Over evolutionary time, humans have developed a selective sensitivity to features in the human face that convey information on sex, age, emotions, and intentions. This ability might not only be applied to our conspecifics nowadays, but also to other living objects (i.e., animals) and even to artificial structures, such as cars. To investigate this possibility, we asked people to report the characteristics, emotions, personality traits, and attitudes they attribute to car fronts, and we used geometric morphometrics (GM) and multivariate statistical (...) methods to determine and visualize the corresponding shape information. Automotive features and proportions are found to covary with trait perception in a manner similar to that found with human faces. Emerging analogies are discussed. This study should have implications for both our understanding of our prehistoric psyche and its interrelation with the modern world. (shrink)

Experimental evidence of the last decades has made the status of ``collapses of the wave function'' even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically expected to occur. Non-collapse interpretations should consequently be taken seriously. In this paper we argue that such interpretations suggest a perspectivalism according to which quantum objects are not characterized by monadic properties, but by relations to other systems. Accordingly, physical systems may possess (...) different properties with respect to different ``reference systems''. We discuss some of the relevant arguments, and argue that perspectivalism both evades recent arguments that single-world interpretations are inconsistent and eliminates the need for a privileged rest frame in the relativistic case. (shrink)

The predominant view is that a study using health data is observational research and should require individual consent unless it can be shown that gaining consent is impractical. But recent arguments have been made that citizens have an ethical obligation to share their health information for research purposes. In our view, this obligation is sufficient ground to expand the circumstances where secondary use research with identifiable health information is permitted without explicit subject consent. As such, for some studies the Institutional (...) Review Board/Research Ethics Committee review process should not assess the practicality of gaining consent for data use. Instead the review process should focus on assessing the public good of the research, public engagement and transparency. (shrink)

Refinements in Darwin’s theory of the origin of a moral sense create a framework equipped to organize and integrate contemporary theory and research on morality. Morality originated in deferential, cooperative, and altruistic ‘‘social instincts,’’ or decision-making strategies, that enabled early humans to maximize their gains from social living and resolve their conflicts of interest in adaptive ways. Moral judgments, moral norms, and conscience originated from strategic interactions among members of groups who experienced confluences and conflicts of interest. Moral argumentation buttressed (...) by moral reasoning is equipped to generate universal and impartial moral standards. Moral beliefs and standards are products of automatic and controlled information-processing and decision making mechanisms. To understand how people make moral decisions, we must understand how early evolved mechanisms in the old brain and recently evolved mechanisms in the new brain are activated and how they interact. Understanding what a sense of morality is for helps us understand what it is. (shrink)

It has often been remarked that Bohr's writings on the interpretation of quantum mechanics make scant reference to the mathematical formalism of quantum theory; and it has not infrequently been suggested that this is another symptom of the general vagueness, obscurity and perhaps even incoherence of Bohr's ideas. Recent years have seen a reappreciation of Bohr, however. In this article we broadly follow this "rehabilitation program". We offer what we think is a simple and coherent reading of Bohr's statements about (...) the interpretation of quantum mechanics, basing ourselves on primary sources and making use of and filling lacunas in|recent secondary literature. We argue that Bohr's views on quantum mechanics are more firmly connected to the structure of the quantum formalism than usually acknowledged, even though Bohr's explicit use of this formalism remains on a rather global and qualitative level. In our reading, Bohr's pronouncements on the meaning of quantum mechanics should first of all be seen as responses to concrete physical problems, rather than as expressions of a preconceived philosophical doctrine. In our final section we attempt a more detailed comparison with the formalism and conclude that Bohr's interpretation is not far removed from present-day non-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships—and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as “the Great Infidel” for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for (...) most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers—and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. The book follows Hume and Smith’s relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume’s death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other’s writings, supported each other’s careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume’s quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends, joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics—from psychology and history to politics and Britain’s conflict with the American colonies. The book reveals that Smith’s private religious views were considerably closer to Hume’s public ones than is usually believed. It also shows that Hume contributed more to economics—and Smith contributed more to philosophy—than is generally recognized. Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought. (shrink)

