlighting the importance of ensuring that those with ‘the clinically most urgent conditions are diagnosed and treated most rapidly’. Indeed, we describe how the current clinical guidance on prioritisation issued (...) by The Federation of Surgical Specialty Associations serves this aim. However, whilst there are strong reasons to prioritise elective surgery in accordance with clinical need, we argue that it would be a mistake to assume that prioritisation in accordance with clinical need requires only a clinical or scientific judgement. The understanding of clinical need that we choose to employ in a prioritisation system will be grounded by some key ethical judgements. Moreover, we may also have to make trade-offs between addressing clinical need, safeguarding equality, and achieving other benefits. As the UK faces up to the backlog, it is important that surgical prioritisation guidelines enshrine a broad range of values that we believe ought to determine access to care in non-emergency circumstances. Our analysis suggests that the current approach to prioritisation is not a sufficiently nuanced way of balancing the different moral values that are operative in this context. (shrink)

Two recent studies by Parisi et al.1 and Ranz et al.,2 catalogue sex differences in gene expression across the whole genome of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Both report striking associations of sex‐biased gene expression with the X chromosome. Genes with male‐biased expression are depauperate on the X chromosome, whereas genes with female‐biased expression show weaker evidence of being in excess. A number of evolutionary hypotheses for the expulsion or exclusion of male‐biased genes from the X chromosome have been suggested. (...) None is entirely consistent with the available evidence. BioEssays 25:739–741, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

David Carr, Andrew Davis; Can there be a Moral Psychology of Democratic and Civic Education & Understanding Mathematics, Journal of Philosophy of Education.

David Carr, Andrew Davis; Can there be a Moral Psychology of Democratic and Civic Education & Understanding Mathematics, Journal of Philosophy of Education.

Sweeping denials of the story's capacity to accurately reflect the past are ever catalyzing equally misleading global affirmations. The impositionalists, such as theorist Hayden White, view historical narratives as imposing a falsifying narrative structure on the past, and conclude that narratives cannot be true. Plot-reifiers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, David Carr, and Frederick Olafson, posit that the past is already narratively structured; historical plots are reified in order for there to be something in the world to which narrative structures (...) can correspond in being true. The antireferentialists such as JeanFrançois Lyotard and Roland Barthes deny that narrative histories even claim truth. Escaping this trilemma of theoretical interpretation involves accepting the idea that construction of a history does not entail its falsification. Historical narrative need to be allowed to function both figurally, in the sense of generating new discursive figures, and at the same time literally, in the sense of asking to be understood literally. Narratives need to be understood on their own terms, and not treated as an approximation to some foreign ideal. (shrink)

In much of the written work on Christian or religious business ethics, a holistic framework is assumed but not argued for practicallyor supported philosophically. In this article I 1) outline a position of ethical holism, explaining its logic, motives, and consequences; 2)attack the ethical dualism of Carr, Friedman, and French; and 3) defend my theory against five possible objections. My basic thesisis that if a corporation wishes to hire employees who will act in compliance with ethical codes of the (...) corporation, employees who both have a deeply rooted personal ethic that parallels that of the corporation and who see their business practices to be an extension of their personal ethic will be better suited candidates simply because they are more likely to be compliant. In other words, personalconvictions and values are relevant to hiring practices, and a view that holds personal and business ethics to be separate affairs (Carr,Friedman, French) is misguided. (shrink)

This essay argues against David Carr’s relativism by clarifying the in principle requirements appropriate to non-relative truths and showing that de facto differences of conceptual frameworks threaten none of them. Non-relative truths are not threatened by history. This defense of non-relative truth belongs to a larger defense of Husserlian “science” that shows how essences, even those “delivered” by history, have a universal “governance” and can be affirmed in nonrelative truths-as such science requires. If history also allows the other qualities (...) of Husserlian science to obtain, then, the essay concludes, such science can exist even as a “situated science.”. (shrink)

This essay argues against David Carr’s relativism by clarifying the in principle requirements appropriate to non-relative truths and showing that de facto differences of conceptual frameworks threaten none of them. Non-relative truths are not threatened by history. This defense of non-relative truth belongs to a larger defense of Husserlian “science” that shows how essences, even those “delivered” by history, have a universal “governance” and can be affirmed in nonrelative truths-as such science requires. If history also allows the other qualities (...) of Husserlian science to obtain, then, the essay concludes, such science can exist even as a “situated science.”. (shrink)

David Carr, Andrew Davis; Can there be a Moral Psychology of Democratic and Civic Education & Understanding Mathematics, Journal of Philosophy of Education.

