Autism is one of the most compelling, controversial, and heartbreaking cognitive disorders. It presents unique philosophical challenges as well, raising intriguing questions in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and philosophy of language that need to be explored if the autistic population is to be responsibly served. Starting from the "theory of mind" thesis that a fundamental deficit in autism is the inability to recognize that other persons have minds, Deborah R. Barnbaum considers its implications for the nature of (...) consciousness, our understanding of the consciousness of others, meaning theories in philosophy of language, and the modality of mind. This discussion lays the groundwork for consideration of the value of an autistic life, as well as the moral theories available to persons with autism. The book also explores questions about genetic decision making, research into the nature of autism, and the controversial quest for a cure. This is a timely and wide-ranging book on a disorder that commends itself to serious ethical examination. (shrink)

Original chapters complement anthologized readings on topics in research ethics such as informed consent, the use of humans and animals in research, research misconduct, and conflicts of interest.

Philosophers such as Dan Brock believe that surrogates who make health care decisions on behalf of previously competent patients, in the absence of an advance directive, should make these decisions based upon a substituted judgment principle. Brock favours substituted judgment over a best interests standard. However, Edward Wierenga claims that the substituted judgment principle ought to be abandoned in favour of a best interests standard, because of an inherent problem with the substituted judgment principle. Wierenga's version of the substituted judgment (...) principle and his counterexample to the principle's successful interpretation of valid surrogate consent is presented. A new version of what is meant by the substituted judgment principle is advanced. The new version is not beset with the problems Wierenga initially ascribed to the substituted judgment principle. (shrink)

Being empathetic (or compassionate) is an important trait that allows for those working in health care professions to successfully analyze cases and provide patients with adequate care. One standard and enormously important way to try and teach empathy involves the use of case studies. The case-study approach, however, has some unique limitations in teaching empathy. This paper describes an activity where students are asked to imagine that they have contracted a specific disease (one that lasts the entire semester) through a (...) process of random (or lottery) assignment. Having contracted a disease, students are then tasked with taking on the persona of that patient. In writing and adopting the perspective of that patient, students are better able to learn the kind of empathy needed to be a successful health care professional. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars made profound and lasting contributions to nearly every area of philosophy. The aim of this collection is to highlight the continuing importance of Sellars’ work to contemporary debates. The contributors include several luminaries in Sellars scholarship, as well as members of the new generation whose work demonstrates the lasting power of Sellars’ ideas. Papers by O’Shea and Koons develop Sellars’ underexplored views concerning ethics, practical reasoning, and free will, with an emphasis on his longstanding engagement with Kant. Sachs, (...) Hicks and Pereplyotchik relate Sellars’ views of mental phenomena to current topics in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Fink, deVries, Price, Macbeth, Christias, and Brandom grapple with traditional Sellarsian themes, including meaning, truth, existence, and objectivity. Brandhoff provides an original account of the evolution of Sellars’ philosophy of language and his project of "pure pragmatics". The volume concludes with an author-meets-critics section centered around Robert Brandom’s recent book, From Empiricism to Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars, with original commentaries and replies. (shrink)

There are many prominent examples of artists with autism. However, even when confronted with evidence of these accomplished autistic savants, pragmatic aesthetic theories cannot adequately account for the work of these accomplished artists as artists. This article first examines the nature of autism and explores a prominent psychological theory that purports to explain autistic symptoms. This prominent theory, the theory of mind thesis, holds that autistic symptoms are the result of the failure of persons with autism to make certain types (...) of secondorder propositional attitude attributions. Second, the article describes the work of three visual artists with autism. There can be no doubt that these individuals are in fact artists. Third, the article examines pragmatic aesthetic theory and demonstrates why the pragmatic theory fails to adequately account for the accomplishment of autistic artists. The unique psychological deficits that characterize autism present a challenge to pragmatic aesthetic theories in particular. The conclusion is that the pragmatic theory’s inability to accommodate the artist autistic artist is a profound shortcoming. A revision of the pragmatic theory is called for, as is embracing of the development of the special talents of persons with autism. (shrink)

What makes "digital pets" pets? This article posits four necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an individual to be a pet, concluding that digital pets fail to meet these sufficient criteria and thus are not pets.