This study proposes a conceptual model to explain persistent, accepted-as-normal corporate wrongdoing (hereafter banality of wrongdoing), particularly for high performance organizations. The model describes five explanatory variables: the culture of competition, ends-biased leadership, missionary zeal, legitimizing myth, and the corporate cocoon. Our thesis is that the nature of competition drives both legitimate and illegitimate goal-seeking to adopt an iconoclastic (rule-breaking) orientation. High performance organizations are favorable hosts for wrongdoing because high performance requires aggressive behavior at the ethical margins of what (...) is acceptable. The way leadership reacts to competition sets the stage for ethical or unethical cultures to develop. Ends-biased leadership will project strong vision, using ideology and legitimizing myth as tools to inspire and motivate. The resulting missionary zeal justifies using questionable means because of the perceived value of the end. One critical method for building strong culture is creating a sense of being separate and apart from the ordinary. This cocoon effect may create a self-referential value system that is significantly at odds with mainstream culture and in which wrongdoing is banal. We intend an empirical study of the variables described in this model. (shrink)

The future of health research will be characterised by three continuing trends: rising demand for health data; increasing impracticability of obtaining specific consent for secondary research; and decreasing capacity to effectively anonymise data. In this context, governments, clinicians and the research community must demonstrate that they can be responsible stewards of health data. IRBs and RECs sit at heart of this process because in many jurisdictions they have the capacity to grant consent waivers when research is judged to be of (...) particular value. However, several different terms are used to refer to this value, indicating a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the appropriate test for access to health data for research without consent. In this paper we do three things. First we describe the current confusion and instability in terminology relating to public interest in the context of consent waivers. Second we argue for harmonisation of terminology on the grounds of clarity, transparency and consistency. Third we argue that the term ‘public interest’ best reflects the normative work required to justify consent waivers because it is the broadest of the competing terms. ‘Public interest’ contains within its scope positive and negative implications of a study, as well as welfare, justice and rights considerations. In making this argument, we explain the normative basis for consent waivers, and provide a starting place for further discussion about the precise conditions in which a given study can be said to advance the public interest. Ipsos MORI study found that: … the public would be broadly happy with administrative data linking for research projects provided Those projects have social value, broadly defined. Data are de-identified. Data are kept secure. Businesses are not able to access the data for profit. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemological disjunctivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell. I argue that Pritchard is right to associate the view with McDowell, and that McDowell’s ‘inference-blocking’ argument against the sceptic succeeds only if epistemological disjunctivism is accepted. However, Pritchard also recognises that epistemological disjunctivism appears to conflict with our belief that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguishable (the ‘distinguishability problem’). Since the indistinguishability of experiences is the antecedent in the inference McDowell intends to block, (...) I suggest that his argument rests on an inconsistent set of premises. In support of this, I show that Pritchard’s response to the distinguishability problem is incompatible with the conclusion of the ‘inference-blocking’ argument, and that the response available in McDowell’s work relies on a mistaken conception of fallibility. Either McDowell must deny the sceptic’s premise that perceptual experiences are indistinguishable, or he must give up his conclusion that perceptual warrant can be indefeasible. (shrink)

A study involving purchasing managers was conducted to test specific Hunt-Vitell theoretical propositions concerning the determinants of managers' teleological evaluations. We extended the Hunt-Vitell model by developing a new integrative construct, namely the desirability of consequences to self versus others. We hypothesized that desirability of consequences affects teleological evaluations in that the more desirable the consequences of a particular action, the more likely managers evaluate that action positively. The results of the present study provided support for this hypothesis. Furthermore, we (...) extended the Hunt-Vitell model by developing a new integrative construct, namely the desirability of consequences of self versus others. We hypothesized that cognitive moral development moderates the relationship between the desirability of consequences of self versus others and teleological evaluation. The results failed to support this hypothesis. We explained the lack of support in terms of the level of aggregation of the data, the possibility of the confounding effect of respondents' sensitivity to ethical issues, and the possibility that deontological evaluations confounded the respondents' teleological judgments. Future research and managerial implications of the findings were also discussed. (shrink)