In this paper I examine the claim that businesspersons have what might be called "ethical immunity" with respect to the duty not to deceive. According to this ethical immunity claim, businesspersons are exempt from the ordinary ethical prohibition against deception; and widespread business deception is therefore ethically permissible. I focus on two arguments for the claim. One of the arguments, which has been presented by Albert Carr, relies upon an analogy between business on the one hand, and games in (...) which deception is permitted, on the other. The second argument is based upon the notion that exceptions to ethical duties may sometimes be justified on prudential grounds. In response to the arguments, I try to show that neither one provides strong support for the ethical immunity claim. (shrink)

This chapter provides a selective survey of prominent theories of the semantics of deontic modals in logic and natural language. We focus on Kratzer’s (1977; 1981; 1991) semantics and extensions to this analysis. Kratzer’s semantics has been far and away the most influential theory of deontic modals, which provide a base case for the interpretation of normative language in general. Understanding the logic and truth-conditions of normative language is one of the core areas of metaethics. It informs our understanding of (...) normative arguments and normative reasoning. As this chapter will emphasize, some forms of normative language don’t allow for the inferences that classical logic trains philosophers to expect. Understanding what inferences are valid for normative language should impact our under-standing of how we reason, and should reason, about the normative. We will first look at how deontic modals are understood in the context of modal logic and natural language. Then we’ll survey some recent debates and discoveries in the literature on deontic modals in natural language. We close with some considerations about the relevance of natural language to metaethics. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of objective phenomenology, or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

The book covers ways in which educators can develop social-emotional learning competencies of self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness in themselves and then within their students.

Some accounts of moral responsibility hold that an agent's responsibility is completely determined by some aspect of the agent's mental life at the time of action. For example, some hold that an agent is responsible if and only if there is an appropriate mesh among the agent's particular psychological elements. It is often objected that the particular features of the agent's mental life to which these theorists appeal (such as a particular structure or mesh) are not necessary for responsibility. This (...) is because there appear to be cases in which an agent acts at an earlier time which causes her to lack the appropriate psychological features at some later time and yet, intuitively, she is responsible at that later .. (shrink)

Perception is riddled with cases of reliable misperception. These are cases in which a perceptual state is tokened inaccurately any time it is tokened under normal conditions. On the face of it, this fact causes trouble for theories that provide an analysis of perceptual content in non-semantic, non-intentional, and non-phenomenal terms, such as those found in Millikan (1984), Fodor (1990), Neander (2017), and Schellenberg (2018). I show how such theories can be extended so that they cover such cases without giving (...) up their core commitments. (shrink)

Menos de dos siglos han transcurrido desde la Revolucion francesa; pero la transformacion de la humanidad, a partir de entonces, ha sido mas radical que en todas sus jornadas previas; en estas conferencias, el autor analiza los procesos del devenir historico desencadenado por la Revolucion francesa.

Abstract:This paper argues that moral judgment is suffering at the hands of instrumental rationality and identity thinking, concepts from the tradition of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory that help explain degradations in human relations. These concepts are not new, but they are realized in novel ways, and the implications continue to be significant, contributing to human suffering and prominent anti-intellectual sentiment. Working through the shared intellectual ground of Adorno, Edmundson, Stivers, and Ellul, the paper takes a critical look at (...) our culture through the objectification of genuine human relations that comes with techno-rational prioritization. The endpoint of such a culture is the compromise of human subjectivity in the service of efficiency, objectivity, and measurability. Extending the analysis to educational practice, Joas’s notion of situational creativity and Dewey’s aesthetics are proposed as possible points of resistance, highlighting positive actions to be taken to remediate these narrow and dehumanizing phenomena. (shrink)

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of a proposition seeming true. Many think that these seeming states can yield justified beliefs. Very few have seriously explored what these seeming states are. I argue that seeming states are not plausibly analyzed in terms of beliefs, partial beliefs, attractions to believe, or inclinations to believe. Given that the main candidates for analyzing seeming states are unsatisfactory, I argue for a brute view of seemings that treats seeming states as irreducible propositional attitudes.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia-in turn, enabling irrigation (...) for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase-with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe-consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework-forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr's book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C. (shrink)

"The Problem of Truth" is a philosophical book by Herbert Wilson Carr, who was a British philosopher, and a Professor of Philosophy. This book focused on unanalyzed experience as opposed to science. It focuses on the problems of truth which is simply regarded as the problem of philosophy.

