Research on bias in peer review examines scholarly communication and funding processes to assess the epistemic and social legitimacy of the mechanisms by which knowledge communities vet and self-regulate their work. Despite vocal concerns, a closer look at the empirical and methodological limitations of research on bias raises questions about the existence and extent of many hypothesized forms of bias. In addition, the notion of bias is predicated on an implicit ideal that, once articulated, raises questions about the normative implications (...) of research on bias in peer review. This review provides a brief description of the function, history, and scope of peer review; articulates and critiques the conception of bias unifying research on bias in peer review; characterizes and examines the empirical, methodological, and normative claims of bias in peer review research; and assesses possible alternatives to the status quo. We close by identifying ways to expand conceptions and studies of bias to countenance the complexity of social interactions among actors involved directly and indirectly in peer review. (shrink)
Pascal was a scientist and man of the world who came to be a passionately devout Christian. The fragments of his great defense of Christianity, left unfinished at his death in 1662, survive in the form of the Pensees. This series of brief, dramatic notes on his religious convictions are here translated into English. These thoughts expose Pascal's vision of the world and display powerful reasoning and a profound faith.
The issue of directed donation of organs from deceased donors for transplantation has recently risen to the fore, given greater significance by the relatively stagnant rate of deceased donor donation in the UK. Although its status and legitimacy is explicitly recognized across the USA, elsewhere a more cautious, if not entirely negative, stance has been taken. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Human Tissue Act 2004, and in Scotland the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006, are both silent in this (...) regard. Although so-called conditional donation, donation to (or perhaps withheld from) a specific class, has been outlawed as a product of guidance issued by the Secretary of State for Health issued in the wake of the controversial incident occurring in the North of England in 1998, its intended application to ‘directed’ donation is less certain. Directed and conditional donations challenge the traditional construct of altruistic donation and impartial (equitable) allocation in a very immediate and striking fashion. They implicitly raise important questions as to whether the body or parts of the body are capable of being owned, and by whom. This paper attempts to explore the notion of donor ownership of body parts and its implications for both directed and conditional donation. (shrink)
"I know of no religious writer more pertinent to our time."—T. S. Eliot, Introduction to Pensees Intended to prove that religion is not contrary to reason, Pascal's Pensees rank among the liveliest and most eloquent defenses of Christianity. Motivated by the seventeenth-century view of the supremacy of human reason, Pascal (1623–1662) had intended to write an ambitious apologia for Christianity in which he argued the inability of reason to address metaphysical problems. His untimely death prevented the work's completion, but the (...) fragments published posthumously in 1670 as Pensees remain a vital part of religious and philosophical literature. W. F. Trotter translation. Introduction by T. S. Eliot. (shrink)
Background: Legislation on physician-assisted suicide is being considered in a number of states since the passage of the Oregon Death With Dignity Act in 1994. Opinion assessment surveys have historically assessed particular subsets of physicians.Objective: To determine variables predictive of physicians’ opinions on PAS in a rural state, Vermont, USA.Design: Cross-sectional mailing survey.Participants: 1052 physicians licensed by the state of Vermont.Results: Of the respondents, 38.2% believed PAS should be legalised, 16.0% believed it should be prohibited and 26.0% believed it should (...) not be legislated. 15.7% were undecided. Males were more likely than females to favour legalisation . Physicians who did not care for patients through the end of life were significantly more likely to favour legalisation of PAS than physicians who do care for patients with terminal illness . 30% of the respondents had experienced a request for assistance with suicide.Conclusions: Vermont physicians’ opinions on the legalisation of PAS is sharply polarised. Patient autonomy was a factor strongly associated with opinions in favour of legalisation, whereas the sanctity of the doctor–patient relationship was strongly associated with opinions in favour of not legislating PAS. Those in favour of making PAS illegal overwhelmingly cited moral and ethical beliefs as factors in their opinion. Although opinions on legalisation appear to be based on firmly held beliefs, approximately half of Vermont physicians who responded to the survey agree that there is a need for more education in palliative care and pain management. (shrink)