Global lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic have offered many people first-hand experience of how their daily online activities threaten their digital well-being. This article begins by critically evaluating the current approaches to digital well-being offered by ethicists of technology, NGOs, and social media corporations. My aim is to explain why digital well-being needs to be reimagined within a new conceptual paradigm. After this, I lay the foundations for such an alternative approach, one that shows how current digital well-being initiatives can (...) be designed in more insightful ways. This new conceptual framework aims to transform how philosophers of technology think about this topic, as well as offering social media corporations practical ways to design their technologies in ways that will improve the digital well-being of users. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed what may soon become a permanent digital transition in the domains of work, education, medicine, and leisure. This transition has also precipitated a spike in concern regarding our digital well-being. Prominent lobbying groups, such as the Center for Humane Technology, have responded to this concern. In April 2020, the CHT has offered a set of ‘Digital Well-Being Guidelines during the COVID-19 Pandemic.’ These guidelines offer a rule-based approach to digital well-being, one which aims to mitigate (...) the effects of moving much of our lives online. The CHT’s guidelines follow much recent interest in digital well-being in the last decade. Ethicists of technology have recently argued that character-based strategies and redesigning of online architecture have the potential to promote the digital well-being of online technology users. In this article, I evaluate the CHT’s rule-based approach, comparing it with character-based strategies and approaches to redesigning online architecture. I argue that all these approaches have some merit, but that each needs to contribute to an integrated approach to digital well-being in order to surmount the challenges of a post-COVID world in which we may well spend much of our lives online. (shrink)

In Descartes’s reformulation of natural philosophy, two aspects of what came to be known as the mechanical philosophy were intimately joined: mechanism as an ontology of nature, according to which all natural things had only ‘mechanical’ properties; and mechanism as a method of explanation. One could, and many philosophers did, adopt mechanism as a method of explanation without adopting a mechanistic ontology. I examine two successors of Descartes who did just that, and one who did not. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli in (...) his De motu animalium and Charles Perrault in his Mécanique de animaux propose and argue for a variety of mechanical accounts of the operations of animals, in particular of their muscles. They reject, however, the Cartesian reduction of animal souls to mechanical forces; the principle of animal motion for them remains a non-mechanical soul. Pierre Sylvain Régis in his Cours entier de philosophie follows Descartes in taking the ‘physical cause’ of motion in animals to be the fermentation of blood in the heart, and thus denies animal souls any role in his physiology. That he can do so while taking over, sometimes word for word, Perrault’s accounts of animal motion shows that mechanistic explanation and mechanistic ontology could easily part company. (shrink)

Hong Kong is undergoing two overlapping crises: social unrest over anti-government protests, and COVID-19. The media has linked these events in both objective and subjective ways. While some liken the social unrest to COVID-19, others do the opposite. This is an intriguing real-world instance of source-target reversibility with interchangeable source and target resulting in two apt variants. This paper reports a survey study of the links between crisis perceptions and the aptness of metaphor variants. Participants (N = 93) rated 30 (...) matched items on the effects of both crises on trust in governance, interpersonal relations, the economy, physical/mental health, and Hong Kong’s future. This determined, for each participant, a correlation coefficient reflecting perceived structural similarity, and absolute/raw difference scores reflecting perceived substantive similarity of the crises. They then explained which (or neither) of two constructed headlines depicting the SOCIAL UNREST as COVID-19 or COVID-19 as the SOCIAL UNRESTwas more apt. Logistic regression analyses showed that i) metaphor aptness was predictable from structural but not substantive similarity, and ii) the worse crisis was preferred as source domain, but only for its more experientially concrete aspects. The study exemplifies socio-culturally situated’ theoretical investigation and how metaphor research can shed light on crisis perceptions. (shrink)

This essay attempts to describe contemporary Catholic sponsored health care in the United States and to describe the purpose and structure of these particular Christian charitable organizations within the broader society. As health care has become more complex, critics claim that there is not a need for Catholic sponsored health care any longer. The author attempts to evaluate critically whether Catholic health care has a place in contemporary society. He reviews some salient biblical, ecclesial, and justice teachings of the Church (...) to demonstrate why religious institutional presence is still needed. The author reviews contemporary health care structures to show how this is accomplished. He also uncovers additional issues which need to be addressed in order for these charitable institutions to carry on the ministry of the Church, to shape social structures, and to proclaim the reign of God. (shrink)