Depuis une vingtaine d'années, les réflexions d'Axel Honneth se sont imposées comme une référence majeure dans les domaines de la philosophie morale, sociale, et politique. L'enjeu que soulève la pensée critique de Honneth est alors d'examiner si, aujourd'hui, les institutions de la reconnaissance auxquelles nous participions - la famille, le marché du travail, l'État de droit, l'espace public - méritent véritablement le qualificatif de "démocratiques". Pages de début Introduction I. La reconnaissance et ses luttes II. Une conception de la justice (...) sociale III. Redistribution ou reconnaissance? IV. Les institutions de la reconnaissanceConclusion. Le droit de la reconnaissance Bibliographie Pages de fin. (shrink)

Quand il s'agit de rendre compte, par-delà les calculs intéressés de l'homo oeconomicus, de la manière dont tiennent les sociétés humaines, donner et reconnaître apparaissent comme deux dimensions constitutives de l'agir social. Mais du don et de la reconnaissance, il convient aussi, avant d'en appeler à leur syncrétisme, d'en interroger les proximités et les distances, ainsi que leurs consistances respectives. Par exemple, dira-t-on d'un don sans retour ou d'une reconnaissance sans réciprocité qu'ils sont encore dignes de ces noms? Les activités (...) de don et de reconnaissance se confrontent alors à une tierce dimension qui les taraude de l'intérieur : la domination. Cet ouvrage propose d'examiner plus précisément la façon dont se répondent et s'entremêlent les trois modèles du don, de la reconnaissance et de la domination, sur des enjeux contemporains situés au croisement de plusieurs horizons théoriques (la théorie critique, l'anthropologie, la phénoménologie sociale, la psychanalyse)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Education and Religious Education Liberalism and the Non‐Confessional Turn The Constructivist Turn Religious Education and the Narrative Turn Narrative and Liberal Education The Discomforts of Contemporary Religious Education Religious Education and the School Curriculum Notes References.

A consideration of the unity of a class or kind as including its member or instances.

This is a discussion of the state of discussion on pragmatic reasons for belief.

This book brings together an international group of scholars to discuss the ramifications of Heidegger's Black Notebooks for philosophy and the humanities. In contrast to both those who seek to exonerate Heidegger and those who simply condemn him, they urge careful reading and rereading of his work to turn Heideggerian thought against itself.

Nauczanie etyki w szkole uznawane jest za ważne i potrzebne. Ale czy etyki można się nauczyć? I czy nauczanie jej powinno polegać na przekazywaniu wiedzy o koncepcjach etycznych, ewentualnie dyskusji wokół nich, czy raczej na kształtowaniu moralnych postaw uczniów i właściwych zachowań? Artykuł podejmuje namysł nad tymi problemami w nawiązaniu do różnych tradycji myśli etycznej i teorii moralności. Za główny punkt odniesienia i podstawę praktyki edukacyjnej proponuje przyjąć odnowioną współcześnie Arystotelesowską etykę cnót. Koncepcja phronesis jako rozumności praktycznej, pozwalającej tworzyć sądy (...) moralne wrażliwe na kontekst i uwzględniające złożoność trudnych do uzgodnienia interesów i dóbr, wydaje się dla edukacji moralnej wciąż aktualnym modelem. Nauczanie i dyskusja nastawione na rozważanie konkretnych przypadków i opowieści, czyli kształcenie umiejętności tego typu osądu, pozwala uniknąć zagrożeń, jakie niesie nauka skupiona na zagadnieniach teoretycznych: uwikłania w definicyjne niejasności w określaniu wartości moralnych, czy myślenia oderwanego od emocji i od doświadczenia. Nauka polegająca na analizie filozoficznej tradycji wiąże się z ryzykiem, iż przekazywana wiedza okaże się nieadekwatna do wieku i poziomu osobistego rozwoju ucznia, generując moralny subiektywizm i relatywistyczny sceptycyzm. Argument ten nie jest jednak skierowany przeciwko teoretyzowaniu i wprowadzaniu abstrakcyjnych rozważań w procesie kształcenia, nawet na najwcześniejszych etapach: teoretyzowanie i budowanie racjonalnych uzasadnień jest potrzebne, ale powinno wynikać z inspiracji i rozwoju intelektualnych predyspozycji, a nie z przekazu gotowej wiedzy. (shrink)

