BackgroundTranscranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an FDA approved treatment for major depression, migraine, obsessive compulsive disorder, and smoking addiction. TMS has gained popular media support, but media coverage and commercial reporting of TMS services may be contributing to the landscape of ethical issues.MethodsWe explore the differences between the academic and print media literature portrayals of TMS to evaluate their ethical impact for the public. We performed a comprehensive literature review using PubMed and NexisUni databases to evaluate the literature available on (...) TMS from 2014 to 2019. Our sample consisted of 1632 academic articles and 468 print media articles for a total of 2100 articles. We then coded each article for seven specific top-level codes: (1) type of source, (2) year of publication, (3) purpose of TMS application, (4) age of subjects, (5) population, (6) overall tone, and (7) specification of TMS parameters. We also made some additional notes of the TMS parameters where specified and the breakdown of mental health applications.ResultsOur results indicated several discrepancies between the academic and the print media reporting about TMS technology, particularly with regards to tone and specificity. Namely, the academic sample was largely neutral and specific about the parameters under which TMS was being applied, while the print media sample was heavily optimistic and presented the application of TMS with far less specificity. There was some convergence between the two samples, such as the focus of both on therapy as the predominant TMS application.ConclusionsWe call upon the academic community to increase scrutiny of TMS services in order to ensure that people’s knowledge of health technologies is not unduly influenced by sensational claims and a general lack of adequate information. (shrink)

In this paper we examine how the use of robots in caring for elders can impact the meaningfulness of elders’ lives. We present a framework for understanding ‘meaningfulness in life’, and then apply that framework in discussing ways in which the use of robots to assist in activities of daily living can preserve, enhance or undermine the meaningfulness of elders’ lives. We conclude with a discussion of if and how having false beliefs about companion robots can affect meaningfulness in the (...) life of the person having those false beliefs. (shrink)

A novel "dream splicing" technique allows the objective evaluation of thematic coherence in dreams. In this study, dream reports were cut into segments and segments randomly recombined to form spliced reports. Judges then attempted to distinguish spliced reports from intact ones. Five judges correctly scored 22 spliced and intact reports 82% of the time ; 13 of the 22 reports were correctly scored by all five judges . We conclude that most dream reports contain sufficient coherence to allow judges to (...) distinguish intact from spliced reports. In contrast, abridged reports, which had all but their first and last five lines removed, were correctly identified in only 10 of 38 reports, suggesting that thematic continuity does not normally extend from the beginning to the end of dreams. The continuity identified in this minority of the reports depended on easily identifiable features, such as specific characters, objects, locations, and emotions, rather than on "latent" themes. (shrink)

From 1683 to 1685 Arnauld engaged in a controversy with Malebranche over the nature of ideas. While the occasion for the dispute was a disagreement over grace, the focus was the account of ideas given in Malebranche’s Search After Truth. Arnauld published his Des vraies et des fausses idées in 1683, and this was followed by a response from Malebranche in 1684 and a response by Arnauld shortly afterward. In his criticism of Malebranche, Arnauld claimed to be reacting not just (...) for himself, but for Descartes as well, and so a look at the controversy and the reasons given for the conflicting claims will, I believe, help in understanding Descartes’ own difficult remarks on ideas. (shrink)

In this book, Russell Winslow analyzes contemporary discourses in microbiology and evolutionary inheritance theory to foreground the metaphysical prejudices that unreflectively subtend these discourses, highlight and illuminate an emergent prejudice of an ecological ontology in microbiology, and determine what interpretive possibilities it affords.

To test the notion that shifts in visual imagery and attention are correlated with experiences of emotion, we studied 10 dream reports using an affirmative probe of emotion and a quantitative measure of plot discontinuity. We found that emotion, especially changes in emotion, are correlated with discontinuities in visual imagery. These correlations are quantified using a new graph theoretical method for analyzing narrative reports.