In this chapter, I show that there is at least one crucial, non-short, argument, which does not involve arguments about spatiotemporality, why Kant’s subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge, argued in the Transcendental Deduction, must lead to idealism. This has to do with the fact that given the implications of the discursivity thesis, namely, that the domain of possible determination of objects is characterised by limitation, judgements of experience can never reach the completely determined individual, i.e. the thing in itself (...) or the unlimited real, but only objects as objects of possible experience. As such, it can be shown by reference to a key argument from Kant, that Hegel’s famous criticism that Kant is not licensed, on the basis of his core arguments concerning the original-synthetic unity of apperception, to restrict our knowledge to appearances, is mistaken on purely systematic grounds. More specifically, I argue that idealism follows already from the constraints that the use of the categories, in particular the categories of quality, places on the very conceivability of things in themselves. My claim is that, although it is not only possible but also necessary to think things in themselves, it does not follow that by merely thinking them we have a full grasp of the nature of things in themselves, as some important commentators claim we have. We must therefore distinguish between two kinds of conceiving of things in themselves: conceiving in the standard sense of ‘forming the notion of’, and conceiving in the narrow sense of ‘having a determinate intellectual grasp’. So although we must be able notionally to think things in themselves, as the grounds of their appearances, we cannot even conceive, through pure concepts, of how they are in themselves in any determinate, even if merely intellectual, sense. To put it differently, we cannot have a positive conception of things in themselves (this is in line with Kant’s distinction between noumena in the negative and positive senses; cf. B307–9). For support, I resort to a much overlooked chapter in the Critique, concerning the transcendental Ideal, where Kant discusses what it is for a thing to be a thing in itself proper, namely, something that is thoroughly determined. This concerns the real ontological conditions of things, which are not satisfied by the modal categories alone, namely, their existence conditions. I claim that the chief reason why, given Kant’s view of determinative judgement, we cannot determine a thing in itself is because of two connected reasons: (1) a thing in itself is already fully determined and therefore not further determinable and (2) we cannot possibly determine all of the thing’s possible determinations. In this context, I also discuss the notion of material (not: empirical) synthesis—of which Kant speaks in the chapter on the transcendental Ideal—which must be presupposed as the ground of the formal a priori synthesis that grounds possible experience. This material synthesis, which is an idea of reason that defines a thing as thoroughly determined with regard to all of its possible predicates and has mere regulative status, can by implication not be determined by the forms of the understanding, which synthesise only a limited set of predicates. As a result, given this definition of ‘thing in itself’, any object (appearance) as at best44 a limited set of determinations of the thing can never be numerically identical to the thing in itself as thoroughly determined individual. This undercuts a standard assumption about the identity relation between appearances and things in themselves in many contemporary interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

The ArugmentThis essay answers a single question: what was Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's curator of experiments, doing in his well-known 1665 work,Micrographia?Hooke was articulating a “universal cure of the mind” capable of bringing about a “reformation in Philosophy,” a change in philosophy's interpretive practices and organization. The work explicated the interpretive and political foundations for a community of optical instrument users coextensive with the struggling Royal Society. Standard observational practices would overcome the problem of using nonstandard instruments, while inherent (...) inrepresentation– the interpretive practice championed in the text – were important theological and political meanings. Hooke's kind of experimental philosophy undermined the claims made by “atheists” and “enthusiasts” – the enemies of the restored church and state – while also producing useful knowledge. Equally important, Hooke modeled the community described inMicrographiaupon the classicalres publica, but his community made important concessions to Restoration political realities, especially the growing role of commercial or transactional relationships. (shrink)

Discussions of the relationship between perception and cognition often proceed without a definition of these terms. The sensory-modality specific nature of low-level perceptual processes provides a means of distinguishing them from cognitive processes. A more explicit definition of terms provides insight into the nature of the evidence that can resolve questions about the relationship between perception and cognition.

