Among the tricky questions posed by artistic creation, some relate in particular to the capacity of human beings to reproduce things and to the right they have (or grant themselves) to act in this way. This activity, when aimed for example at identical reproduction, is called “copy” by art critics, historians, and those who take an interest in the aesthetics of objects. I will not attempt to discuss the subtleties involved in the use of different terms to describe the activity (...) of the reproduction of works of art; when an artist “imitates,” is that copying? To what extent is the new work admissible? To what category do users and connoisseurs assign it? These and other questions will be answered in the wider context of my examination of the relationship between the unique and the multiple in African societies. The problems of an original's copy or replica are not viewed in the same light in all parts of the world, not only because of the dictum “truth on our side of the border, error on theirs” but above all because the status of the plastic work is not the same and its existence and validity are not governed by the same laws and customs. However, in all societies that create, the “copy” poses problems which Africa cannot elude and which arise there in a manner at once similar and different from that of contemporary Western societies. (shrink)

Respected Catholic ethicists have recently defended the use of salpingostomy and methotrexate in the management of ectopic pregnancies.This article examines the arguments for the revised assessments to determine whether there are sound reasons to believe that these two methods do not constitute the direct and immediate killing of innocent human beings. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 65–82.

Although risky decision-making has been posited to contribute to the maladaptive behavior of individuals with psychopathic tendencies, the performance of psychopathic groups on a common task of risky decision-making, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), has been equivocal. Different aspects of psychopathy (personality traits, antisocial deviance) and/or moderating variables may help to explain these inconsistent findings. In a sample of college students (N = 129, age 18–27), we examined the relationship between primary and secondary psychopathic (...) features and IGT performance. A measure of impulsivity was included to investigate its potential as a moderator. In a joint model including main effects and interactions between primary psychopathy, secondary psychopathy and impulsivity, only secondary psychopathy was significantly related to risky IGT performance, and this effect was not moderated by the other variables. This finding supports the growing literature suggesting that secondary psychopathy is a better predictor of decision-making problems than the primary psychopathic personality traits of lack of empathy and remorselessness. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a resurgence of scholarly criticisms regarding the plausibility of the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Papacy. Broadly speaking, these problems include scholarly criticisms of the scriptural passages which Roman Catholic theologians claim support the papacy, historical discrepancies regarding apostolic succession from the Apostle Peter, and a priori intuitions about the moral nature of those who attain Papal Status. In this paper, I respond to these objections by utilizing Swinburne’s C-inductive strategy (Bayesian Confirmation Theory) – found in (...) his text, The Existence of God – and conclude that overall, there is a strong P-Inductive argument for the Papacy. First published 2019 (online). Now published in The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 531-546, July 2022. (shrink)

When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism of time, (...) describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/ redeployment of staff outside their specialty areas. The third phase was characterized by the recognition that while the worst of the crisis was waning, its medium- and long-term consequences continued to pose immense challenges. We note that there were times during the crisis that serving in the role of clinical ethics consultant created a sense of dis-ease as novel as the coronavirus itself. In retrospect we learned that our activities far exceeded the familiar terrain of clinical ethics consultation and extended into other spheres of organizational life in novel ways that were unanticipated before this pandemic. To that end, we defined and categorized a middle level of ethics consultation, which we have termed service practice communication intervention (SPCI). This is an underappreciated dimension of the work that ethics consult services are capable of in times of crisis. We believe that the pandemic has revealed the many enduring ways that ethics consultation services can more robustly contribute to the ethical life of their institutions moving forward. (shrink)

Though we agree with their argument that language is shaped by domain-general learning processes, Christiansen & Chater (C&C) neglect to detail how the development of these processes shapes language change. We discuss a number of examples that show how developmental processes at multiple levels and timescales are critical to understanding the origin of domain-general mechanisms that shape language evolution.

Coping with a relative with a learning disability could be a stressful experience for family members. The present study is aimed at exploring the coping strategies adopted by families in trying to make meaning of their situation. A qualitative study design using focus group discussions was adopted. Ten FGD sessions were held with family members of persons with a learning disability. Findings revealed patterns of family coping to include problem-focused, emotion-focused, and spiritual/religious-focused. Also, coping responses to a learning disability varied (...) based on the level of information available to families about the condition of their relative. In some cases, interspousal relationship was strained due to stress. It was recommended that families of persons with a learning disability need social support and professional help from social workers to facilitate the adoption of more positive-oriented coping strategies by family members. (shrink)