Living-donor kidney transplantation is the “gold standard” treatment for many individuals with end-stage renal failure. Superior outcomes for the graft and the transplant recipient have prompted the implementation of new strategies promoting living-donor kidney transplantation, and the number of such transplants has increased considerably over recent years. Living donors are undoubtedly exposed to risk. In his editorial “underestimating the risk in living kidney donation”, Walter Glannon suggests that more data on long-term outcomes for living donors are needed to determine whether (...) this risk is permissible and the extent to which physicians and transplant surgeons should promote living-donor kidney transplantation.1 In this paper I argue that it is not clear that medical professionals have underestimated this risk, nor is it clear that more data on long-term outcomes are needed in order to determine whether it is permissible for individual autonomous agents to expose themselves to this or, indeed, any risk. The global shortage of organs available for transplantation ultimately means that every year thousands of individuals who value their life die needlessly. This is an unacceptable loss of human life. Saving life is one of the most wonderful things an individual can do for another. Promoting any strategy that will assist in saving life and preventing human suffering within acceptable moral limits is legitimate. (shrink)
For much of his life Pascal (1623-62) worked on a magnum opus which was never published in its intended form. Instead, he left a mass of fragments, some of them meant as notes for the Apologie. These were to become known as the Pensées, and they occupy a crucial place in Western philosophy and religious writing. Pascal's general intention was to confound scepticism about metaphysical questions. Some of the Pensées are fully developed literary reflections on the human condition,, some contradict (...) others, and some remain jottings whose meaning will never be clear. The most important are among the most powerful aphorisms about human experience and behaviour ever written in any language. This translation is the only one based on the Pensées as Pascal left them. It includes the principal dossiers classified by Pascal, as well as the essential portion of the important Writings on Grace. A detailed thematic index gives access to Pascal's areas of concern, while the selection of texts and the introduction help to show why Pascal changed the plan of his projected work before abandoning the book he might have written. (shrink)
Wilkinson’s discussion of the individual and family consent to organ and tissue donation is to be welcomed because it draws attention to the “incoherent hybrid” of the current position.1 I wish to highlight some areas of his discussion and propose that, in a situation of posthumous organ and tissue donation, the cadaver has no individual rights and family rights should under no circumstances automatically outweigh the potential transplant recipients’ right to a life-saving treatment.Transplant immunobiology and clinical transplantation is a revolutionary (...) area of medicine and has saved thousands of lives. In the UK, between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2005, organs from 752 people who died were used to save or dramatically improve many people’s lives through 2242 transplants.2 In the US, 23 506 transplants were performed between January and October 2005 from 12 084 donors.3 Information from available databases shows that demand for organs, cells and tissues has outstripped the supply. As of 18 January 2006, 6553 people are still waiting for transplants in the UK and there are 90 636 waiting list transplant candidates in the US.2,3 As of 01 January 2006, there are 15 977 people active on the Eurotransplant waiting list.4 It is likely that non-compulsory posthumous donation of organs has resulted in the loss of many thousands, possibly many …. (shrink)
Is the possession of taste relevant to the practice of moral and political judgement? For Mary Wollstonecraft and many of her contemporaries, the formation of taste was increasingly significant for both ethics and politics. In fact, some of the key contributors to the debate, which I have termed the ‘politics of taste’, believed that fostering existing standards of taste promised a palliative to modern democratic ills that they diagnosed. Wollstonecraft is an immanent critic of such positions. Although she shares some (...) of Edmund Burke’s and David Hume’s assumptions, she proposes dramatic revision of the extant model of refined taste driven by the spread of rational education. In this way, she attempts to rescue ‘true taste’ from its sentimental context – one permeated by false assumptions about femininity and class. For Wollstonecraft, ‘true taste’ must be the product of refined understanding. Only then can it be deemed a support rather than a hindrance to the practice of moral and political judgement. Although recent Wollstonecraft scholarship has emphasised the depth of her engagement with Scottish Enlightenment thought, using Hume as a primary interlocutor with Wollstonecraft, especially on the question of taste, is yet unprecedented. This approach, Wollstonecraft’s immanent critique of taste, yields arguments about taste that are especially complex and philosophically interesting, both in her time and ours. (shrink)
Este estudo pretende pensar o problema do conhecimento em Blaise Pascal, atentando para sua concepção do método geométrico aplicado ao conhecimento da natureza e das técnicas e para seu esforço por uma outra forma de conhecimento que possa ser aplicada às realidades “sobrenaturais” (a fé, o homem, a moral, os costumes, a política). Para tanto, o presente estudo articula uma análise dos ensaios pascalianos Préface. Sur le Traité du vide, De l’e.
edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff Since its appearance in English translation in 1996, Jürgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms has become the focus of a productive dialogue between German and Anglo-American legal and political theorists. The present volume contains ten essays that provide an overview of Habermas's political thought since the original appearance of Between Facts and Norms in 1992 and extend his model of deliberative democracy in novel ways to issues untreated in the earlier work.Habermas's (...) theory of democracy has at least three features that set it apart from competing positions. First, it combines a concern with questions of normative justification with an empirical analysis of the social conditions necessary for the realization of democratic institutions. Second, at the heart of his model is the assertion of an internal relationship between liberalism and democracy. On this account, the rights of the individual that are central to liberalism can be guaranteed only within a constitutional framework that at the same time fosters democratic rights of political participation through the public sphere. Finally, Habermas defends a conception of universal human rights that is not only sensitive to cultural differences but also calls for legal and political institutions that facilitate the cultivation of cultural and religious identities within pluralistic societies.These essays demonstrate the extraordinary power of Habermas's theory of democracy through a further engagement with Rawls's political liberalism and through original contributions to current debates over nationalism, multiculturalism, and the viability of supranational political institutions. (shrink)
Il s’agit ici de l’expérience rouennaise bien connue, pour laquelle Blaise Pascal aurait dressé deux longs tubes de verre remplis d’eau et de vin dans le but d’attester de la possibilité de l’existence du vide. Grâce à la première narration sur le vide de Gilles Personne de Roberval, on apprend qu’elle aurait eu lieu à plusieurs reprises en public, courant janvier et février 1647. Roberval apporte de nombreuses informations sur cette expérience, ce que ne fait pas Blaise Pascal (...) dans ses Expériences nouvelles touchant le vide. Au congrès de Royaumont de 1954, Alexandre Koyré avait fortement soupçonné Pascal de ne jamais avoir réalisé cette expérience. Kimiyo Koyanagi a surenchéri, lors d’un colloque organisé à Rouen en 1999, en accusant Pascal de n’avoir fait aucune des huit expériences de Rouen dont il se prévalait. Ces accusations reposent en grande partie sur des reconstitutions de cette expérience qui ont montré des phénomènes soit non mentionnés par Pascal soit contredisant ce qui est relaté par lui ou Roberval. Nous allons, au contraire, tenter de montrer comment Blaise Pascal a très bien pu faire cette expérience et quelle a été sa démarche pour y parvenir. Notre propos reposera sur une reconstitution de cette expérience effectuée en février 2010 à l’institut universitaire de technologie d’Orsay. (shrink)
This work is a study of Blaise Pascal's Pensees. It proposes to show the way in which Pascal's philosophy of mind---his conception of order and the relation of reason, the emotions, and the will to the self---which emerges from his skepticism, can be used to draw out his views on morality, despite the fragmentary state of the work. The thesis begins with a consideration of the three major philosophical precursors to Pascal's project: Augustine, Montaigne, and Descartes. It continues with (...) an account of order in the Pensees, centering on the heart, the two minds, and the three discontinuous orders, connecting Pascal's views to those of a number of 20th century analytic philosophers. It goes on to consider the order of the body and the order of charity in specific detail, showing how Pascal discusses each of these through a dialectical process that begins in a pre-critical, unreflective state, moves through a first, rational and philosophical, criticism, and finally turns that criticism against philosophy itself. The thesis concludes by briefly considering three figures whose ideas, to some extent, carry on and expand those of Pascal: Rousseau, Maistre, Tocqueville. (shrink)
Cet ouvrage reprend dans une rédaction nouvelle six articles antérieurs à 1962. On y trouve « six études relativement indépendantes les unes des autres, mais mises bout à bout elles esquissent une histoire lacunaire de l’esprit de Pascal, et plus particulièrement de son dessein apologétique ». S’appuyant sur une érudition rigoureuse, ces six « approches concrètes » rattachent les textes à leur support matériel et les situent dans leur contexte culturel, ce qui permet au lecteur de rencontrer un Pascal vivant (...) au milieu des siens et de son époque. (shrink)
This text presents a broad scope of philosophical issues and primary sources from the history of philosophy with the intent of providing students with a general introduction to significant and relevant questions in philosophy, the humanities, and the history of thought.