This paper argues that one problem that besets black-box AI is that it lacks algorithmic justifiability. We argue that the norm of shared decision making in medical care presupposes that treatment decisions ought to be justifiable to the patient. Medical decisions are justifiable to the patient only if they are compatible with the patient’s values and preferences and the patient is able to see that this is so. Patient-directed justifiability is threatened by black-box AIs because the lack of rationale provided (...) for the decision makes it difficult for patients to ascertain whether there is adequate fit between the decision and the patient’s values. This paper argues that achieving algorithmic transparency does not help patients bridge the gap between their medical decisions and values. We introduce a hypothetical model we call Justifiable AI to illustrate this argument. Justifiable AI aims at modelling normative and evaluative considerations in an explicit way so as to provide a stepping stone for patient and physician to jointly decide on a course of treatment. If our argument succeeds, we should prefer these justifiable models over alternatives if the former are available and aim to develop said models if not. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Awareness of the Natural World in Shinjin: Shinran's Concept of JinenDennis HirotaAttainment of Shinjin and TruthThe primary issue regarding knowledge that Shinran (1173-1263) treats in his writings concerns the commonplace, "natural" presupposition that it is constituted by an ego-subject relating itself to stable objects in the world. From his stance within Buddhist tradition, Shinran identifies the crucial problem as the human tendency toward the reification of both sides (...) of this dichotomy-resulting in an autonomous self and substantial things-with the consequent attachments fueling the afflictions ("blind passions") of habitual pain and conflict for oneself and others. The focus of Shinran's treatment of this basic Buddhist concern is the point of engagement with dharma or true reality. In this, he draws into the arena of religious faith the probing scrutiny of lingering attachments to self, even in the dedicated practitioner, that is fundamental to the critical attitude of Mahayana Buddhist tradition.My aim in taking up the issue of truth in my article "Shinran and Heidegger on Truth" in The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science 1 is to suggest a way of reading Shinran that both avoids a common pitfall that Shinran himself cautions against-an engagement with Pure Land teachings that adheres to the subject-object dichotomy of ordinary awareness-and opens up his vision to resonances with contemporary western thought, particularly continental philosophy. This latter concern is not to claim that Shinran adumbrates contemporary thought or is affirmed by resemblances, but rather seeks to cast light on compelling aspects of his thought not often treated in traditional Shin scholastics. There are, therefore, both therapeutic and constructive sides in my attempt to engage Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) thought from a perspective rooted in Shinran's Buddhism.The pitfall in reading Shinran indicated in my article is crystallized in the assumption, prevalent in Western scholarship but also widely seen in Japan, that his Shin Buddhist path centers on a simple faith in the Pure Land teachings, with such faith understood as the subjective acceptance of the truth of doctrinal propositions. In [End Page 189] other words, it is commonly presupposed that Shin Buddhist tradition (what he terms jōdo shinshū, "the true essence of the Pure Land way") implicitly affirms the subject-object dichotomy. This difficulty is frequently compounded by formulations of the supposed tenets of belief that are heavily molded and colored by Protestant Christian notions of self, sin, eschatology, and atonement. It is impossible to take up such comparative theological issues here. 2 In a sense, I have sought in my article to circumvent a hasty assessment of conceptual equivalence by pointing out the possibility of an encompassing or prior dissonance.Since Shinran's concept of "attaining shinjin" (true entrusting, which is also the Buddha-mind given to the practitioner) is built on the endeavor to deconstruct the reification of this dichotomy in engagement with the Pure Land Buddhist path, the unconsciousness reinstatement of it in reading his writings can lead one to a thorough but easily accomplished misconstrual of his thought. My suggestion in my article is that consideration of the analogues in Heidegger's thought can help us see all this. Such comparison also appears to present a relatively untested avenue for Buddhist-Christian conversation, particularly in view of Heidegger's early indebtedness to Luther's "theology of the cross" and the notion of the "alien work of God" as the critical stripping away of attachments to human capacities (destructio in the "Heidelberg Disputation"), and also his approach to Paul's letters to the Thessalonians in The Phenomenology of Religious Life. 3 The keystone in such interreligious conversation remains, however, not simply human fallibility as subject or culpability as agent, but the persistent challenge to the subject-object dichotomy, which may form a locus of refractory difference between the religious traditions.The constructive side of the comparison concerns two general dimensions of Shinran's thought that are highlighted in an approach to his writings that might be called phenomenological. One includes a shift from a reading based on scriptural foundationalism and doctrinal reasoning to a dialogical reading, one attentive to Shinran's effort to... (shrink)

Does a flourishing life involve pursuing passionate attachments? Can we choose what these passionate attachments will be? This book offers an original theory of how we can actively cultivate our passionate attachments. The author argues that not only do we have reason to view passionate attachments as susceptible to growth, change, and improvement, but we should view these entities as amenable to self-cultivation. He uses Pierre Hadot's and Michel Foucault's accounts of Hellenistic self-cultivation as vital conceptual tools to formulate a (...) theory of cultivating our passionate attachments. First, their accounts offer the conceptual resources for a philosophical theory of how we can cultivate our passionate attachments. Second, the exercises of self-cultivation they focus on allow us to outline a practical method though which we can cultivate our passionate character. Doing this brings out a significantly new dimension to the role of the passionate attachments in the flourishing life and offers theoretical and practical accounts of how we can cultivate them based on the Hellenistic conception of self-directed character change. Cultivating Our Passionate Attachments will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working in virtue ethics, moral philosophy, and ancient philosophy. (shrink)