As human beings age, they become weak, fragile, and feeble. It is a slowly progressing yet complex syndrome in which old age or some disabilities are not prerequisites; neither does loss of human parts lead to frailty among the physically fit older persons. This paper aims to describe the influences of transhumanist perspectives on human‐technology enhancements and replacements in the transcendence of human frailties, including those of older persons, in which technology is projected to deliver solutions toward transcending these frailties. (...) Through technologies including genetic screening and other technological manipulations, intelligent machines and augmented humans improve, maintain, and remedy human‐linked susceptibilities. Furthermore, other technologies replace parts fabricated through inorganic‐mechanical processes such as 3D‐printing. Advancing technologies are reaching the summit of technological sophistication contributing to the transhumanist views of being human in a technological world. Technologies enhance the transcendence of human frailties as essential expressions of the symbiosis between human beings and technology in a transcendental world. (shrink)

In our papers on the rationality of magic, we distinghuished, for purposes of analysis, three levels of rationality. First and lowest (rationalitYl) the goal directed action of an agent with given aims and circumstances, where among his circumstances we included his knowledge and opinions. On this level the magician's treatment of illness by incantation is as rational as any traditional doctor's blood-letting or any modern one's use of anti-biotics. At the second level (rationalitY2) we add the element of rational thinking (...) or thinking which obeys some set of explicit rules, a level which is not found in magic in general, though it is sometimes given to specific details of magical thinking within the magical thought-system. It was the late Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard who observed that when considering magic in detail the magician may be as consistent or critical as anyone else; but when considering magic in general, or any system of thought in general, the magician could not be critical or even comprehend the criticism. Evans-Pritchard went even further: he was sceptical as to whether it could be done in a truly consistent manner: one cannot be critical of one's own system, he thought. On this level (rationalitY2) of discussion we have explained (earlier) why we prefer to wed Evans Pritchard's view of the magician's capacity for piece-meal rationality to Sir James Frazer's view that magic in general is pseudo-rational because it lacks standards of rational thinking. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

How certain neural mechanisms momentarily endow with the subjective awareness percepts and affects represented elsewhere is more likely to be clarified when structures essential to Mc are identified. The loss of C with bilateral thalmic lesions involving the intralaminar nuclei contrasts with retention of C after large cortical ablations depriving C of specific contents. A role of ILN in the perception of primitive sensations is suggested by their afference of directly ascending pathways. A role for ILN in awareness of cortical (...) activity is suggested by their widespread afference from cortex, a property shared with striatum. A role for ILN in volition is suggested by their heavy projection to striatum. Unlike striatum, ILN also project widely to almost all neocortex, enabling an effect on ideation; this last property is in common with other structures but none of them has the same direct cortical afference. And passage through the reticular nucleus of ILN efferents to cortex could impact the attention-selective action of nRt. It is suggested that the quickest route to a better understanding of C involves more intensive study of ILN. No other structure seems, in the light of our current knowledge, a more likely site for Mc. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between philosophy (considered as an expression of fundamental values) and development, this here particularly understood in its economic sense. The author starts with an exploration of the meaning of development and then goes on to evaluate the views and perspectives that tend to argue against philosophy in its broadest sense (that is considered simply as a worldview or as a system of values) occupying a distinct and significant role in development. (...) In order to demonstrate this important point, the author explores what he considers to be the impact of the traditional African ethical outlook and values in relation to the economic activities and the process of development in contemporary Africa. O objectivo deste artigo é analisar a relação entre a filosofia (considerada como expressão de valores filosóficos fundamentais) e o desenvolvimento, sendo este especialmente entendido no sentido económico. O autor começa por explorar o significado de desenvolvimento e, em seguida, continua com a avaliação das visões e perspectivas que tendem a argumentar contra a filosofia no seu sentido mais alargado (isto é, a filosofia considerada simplesmente como visão do mundo ou como um sistema de valores) que ocupam um papel distinto e significativo no desenvolvimento, sendo esta exploração e avaliação efectuadas no sentido de argumentar que a filosofia tem, de facto, um papel muito distinto e significativo a desempenhar no processo de desenvolvimento, mesmo no sentido económico do termo. Para demonstrar este importante aspecto, o autor explora o que ele considera ser o impacto da perspectiva ética e dos valores tradicionais africanos em relação com as actividades económicas e o processo de desenvolvimento na África contemporânea. (shrink)