Consideration of social cognition—how an individual’s decision-making is influenced by her/his social environment—is key to understanding the behaviour of socially living nonhuman primates. In this chapter we discuss primate social cognition by focusing on primates’ behavioural responses to the presence and actions of others, how they adjust their behaviour to maximize their own gains, and possibly also the rewards received by a partner. Individuals can observe and replicate the actions of others, or the outcomes of their actions, to accelerate behavioural (...) acquisition of techniques to obtain rewards. Beyond passively observing others, primates can also work with group mates to obtain rewards more easily or to get rewards that would otherwise be unattainable by a single individual. Although not universally seen among primates, one individual may also help another to acquire resources. Prosocial and collaborative interactions may result in an imbalance of benefits received, and certain primate species respond negatively when receiving less than a social partner, a response which may protect individuals against cheating. Such behaviours demonstrate how the interplay between an individual’s desires and those of others can modify behavioural outcomes and the importance of considering cognition from a social perspective in order to understand the decision-making of individuals. However, there is variation both within and between species in their sensitivity to the actions of others and their responses to them. Thus, a comparative framework is needed when studying what is meant by ‘primate social cognition’. (shrink)
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, inventor, and theologian. In mathematics, he was an early pioneer in the fields of game theory and probability theory. In philosophy he was an early pioneer in existentialism. As a writer on theology and religion he was a defender of Christianity. Despite chronic ill […].
Heidegger interprète la pensée nietzschéenne de la réalité a partir du vocabulaire de la métaphysique. À rebours de ce choix, on tente ici de mettre au jour les differents types de regard qui délivrent une facette spécifique de la réalitè dans l'œuvre de Nietzsche. Ainsi, après quelques considérations philologiques sur l'usage nietzschéen de Realität et Wirklichkeit, la réalité est considérée à partir du clivage Apollon/Dionysos, dans une perspective « musicale », puis comme devenir radical, dans l'ordre du Versuch, avant d'être (...) ressaisie généalogiquement dans l'hypothèse de la volonté de puissance. La réalité est alors le chaos des forces auquel il faut dire « oui », dans une double approche de l' amor fati et de la Heiterkeit, qui montre paradoxalement que la réalité est à produire dans un faire. Le tragique est en ce sens un puissant stimulant pour l'existence. Heidegger interprets the Nietschean thought about reality starting from the vocabulary of metaphysics. Contrary to such a choice, the author here tries to cast a new light on the several kinds of approaches which suggest a specific facet of reality in Nietzsche's work. Thus, after a few philological considerations on the Nietzschean use of Realitat and Wirklichkeit, reality becomes approached from the Apollo/Dionysus splitting, within a « musical » perspective, then as radical future, within the order of the Versuch, before being, when all is said, recaptured genealogically through the hypothesis of willpower. Reality thus becomes the chaos of forces to which one should « agree », within a twofold approach of both amorfati and Heiterkeit, showing paradoxically that reality is meant to be enacted within action. Within such a meaning, the tragic becomes a powerful stimulus for exixtence. (shrink)
Research examining consumer responses to the provision of nutritional information as part of restaurant menus has produced mixed results. In light of pending legislation requiring the provision of nutritional information, the authors examine the how corporate social responsibility impacts consumer service evaluation of restaurants. Findings from three studies demonstrate that the relationship between consumer attitudes toward the disclosure of nutrition information and their subsequent evaluation of the food provider is impacted by CSR-related initiatives. Studies one and two find that consumer (...) evaluations are enhanced when the firm has an existing reputation for CSR and when the firm includes healthy product options as part of the introduction of the nutritional information. Study 3 finds these effects are particularly strong with fast-food restaurants. Overall, the findings suggest that, for some firms, the introduction of the legislation provides an opportunity to strengthen relationships with customers and gain advantage over some competitors. (shrink)