Extrait de la couverture : ""Here, for the first time, is a book that brings women's writings out of exile to rethink anthropology's purpose at the end of the century.... As a historical resource, the collection undertakes fresh readings of the work of well-known women anthropologists and also reclaims the writings of women of color for anthropology. As a critical account, it bravely interrogates the politics of authorship. As a creative endeavor, it embraces new Feminist voices of ethnography that challenge (...) prevailing definitions of theory and experimental writing.". (shrink)

The product rule has been used to calculate the risk of a research study, in which the risk of harm is calculated as the product of the degree of harm multiplied by the likelihood that the harm will occur. This article challenges the product rule, especially when used to calculate "minimal risk" studies.

‘Supererogation’ is the notion of going beyond the call of duty. The concept of supererogation has received scrutiny in ethical theory, as well as clinical bioethics. Yet, there has been little attention paid to supererogation in research ethics. Supererogation is examined in this paper from three perspectives: (1) a summary of two analyses of ‘supererogation’ in moral theory, as well as an examination as to whether acts of supererogation exist; (2) a discussion of supererogation in clinical practice, including arguments that (...) both physicians and patients can practice acts of supererogation; (3) a discussion as to why researchers, qua researchers, are not routinely recognized to perform acts of supererogation, while at the same time the very nature of research subject participation involves supererogation. The article concludes by considering three examples of supererogation on the part of researchers, with a plea that researchers’ supererogatory actions be recognized as such. (shrink)

The Therapeutic Misconception (TM) is a cognitive error with similarities to another cognitive error -- the Gambler's Fallacy (GF). This paper examines the similarities between TM and GF in an attempt to further illuminate the nature of TM, and to distinguish it from another cognitive error, Unrealistic Optimism (UO). Many cases of UO and mis-classified as TM.

There are striking examples of artistic achievement among persons with autism. While autism can be the source of profound social isolation and physical difficulties, it can also lead to great accomplishment: it is estimated that between 5 percent1 and 10 percent2 of persons with autism have special skills or talents. These talents range widely, from abilities to pick out prime numbers or calculating the days of the week for dates many years into the future or the past, to the musical (...) and visual arts. These skills are known as savant abilities, or islets of ability. Artists with autism have received acclaim and are the subject of fascination. Even among these prolific and talented artists, a question remains: Is .. (shrink)

The United States' pursuit of increasingly TRIPS-Plus levels of intellectual property protection for medicines in bilateral and regional trade agreements is well recognized. Less so, however, are U.S. efforts through these agreements to influence and constrain the pharmaceutical coverage programs of its trading partners. Although arguably unsuccessful in the Australia- U.S. Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), the U.S. nevertheless succeeded in its bilateral FTA with South Korea (KORUS) in establishing prescriptive provisions pertaining to the operation of coverage and reimbursement programs for (...) medicines and medical devices, which have the potential to adversely impact future access in that country. More recently, draft texts leaked from the current Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations show that U.S. objectives include not only AUSFTA-Plus and KORUS-Plus IP provisions but also ambitious inroads into the domestic health programs of its TPPA partners. This highlights the apparent conflict between trade goals — pursued through multilateral legal instruments to promote economic “health”— and public health objectives, such as the development of treatments for neglected diseases, the pursuit of efficiency and equity in priority setting, and the procurement of medicines at prices that reflect their therapeutic value and facilitate affordable access. (shrink)

The United States’ pursuit of increasingly TRIPS-Plus levels of intellectual property protection for medicines in bilateral and regional trade agreements is well recognized. Less so, however, are U.S. efforts through these agreements, to directly influence and constrain the pharmaceutical coverage programs of its trading partners. The pursuit of increasing levels of intellectual property protection in successive bilateral and regional trade agreements has been driven, at least in part, by a U.S. desire to achieve standards of protection it anticipated from the (...) TRIPS Agreement, but failed to secure. Despite the conclusion of a global agreement on IP standards that would establish significant protections in countries that had hitherto declined them, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry viewed TRIPS as falling well short of its objectives — particularly in light of the delayed introduction of patent protection in countries that are key suppliers of generic medicines, such as India. (shrink)

Strengthening the abilities of smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly women farmers, to produce for both home and the market is currently a development priority. In many contexts, ownership of assets is strongly gendered, reflecting existing gender norms and limiting women’s ability to invest in more profitable livelihood strategies such as market-oriented agriculture. Yet the intersection between women’s asset endowments and their ability to participate in and benefit from agricultural interventions receives minimal attention. This paper explores changes in gender relations (...) and women’s assets in four agricultural interventions that promoted high value agriculture with different degrees of market-orientation. Findings suggest that these dairy and horticulture projects can successfully involve women and increase production, income and the stock of household assets. In some cases, women were able to increase their control over production, income and assets; however in most cases men’s incomes increased more than women’s and the gender-asset gap did not decrease. Gender- and asset-based barriers to participation in projects as well as gender norms that limit women’s ability to accumulate and retain control over assets both contributed to the results. Comparing experiences across the four projects, especially where projects implemented adaptive measures to encourage gender-equitable outcomes, provides lessons for gender-responsive projects targeting existing and emerging value chains for high value products. Other targeted support to women farmers may also be needed to promote their acquisition of the physical assets required to expand production or enter other nodes of the value chain. (shrink)