ABSTRACT:We focus on the core institution of the capital market and the institutional work of professional service firms that provide ratings on corporate issuers, initially in a bid to maintain this institution, which suffered when those involved relied solely on information from the issuers themselves. Through our analysis we identify a new type of decoupling—complicit decoupling. Complicit decoupling evolves over time, beginning with the creation of a new practice, here corporate ratings as a form of policing work, which emerges to (...) help to maintain a core institution. This practice is then adopted, implemented and later becomes decoupled. Exposure does not undermine the legitimacy of the practice because external actors collude in the ‘window dressing’ and, because it has become normalized, only partial repairs are enacted. It is by nature field-level institutional work, benefiting the majority of the field and inherently involves a violation of promise keeping. We conclude with implications for managers and behavioral ethics researchers. (shrink)

Fall prediction using machine learning has become one of the most fruitful and socially relevant applications of computer vision in gerontological research. Since its inception in the early 2000s, this subfield has proliferated into a robust body of research underpinned by various machine learning algorithms (including neural networks, support vector machines, and decision trees) as well as statistical modeling approaches (Markov chains, Gaussian mixture models, and hidden Markov models). Furthermore, some advancements have been translated into commercial and clinical practice, with (...) companies in various stages of development capitalizing on the aging population to develop new commercially available products. Yet despite the marvel of modern machine learning-enabled fall prediction, little research has been conducted to shed light on the security and privacy concerns that such systems pose for older adults. The present study employs an interdisciplinary lens in examining privacy issues associated with machine learning fall prediction and exploring the implications of these models in elderly care and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Ultimately, a justice-informed set of best practices rooted in social geroscience is suggested to help fall prediction researchers and companies continue to advance the field while preserving elderly privacy and autonomy. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The papers given at this symposium have been directed to two problems: the needs of the physical sciences which the social sciences should fulfill, andthe capacity of contemporary social science to satisfy these needs.Consideration of the first problem divided itself into two parts: the needs involved in the process of answering questions in the physical sciences, and the needs involving application of information gained by questions in physical science. The role of social science with respect to is generally recognized, but (...) the role with respect to is not. Many, in science and philosophy, still hold to the notion of a non-evaluative, non-normative, purely objective, or what-have-you physical science. Professor Littauer, however, raised a critical problem in this regard: on what basis is the decision made to accept or reject a scientific hypothesis? We are in a position today to assert that such decisions do involve an evaluative judgment. Recent developments in mathematical statistics, as represented in Wald's On the Principles of Statistical Inference, indicate that the selection of the best statistical testing procedure involves at least a knowledge of the social consequences for the various mistakes one might make in using any specific testing procedure. The introduction of the “weight function” into the method for selecting among alternative hypotheses points in a striking way to one door through which knowledge and evaluation of possible social phenomena enters physical science. The social scientist is badly needed here. It is true that today this aspect of experimental method is seldom self-consciously faced. Where it is, the evaluations are generally intuitive and are not based on sound sociological knowledge. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the continued development of experimental methods in all sciences depends on our reducing the question of what constitutes a “best” test to experimental terms. (shrink)

There is no period in the history of philosophy so difficult to understand as that period beginning upon Kant's death and extending up into the present. Attributing this difficulty to the proximity and contingence of the period to our own is not a satisfactory excuse, though we would be willing to admit we lack some of the clarity that “time passed” gives. If we give up the challenge of making a meaningful interpretation of this history because we lack perspective, we (...) are surrendering a period whose lessons might prove immeasurably valuable to us. What is more important than such negative motivation for making a meaningful study of the philosophy of the last 100 years is the positive demand that we begin to develop techniques for understanding the present and immediate past, in order that we can more effectively face and contribute to the present and future. (shrink)

Peterson et al. (2023) outline a broad ethics agenda for imminent research on psychedelic agents for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) by acknowledging the therapeutic promise of...