The significance of A. N. Whitehead’s contribution to 20th century metaphysics has become widely recognized. The focus on the novelty of his process ontology, however, has led to a view that isolates him from the mainstream of the tradition of Western philosophy. Hence, it is often overlooked that on the methodological level Whitehead is a pragmatist, whose much quoted indebtedness to William James is reflected in the project of his speculative metaphysics. A detailed analysis of the respective theories of truth (...) and knowledge in James and Whitehead illustrates their common methodological approach and allows us to assess the role of Whiteheadian thinking within the pragmatist tradition. James advances a form of epistemic conservatism that supplements the pragmatic idea of a concept’s cash-value with the demand for internal consistency. New beliefs have to fit in the totality of all previously accepted convictions in order to become accepted as true. James argues his case on three levels – a psychological, an epistemological and a pragmatic one – and develops a theory of truth that comprises an empirical and a rational dimension. Whitehead takes up this two-sided approach, but modifies the idea of genetic consistency into that of systematic coherence. The fundamental concepts of an ontological theory must not be isolated from each other to allow for a cosmology which is both rational and satisfies the pragmatic test of applicability. With the close relation of James and Whitehead in mind, the latter can be identified as the ‘missing link’ that bridges the gap between the so-called classical pragmatism and its more analytic versions as advanced by Quine, Lewis and Rescher. (shrink)

The paradox of analysis has been a problem for analytic philosophers at least since Moore’s time, and it is especially significant for those who seek an account of analysis along classical lines. The present paper offers a new solution to the paradox, where a theory of analysis is given where (1) analysandum and analysans are distinct concepts, due to their failing to share the same conceptual form, yet (2) they are related in virtue of satisfying various semantic constraints on the (...) analysis relation. Rather than distinguish between analysandum and analysans by appeal to epistemic considerations, the paper appeals to semantic considerations in giving a candidate account of the identity conditions for concepts. The distinctness of analysandum and analysans then serves to block the paradox in a straightforward way. (shrink)

THE ESSAY "OF MIRACLES," IN ADDITION TO BEING ONE OF THE MOST PROVOKING SECTIONS OF HUME’S WRITINGS, IS ALSO ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY MISUNDERSTOOD. HUME CLAIMS HIS ARGUMENT IS SIMILAR TO AN ARGUMENT OF ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON, AND I EXPLORE THE PARALLEL BETWEEN THE TWO ARGUMENTS IN DETAIL. FUNDAMENTAL TO BOTH IS THE CONCEPT OF EVIDENTIAL IMPOSSIBILITY: A PROPOSITION, P, IS EVIDENTIALLY IMPOSSIBLE IF AND ONLY IF ALLEGED EVIDENCE FOR THE TRUTH OF P WOULD NOT BE EVIDENCE FOR P, WERE (...) THE TRUTH OF P ESTABLISHED. I ARGUE THAT HUME’S CLAIM, WHICH IS THAT PROPOSITIONS ASSERTING THE EXISTENCE OF MIRACLES ARE EVIDENTIALLY IMPOSSIBLE, IS ONE WHICH IS NOT ACCEPTABLE, BUT FOR REASONS OTHER THAN THOSE THAT ARE USUALLY GIVEN. (shrink)

Over the past two years, much has been made by some governments and the media about the possible callous and racist distribution of Quinacrine by two Americans to sterilize women in the Third World. The main criticism of the practice is that though Quinacrine is unapproved by the developed world's health regulatory agencies for this particular use in the developed world due to inadequate testing for long-term side effects, it is used on defenseless women in the developing world.I argue that (...) the distribution of unapproved medical and other products is morally permissible if it satisfies two conditions: agent-centered utilitarianism and Kant's Categorical Imperative. Roughly, I contend that if the situation will probably improve and no one is treated as a mere means, then it is ethical either to give or to sell the products to those who choose to have them, regardless of where in the world they live. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman has used his `outsider' position to explore the defining boundaries of our world and help shape a discourse which allows communication across these boundaries. In this spirit he has investigated: sociology and culture; capitalism, socialism and class; and modernity and postmodernity. Bauman has argued for an emancipatory sociology which takes full account of what ought and ought not to be, what human beings hope for and fear, and the need to give people intellectual tools to make use of (...) their freedom. Applying the strategy of the `hermeneutic circle', he has examined capitalist and socialist regimes from a range of vantage points. He has also identified the challenges we all now face as inhabitants of the half-ruined structures created by modernity's failed ambitions. Bauman has confronted these challenges in the last decade by focusing on the evils of modern bureaucracy as epitomized by the Holocaust, the inescapability of each individual's responsibility for his or her own moral choices, and the potential for an open and self-critical dialogue between sociologists and their fellow citizens. (shrink)