For Kant, knowledge involves certainty. If “certainty” requires that the grounds for a given propositional attitude guarantee its truth, then this is an infallibilist view of epistemic justification. Such a view says you can’t have epistemic justification for an attitude unless the attitude is also true. Here I want to defend an alternative fallibilist interpretation. Even if a subject has grounds that would be sufficient for knowledge if the proposition were true, the proposition might not be true. And so there (...) is sometimes still rational room for doubt. The goal of this paper is to present four different models of what “certainty” amounts to, for Kant, each of which is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

In his 1978 paper “Mathematical Explanation”, Mark Steiner attempts to modernize the Aristotelian idea that to explain a mathematical statement is to deduce it from the essence of entities figuring in the statement, by replacing talk of essences with talk of “characterizing properties”. The language Steiner uses is reminiscent of language used for proofs deemed “pure”, such as Selberg and Erdős’ elementary proofs of the prime number theorem avoiding the complex analysis of earlier proofs. Hilbert characterized pure proofs as those (...) that use only “means that are suggested by the content of the theorem”, a characterization we have elsewhere called “topical purity”. In this paper we will examine the connection between Steiner’s account of mathematical explanation and topical purity. Are Steiner-explanatory proofs necessarily topically pure? Are topically pure proofs necessarily Steiner-explanatory? Answers to these questions will shed light on the general question of the relation between purity and explanatory power. (shrink)

The aim of the Analytic of Concepts is to derive and deduce a set of pure concepts of the understanding, the categories, which play a central role in Kant’s explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori cognition and judgment. This chapter is structured around two questions. First, what is a pure concept of the understanding? Second, what is involved in a deduction of a pure concept of the understanding? In answering the first, we focus on how the categories differ (...) from the pure forms of sensibility and examine whether they are known only to be the pure forms of human thinking or rather the forms of discursive cognition as such. In answering the second, we draw a distinction between the application and the exemplification of the categories and use it to identify different ways of understanding Kant’s project in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. These questions connect because the answer to the first determines how we should understand the kind of entitlement which is to be established in the Deduction. (shrink)

While many aspects of cognition have been shown to be shared between humans and non-human animals, there remains controversy regarding whether the capacity to mentally time travel is a uniquely human one. In this paper, we argue that there are four ways of representing when some event happened: four kinds of temporal representation. Distinguishing these four kinds of temporal representation has five benefits. First, it puts us in a position to determine the particular benefits these distinct temporal representations afford an (...) organism. Second, it provides the conceptual resources to foster a discussion about which of these representations is necessary for an organism to count as having the capacity to mentally time travel. Third, it enables us to distinguish stricter from more liberal views of mental time travel that differ regarding which kind(s) of temporal representation is taken to be necessary for mental time travel. Fourth, it allows us to determine the benefits of taking a stricter or more liberal view of mental time travel. Finally, it ensures that disagreement about whether some species can mentally time travel is not merely the product of unrecognised disagreement about which temporal representation is necessary for mental time travel. We argue for a more liberal view, on the grounds that it allows us to view mental time travel as an evolutionarily continuous phenomenon, and to recognise that differences in the ways that organisms mentally time travel might reflect different temporal representations, or combinations thereof, that they employ. Our ultimate aim, however, is to create the conceptual framework for further discussion regarding what sorts of temporal representations are required for mental time travel. (shrink)

The fallacy fallacy is either the misdiagnosis of fallacy or the supposition that the conclusion of a fallacy must be a falsehood. This paper explores the relevance of these and related errors of reasoning for the appraisal of arguments, especially within virtue theories of argumentation. In particular, the fallacy fallacy exemplifies the Owl of Minerva problem, whereby tools devised to understand a norm make possible new ways of violating the norm. Fallacies are such tools and so are vices. Hence a (...) similar problem arises with argumentative vices. Fortunately, both instances of the problem have a common remedy. (shrink)

Public reason in practice and theory -- False starts: unsuccessful justifications of public reason -- Respect for persons as a constraint on coercion -- Higher-order unanimity escape clause -- Civic friendship as a constraint on reasons for decision -- Public reason and (same-sex) marriage.

Some have it that wholes are, somehow, identical to their parts. This doctrine is as alluring as it is puzzling. But in this paper, I show that the doctrine is inconsistent with two widely accepted theses. Something has to go.

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.