Coral bleaching has impacted reefs worldwide and the predictions of near‐annual bleaching from over two decades ago have now been realized. While technology currently provides the means to predict large‐scale bleaching, predicting reef‐scale and within‐reef patterns in real‐time for all reef users is limited. In 2020, heat stress across the Great Barrier Reef underpinned the region's third bleaching event in 5 years. Here we review the heterogeneous emergence of bleaching across Heron Island reef habitats and discuss the oceanographic drivers that (...) underpinned variable bleaching emergence. We do so as a case study to highlight how reef end‐user groups who engage with coral reefs in different ways require targeted guidance for how, and when, to alter their use of coral reefs in response to bleaching events. Our case study of coral bleaching emergence demonstrates how within‐reef scale nowcasting of coral bleaching could aid the development of accessible and equitable bleaching response strategies on coral reefs. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/N9Tgb8N-vN0. (shrink)

At the intersection of meta-ethics and philosophy of science, Nicholas Sturgeon’s “Moral Explanation” ([1985] 1988), Richard Boyd’s “How to be a Moral Realist” (1988), and David Brink’s Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (1989) inaugurated a sustained argument for the claim that moral kinds like right action and virtuous agent are scientifically investigable natural kinds. The corresponding position is called “non-reductive ethical naturalism,” or “NEN.” Ethical nonnaturalists, by contrast, argue that moral kinds are genuine and objective, but not natural. (...) This dissertation is largely a challenge to non-reductive ethical naturalism from the viewpoint of ethical nonnaturalism. An introduction, four fairly independent chapters, and a conclusion comprise this dissertation. The introduction (chapter one) situates and summarizes the arguments in the four chapters that immediately follow, and the concluding chapter (chapter six) describes future work related to the arguments in this dissertation. I now turn to chapters two through five. In chapter two, I shore up what I believe are weakness in Derek Parfit’s Triviality Objection to reductive ethical naturalism and then present a challenge to the NEN theorist, which, I argue, the NEN theorist must but ultimately cannot meet. The challenge is to sketch an empirical experiment whereby we can adjudicate between competing moral hypotheses. I explain in terms of experimental design and evaluation why the challenge cannot be met. Chapters three and four focus on the semantics and reference relations of kind terms. In chapter three, I defend the Causal Externalist (CE) theory of semantics and reference against an objection distilled from two articles by Åsa Marie Wikforss. The objection is that CE implies a paradox, escape from which forces the CE theorist upon the horns of a dilemma. I show how the CE theorist can avoid the dilemma by allowing that the intensions of some artificial-kind terms (e.g., ‘jade’) are not given by descriptions associated with the terms. One consequence of this move, however, is that it casts doubt upon the coherence of the claim that moral-kind terms (e.g., ‘morally required action’) are natural-kind terms. In chapter four, I defend Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons’s Moral-Twin Earth argument from three critical responses put forward in recent paper by David Merli. NEN theorists claim that CE can account for the semantics and reference of moral-kind terms. As per Horgan and Timmons (H&T), however, our responses to the Moral-Twin Earth thought experiment give us reason to doubt the NEN theorists’ claim. Against H&T’s argument, however, Merli presents three independent, critical responses, and in this chapter I defend H&T’s argument in a way that is friendly to the ethical nonnaturalist. One upshot is, I contend, that the ethical nonnaturalist can and indeed should co-opt H&T’s argument for his own use. In chapter five, I return to kinds themselves, specifically those in biology. I first point out that ethical nonnaturalism appeals to a metaphysical thesis about nonnatural value, which need not be limited to the moral domain. Then, I argue that biological naturalism alone cannot give a satisfying realist account of biological kinds like HEART and NEURON. Finally, I show that by conjoining the concept of Cummins functions as recently defended by Paul Davies, a thesis about nonnatural value, and Ned Block’s Disney Principle regarding structural properties, the nonnaturalist, unlike the naturalist, can offer a satisfying realist account of biological kinds. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the peer review process is believed to ensure scientific rigor, enhance research quality, and improve manuscript clarity, many investigators are concerned that the process is too slow, too expensive, too unreliable, and too static. In this feasibility study, we sought to survey corresponding authors of recently published clinical research studies on the speed and efficiency of the publication process.MethodsWeb-based survey of corresponding authors of a 20% random sample of clinical research studies in MEDLINE-indexed journals with Ovid MEDLINE entry dates (...) between December 1 and 15, 2016. Survey addressed perceived manuscript importance before first submission, approximate first submission and final acceptance dates, and total number of journal submissions, external peer reviews, external peer reviewers, and revisions requested, as well as whether authors would have considered publicly sharing their manuscript on an online platform instead of submitting to a peer-reviewed journal.ResultsOf 1780 surveys distributed, 27 corresponding authors opted out or requested that we stop emailing them and 149 emails failed (e.g., emails that bounced n = 64, returned with an away from office message n = 70, or were changed/incorrect n = 15), leaving 1604 respondents, of which 337 completed the survey (21.0%). Respondents and non-respondents were similar with respect to study type and publication journals’ impact factor, although non-respondent authors had more publications (p = 0.03). Among respondents, the median impact factor of the publications’ journal was 2.7 (interquartile range (IQR), 2.0–3.6) and corresponding authors’ median h-index and number of publications was 9 (IQR, 3–20) and 27 (IQR, 10–77), respectively. The median time from first submission to journal acceptance and publication was 5 months (IQR, 3–8) and 7 months (IQR, 5–12), respectively. Most respondents (62.0%, n = 209) rated the importance of their research as a 4 or 5 (5-point scale) prior to submission. Median number of journal submissions was 1 (IQR, 1–2), external peer reviews was 1 (IQR, 1–2), external peer reviewers was 3 (IQR, 2–4), and revisions requested was 1 (IQR, 1–1). Sharing manuscripts to a public online platform, instead of submitting to a peer-reviewed journal, would have been considered by 55.2% (n = 186) of respondents.ConclusionCorresponding authors have high perceptions of their research and reported requiring few manuscript submissions prior to journal acceptance, most commonly by lower impact factor journals. (shrink)