In this interview, Ruth Groff discusses how she came to be a realist, her role as a community organizer, her relationship to critical realism, and various issues arising from her published work over the years. Discussion ranges across the nature of positivism and its legacy, the concept of falsehood, realism about causal powers, mind-independent reality, the history of philosophy, and the underlying interest in ideology-critique that runs through her thinking.

Sainsbury and Tye (2011) propose that, in the case of names and other simple extensional terms, we should substitute for Frege's second level of content—for his senses—a second level of meaning vehicle—words in the language of thought. I agree. They also offer a theory of atomic concept reference—their ‘originalist’ theory—which implies that people knowing the same word have the ‘same concept’. This I reject, arguing for a symmetrical rather than an originalist theory of concept reference, claiming that individual concepts are (...) possessed only by individual people. Concepts are classified rather than identified across different people. (shrink)

Sainsbury and Tye (2011) propose that, in the case of names and other simple extensional terms, we should substitute for Frege's second level of content—for his senses—a second level of meaning vehicle—words in the language of thought. I agree. They also offer a theory of atomic concept reference—their ‘originalist’ theory—which implies that people knowing the same word have the ‘same concept’. This I reject, arguing for a symmetrical rather than an originalist theory of concept reference, claiming that individual concepts are (...) possessed only by individual people. Concepts are classified rather than identified across different people. (shrink)

Feminist bioethicists of a variety of persuasions discuss the 2013 case of Marlise Munoz, a pregnant woman whose medical care was in dispute after she became brain dead.

Most familiar approaches to social conflict moot reasonable ways of dealing with conflict, ways that aim to serve values such as legitimacy, justice, morality, fairness, fidelity to individual preferences, and so on. In this paper, I explore an alternative approach to social conflict that contrasts with the leading approaches of Rawlsians, perfectionists, and social choice theorists. The proposed approach takes intrinsic features of the conflict—what I call a conflict's evaluative ‘structure’—as grounds for a rational way of responding to that conflict. (...) Like conflict within a single person, social conflict can have a distinctive evaluative structure that supports certain rational responses over others. I suggest that one common structure in both intra- and interpersonal cases of conflict supports the rational response of ‘self-governance’. Self-governance in the case of social conflict involves a society's deliberating over the question, ‘What kind of society should we be?’ In liberal democracies, this rational response is also a reasonable one. (shrink)

Based on her earlier ground-breaking axiomatization of quantified modal logic, the papers collected here by the distinguished philosopher Ruth Barcan Marcus cover much ground in the development of her thought, including influential essays on moral conflict, on belief and rationality, and on some historical figures.

A controversial question among contemporary scholars is whether advanced industrial societies are still in modernity, or whether they are on the threshold of, or even have entered, a new postmodern order. In The Consequences of Modernity Anthony Giddens writes: ‘Beyond modernity, we can perceive a new and different order, which is “post-modern”, but this is quite distinct from what is at the moment called by many “post-modernity”’. However, he does recognize that there is something perceptibly different about the present, which (...) he characterizes as ‘late modernity’, an era in which the consequences of modernity are more radicalized and globalized than before. (shrink)

In the social sciences and in everyday speech we often talk about groups as if they behaved in the same way as individuals, thinking and acting as a singular being. We say for example that "Google intends to develop an automated car", "the U.S. Government believes that Syria has used chemical weapons on its people", or that "the NRA wants to protect the rights of gun owners". We also often ascribe legal and moral responsibility to groups. But could groups literally (...) intend things? Is there such a thing as a collective mind? If so, should groups be held morally responsible? Such questions are of vital importance to our understanding of the social world. In this lively, engaging introduction Deborah Tollefsen offers a careful survey of contemporary philosophers? answers to these questions, and argues for the unorthodox view that certain groups should, indeed, be treated as agents and deserve to be held morally accountable. Tollefsen explores the nature of belief, action and intention, and shows the reader how a belief in group agency can be reconciled with our understanding of individual agency and accountability. _Groups as Agents_ will be a vital resource for scholars as well as for students of philosophy and the social sciences encountering the topic for the first time. (shrink)