Ethics committees like Institutional Review Boards and Research Ethics Committees are typically empowered to approve or reject proposed studies, typically conditional on certain conditions or revisions being met. While some have argued this power should be primarily a function of applying clear, codified requirements, most institutions and legal regimes allow discretion for IRBs to ethically evaluate studies, such as to ensure a favourable risk-benefit ratio, fair subject selection, adequate informed consent, and so forth. As a result, ethics committees typically make (...) moral demands on researchers: require them to act in a way the committee considers ethically right or appropriate. This paper argues that moral demands are legitimate only if publicly justifiable; and as a result, committee decisions are subject to a public justification requirement. Ethics committees can permissibly request for more information, changes to the research protocol or that the research is delayed or even stopped only if these demands are publicly justifiable. This latter claim is in turn justified on the basis that moral demands to φ are permissible only if we are in a position to know that the addressee ought to φ and that we are in a position to know a proposition only if it is publicly justifiable. This argument suggests that ethics committees must consciously and explicitly appeal to public reasons in their decision-making. In cases where public reasons cannot be offered, committees would not be permitted to reject a given study or make approval conditional on an amendment. (shrink)

Weiss, Propen, and Reid gather a diverse group of scholars to analyze the growing obsolescence of the human-object dichotomy in today's world. In doing so, Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman brings together diverse disciplines to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

This essay examines Don Ihde’s postphenomological philosophy of technology through the lens of philosophical anthropology, that sub-discipline of philosophy concerned with the nature and place of the human being. While Ihde’s philosophical corpus and its reception in Postphenomenology: A Critical Companion to Ihde indicate rich resources for thinking about human nature, several themes receive too little attention in both, including the nature of the human being, the emergence of the posthuman, and the place of the human being in our contemporary (...) pluriculture. (shrink)

I began teaching business ethics over 20 years ago in the hope that I would be out of business in 10 years. Scandals and poor decision making have only continued, most recently with the financial crisis of 2008. The context for ethics and morality is decision making. Those who teach business ethics in this challenging century will be well served to consider the purpose and pedagogy of ethics in a business curriculum. I assess and discuss the purpose of business ethics (...) in a business curriculum. I argue that business ethics education can be conceived as strengthening skills for making good decisions. I relate this to the Greek conception of practical wisdom (“phronesis”). I propose a method for achieving this purpose, based on a flight simulation model, a method that hassignificantly reduced pilot error caused accidents. The characteristics of this program are decision making practice, exhaustive debriefing, and creating an environment for engaging diverse perspectives on problems and solutions. (shrink)

In their response to ‘Public interest in health data research: laying out the conceptual groundwork’, Grewal and Newson critique us for inattention to the law and putting forward an impracticably broad conceptual understanding of public interest. While we agree more work is needed to generate a workable framework for Institutional Review Boards/Research Ethics Committees, we would contend that this should be grounded on a broad conception of public interest. This broadness facilitates regulatory agility, and is already reflected by some current (...) frameworks such as that found in the guidelines approved under Australia’s Privacy Act. It remains unclear which elements of our broad account Grewal and Newson would reject, or indeed where the substantive disagreement with our position lies. (shrink)

Debating is out of fashion. No one raises the question of what has gone wrong when the entire political project of a society is seemingly reduced to 'education, education, education'. The aim of this lively and challenging book is to provide the stimulus for further thinking about key educational issues by exposing and explaining the assumptions behind this obsession. Over forty contributors, all experts in their fields, have written short, accessible, informed and lively articles for students, teachers and others involved (...) in education. They address broad questions that are central to any understanding of what is really going on in the education system. Topics covered include: the new relationship of the state to education; the changed nature of schools; whether teachers are afraid to teach; the problems with circle time, anti-bullying strategies, citizenship education, and multiple intelligences; the retreat from truth and the demise of theory in teacher training, and much more. Everyone learning to teach in primary and secondary schools and further education colleges will find this book relevant to their programmes. In particular the book would be useful for students on Education Studies courses. (shrink)