In the following article, the author offers an interpretation of George Canguilhem’s thinly articulated concept “biological meaning.” As a way into the problem, the article begins with the question: how does “biological meaning” differ from other forms of meaning? That is to ask, if we are to hold that the mere physical/chemical mode of being of a stone differs from the biological mode of being of an organism, how do they differ in their meaning? In an effort to supply an (...) answer to this question, our author postulates that, when we consider the lived circumstances of the organism, the existential situation of living beings, their biological facticity, then we intuit a fundamental difference in the mode of being of the motions of billiard balls and those of organisms. Moreover, through the investigation into, on the one hand, the motions that take place in a living milieu and, on the other hand, the form of potentiality inherent in what we might call the motions of adaptation, the author offers a preliminary description of a meaning that might be uniquely biological. (shrink)

In “On the Life of thinking in Aristotle’s De Anima,” the author offers an interpretation of the tripartite structure of the unified soul in Aristotle’s text. The principleactivity that unities the nutritive, sensuously perceptive and noetically perceptive parts of the soul into a single, continuous entity is shown by our author to be genesis (or the sexual begetting of offspring). After establishing this observation, the paper provides the textual grounds to understand how both sensuous and noetic perception can be understood (...) as a kind of embodied genesis. A further consequence of this argument will be an interpretation of “thinking,” of noetic perception, as a kind of open and passive reception of the primary forms of other beings. As such, Aristotle’s conception of thinking, qua nous, is a refreshing, if strange, contrast to the more common modern vision of “thinking” as the activity of an agent mentally seizing hold of beings in the service of the mastery of nature. (shrink)

In « On the Nature of Logos in Aristotle », the author employs Aristotle’s curious division of the logos-having portion of the soul in the Nicomachean Ethics as a stepping stone to pose a question about the paradox of becoming an individual citizen within a citizenry. In the Ethics, Aristotle argues that the logos-having region betrays a division of this part of the soul into (1) a logos that listens and repeats logoi and (2) a logos that properly works and (...) creates, qua energeia, as logos. Given Aristotle’s assertion that logos as energeia, like virtue, is achieved via a repetition of the surrounding logos-world, the author pursues the nature of this transformation from « simply repeating » into « properly being-at-work » in logos. Further, since Aristotle asserts that the unique nature of the human being, in contrast to other kinds of nature, is to be at work in logos, the trajectory of these questions leads the argument toward a consideration of the meaning of nature in Aristotle and, in particular, the nature of logos. (shrink)

Even children have asked: Who am I? How should I live? What does life mean? Almost everyone seeks the answer to these questions at one time or another. This rewarding series for young adults presents four well-known thinkers and their ideas on these profound issues.

An essay from Russell, Unpopular Essays.

CYNTHIA FLEURY / LYNDA LOTTE. — Anita Erba, vous faites partie des nouveaux courants de la peinture en Israël. La spécificité de votre travail consiste en ce qu’il est au carrefour de l’Orient et de l’Occident. Comment définissez-vous votre travail artistique? Quelle est son évolution interne et comment se traduit-elle par rapport aux supports choisis?ANITA.

Cynthia Willett brings together diverse insights from social psychology, classical and contemporary literature, and legal and justice theory to redefine the basis of the moral and legal person. Feminists, communitarians, and postmodern thinkers have made clear that classical liberalism, with its emphasis on individual autonomy and excessive rationalism, is severely limited. Although she is sympathetic with the liberal view, Willett finds it necessary to go further. For her, attention to the social dimensions of the family and civil society is (...) critical if issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality are to be taken seriously. Interdependency, not autonomy, is of increasing significance in an era of globalization. Willett proposes an alternate normative theory that recognizes the impact of social forces on individual well-being. Citizenship in a democracy should not be defined solely on the basis of rights to autonomy, such as bare rights to property or free speech, she explains. Rather, citizenship should be defined first of all in terms of the rights, responsibilities, and capacities of the social person. It is within the African American tradition of political thought that Willett finds a more useful definition of human identity and political freedom. The African American experience offers a compelling vision of social change and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a social person. By focusing on everyday battles against racism, Willett contends, we can gain valuable insight into the meaning of justice. (shrink)