"From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram" is a transformative self-help book that takes readers on a journey of healing and self-discovery. Filled with practical, adaptable tips for boosting your overall health and well-being, this book offers a diverse range of advice from twelve of Deborah Charnes's mentors, each representing a unique blend of religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds with their own approaches to holistic wellness. Whether in orange robes or lab coats, combat boots or boxing gloves, these gurus (...) offer simple and adaptable techniques that can be incorporated into daily life, often in as little as ten minutes per day. Featuring anecdotes, teachings and testimonies, Deborah Charnes has selected these practical, life-altering lessons to help you achieve a balanced and healthy mind, body and spirit. This book is for you if you're just beginning your search for a holistic approach to self-improvement or are already an experienced practitioner. "From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram" is the ultimate guide to finding balance, peace and purpose. (shrink)

" Biosemantics " was the title of a paper on mental representation originally printed in The Journal of Philosophy in 1989. It contained a much abbreviated version of the work on mental representation in Language Thought and Other Biological Categories. There I had presented a naturalist theory of intentional signs generally, including linguistic representations, graphs, charts and diagrams, road sign symbols, animal communications, the "chemical signals" that regulate the function of glands, and so forth. But the term " biosemantics " (...) has usually been applied only to the theory of mental representation. Let me first characterize a more general class of theories called "teleological theories of mental content" of which biosemantics is an example. Then I will discuss the details that distinguish biosemantics from other naturalistic teleological theories. (shrink)

This is a book about Aristotle's philosophy of language, interpreted in a framework that provides a comprehensive interpretation of Aristotle's metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology and science. The aim of the book is to explicate the description of meaning contained in De Interpretatione and to show the relevance of that theory of meaning to much of the rest of Aristotle's philosophy. In the process Deborah Modrak reveals how that theory of meaning has been much maligned. This is a major (...) reassessment of an underestimated aspect of Aristotle that will be of particular interest to classical philosophers, classicists and historians of psychology and cognitive science. (shrink)

Descartes is often accused of having fragmented the human being into two independent substances, mind and body, with no clear strategy for explaining the apparent unity of human experience. Deborah Brown argues that, contrary to this view, Descartes did in fact have a conception of a single, integrated human being, and that in his view this conception is crucial to the success of human beings as rational and moral agents and as practitioners of science. The passions are pivotal in (...) this, and in a rich and wide-ranging discussion she examines Descartes' place in the tradition of thought about the passions, the metaphysics of actions and passions, sensory representation, and Descartes' account of self-mastery and virtue. Her study is an important and original reading not only of Descartes' account of mind-body unity but also of his theory of mind. (shrink)

Congo Style presents a postcolonial approach to discussing the visual culture of two now-notorious regimes: King Leopold II's Congo Colony and the state sites of Mobutu Sese Seko's totalitarian Zaïre. Readers are brought into the living remains of sites once made up of ambitious modernist architecture and art in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the total artworks of Art Nouveau to the aggrandizing sites of post-independence Kinshasa, Congo Style investigates the experiential qualities of man-made environments intended to entertain, (...) delight, seduce and impress. In her study of visual culture, Ruth Sacks sets out to reinstate the compelling wonder of nationalist architecture from Kinshasa's post-independence era, such as the Tower of the Exchange (1974), Gécamines Tower (1977), and the artworks and exhibitions that accompanied them. While exploring post-independence nation-building, this book examines how the underlying ideology of Belgian Art Nouveau, a celebrated movement in Belgium, led to the dominating early colonial settler buildings of the ABC Hotels (circa 1908-13). Congo Style combines Sacks's practice as a visual artist and her academic scholarship to provide an original study of early colonial and independence-era modernist sites in their African context. (shrink)

In 1241/4 the theology masters at the university at Paris with their chancellor, Odo of Chateauroux, mandated by their bishop, William of Auvergne, met to condemn ten propositions against theological truth. This book represents the first comprehensive examination of what hitherto has been a largely ignored instrument in a crucial period of the university's early maturation. However, the book's ambition goes wider than this. The condemnation provides a window through which to view the wider doctrinal, intellectual, institutional and historical developments (...) within the emerging university. These include the advent of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the university; and the developing focus of Paris theologians on using their learning for preaching at a time of a rapid and sometimes divergent development of doctrine and concerns over the newly-translated Aristotelian and associated Arab and Jewish works, heresy, the Greek Church and the Jews. The book compares the condemnation's ten articles with the major statement of Catholic principles in the first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, and assesses what conclusions can be drawn from their apparent correlation. (shrink)