Concerning evidence there are two important questions: (1) what is going to count as evidence? and (2) what are the appropriate means for employing evidence? These two problems pervade the analysis of the scientific process. They are with us as much today as in Galileo’s time. For example, with respect to contemporary arguments between Evolutionists and Scientific Creationists, if the issue is taken in its cognitive rather than its political dimension, the entire discussion turns on the criteria for acceptable, evidence, (...) i.e, the heart of the problem is disagreement over the status of the data one wants to invoke as evidence.Many of the disputes between Galileo and his philosophical, interlocutors in his Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems turn on some of the same issues that bedevil the debate between evolutionists and creationists, i.e., what is going to count as evidence? (shrink)

Intra-molecular connectivity (that is, chemical structure) does not emerge from computations based on fundamental quantum-mechanical principles. In order to compute molecular electronic energies (of C 3 H 4 hydrocarbons, for instance) quantum chemists must insert intra-molecular connectivity “by hand.” Some take this as an indication that chemistry cannot be reduced to physics: others consider it as evidence that quantum chemistry needs new logical foundations. Such discussions are generally synchronic rather than diachronic —that is, they neglect ‘historical’ aspects. However, systems of (...) interest to chemists generally are metastable . In many cases chemical systems of a given elemental composition may exist in any one of several different metastable states depending on the history of the system. Molecular structure generally depends on contingent historical circumstances of synthesis and separation, rather than solely or mainly on relative energies of alternative stable states, those energies in turn determined by relationships among components. Chemical structure is usually ‘kinetically-determined’ rather than ‘thermodynamically-determined.’ For instance, cyclical hydrocarbon ring-systems (as in cyclopropene) are produced only in special circumstances. Adequate theoretical treatments must take account of the persistent effects of such contingent historical events whenever they are relevant—as they generally are in chemistry. (shrink)

Philosophy is shaped by life and life is shaped by philosophy. This is reflected in The Philosophical I, a collection of 16 autobiographical essays by prominent philosophers.

Understanding how people comprehend visual narratives (including picture stories, comics, and film) requires the combination of traditionally separate theories that span the initial sensory and perceptual processing of complex visual scenes, the perception of events over time, and comprehension of narratives. Existing piecemeal approaches fail to capture the interplay between these levels of processing. Here, we propose the Scene Perception & Event Comprehension Theory (SPECT), as applied to visual narratives, which distinguishes between front-end and back-end cognitive processes. Front-end processes occur (...) during single eye fixations and are comprised of attentional selection and information extraction. Back-end processes occur across multiple fixations and support the construction of event models, which reflect understanding of what is happening now in a narrative (stored in working memory) and over the course of the entire narrative (stored in long-term episodic memory). We describe relationships between front- and back-end processes, and medium-specific differences that likely produce variation in front-end and back-end processes across media (e.g., picture stories vs. film). We describe several novel research questions derived from SPECT that we have explored. By addressing these questions, we provide greater insight into how attention, information extraction, and event model processes are dynamically coordinated to perceive and understand complex naturalistic visual events in narratives and the real world. (shrink)