This paper argues that we ought to rethink the harm-reduction prioritization strategy that has shaped early responses to acute resource scarcity (particularly of intensive care unit beds) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some authors have claimed that “[t]here are no egalitarians in a pandemic,” it is noted here that many observers and commentators have been deeply concerned about how prioritization policies that proceed on the basis of survival probability may unjustly distribute the burden of mortality and morbidity, even while reducing (...) overall deaths. The paper further argues that there is a general case in favor of an egalitarian approach to medical rationing that has been missed in the ethical commentary so far; egalitarian approaches to resource rationing minimize wrongful harm. This claim is defended against some objections and the paper concludes by explaining why we should consider the possibility that avoiding wrongful harm is more important than avoiding harm simpliciter. (shrink)

As I stood outside of Carlos's room, I felt caught on the horns of a dilemma. It seemed impossible to truly “be there” for Carlos without sacrificing my other intern duties. This tension pervaded much of my residency training, as I often found myself spending more time completing chart notes, answering pages, and giving sign out than I did at the bedside with my patients. I knew I had a duty to “do my job”—I could not let my team down. (...) But what about my duty to Carlos, a duty to act on my intuition and try to “get to the bottom” of his illness, if that was even possible? And what about my thirteen other patients? Wasn't I was their doctor as well? I have spent countless hours studying the ethical frameworks for medical rationing. And yet no framework could have told me how to weigh my intuition in that crucial moment of decision-making, or when it was okay to leave a few notes unfinished in order to have the time to talk with Carlos. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. (shrink)

Experimental research has shown that pairs of stimuli which are congruent and assumed to 'go together' are recalled more effectively than an item presented in isolation. Will this multisensory memory benefit occur when stimuli are richer and longer, in an ecological setting? In the present study, we focused on an everyday situation of audio-visual learning and manipulated the relationship between audio guide tracks and viewed portraits in the galleries of the Tate Britain. By varying the gender and narrative style (...) of the voice-over, we examined how the perceived congruency and assumed unity of the audio guide track with painted portraits affected subsequent recall. We show that tracks perceived as best matching the viewed portraits led to greater recall of both sensory and linguistic content. We provide the first evidence that manipulating crossmodal congruence and unity assumptions can effectively impact memory in a multisensory ecological setting, even in the absence of precise temporal alignment between sensory cues. (shrink)

Evidence‐based interventions have been developed and used to prevent HIV infections among black men who have sex with men (MSM) in Canada and the United States; however, the degree to which interventions address racism and other interlocking oppressions that influence HIV vulnerability is not well known. We utilize integrative antiracism to guide a review of HIV prevention intervention studies with black MSM and to determine how racism and religious oppression are addressed in the current intervention evidence base. We searched CINAHL, (...) PsychInfo, MEDLINE and the CDC compendium of evidence‐based HIV prevention interventions and identified seventeen interventions. Three interventions targeted black MSM, yet only one intervention addressed racism, religious oppression, cultural assets and religious assets. Most interventions' samples included low numbers of black MSM. More research is needed on interventions that address racism and religious oppression on HIV vulnerability among black MSM. Future research should focus on explicating mechanisms by which multiple oppressions impact HIV vulnerability. We recommend the development and integration of social justice tools for nursing practice that aid in addressing the impacts of racism and other oppressions on HIV vulnerability of black MSM. (shrink)

In seinen Vorlesungen über Ethik tritt Ernst Tugendhat u.a. dafür ein, daß sich das moralische "alle" auf alle kooperationsfähigen Wesen bezieht. Hätte Tugendhat recht, gehörten z.B. Tiere und Foeten nicht zum moralischen Universum. Wer ihnen Leid zufügte, täte ihnen kein Unrecht.Die These dieses Artikels ist, daß Tugendhat in dieser Sache fehlgeht. Das moralische "alle" bezieht sich auf alle leidensfähigen und nicht nur auf alle kooperationsfähigen Wesen. Der Artikel sucht den Fehler in Tugendhats Argumentation, findet ihn in einem doppeldeutigen Gebrauch des (...) Begriffes "Kooperation" und zeigt auf ansonsten Tugendhatscher Basis, daß alle leidensfähigen Wesen zum moralischen Universum gehören. Das heißt dann aber auch, daß die alte Kantische und auch Tugendhatsche Dichotomie von "Pflichten in Ansehung" versus "Pflichten gegenüber" durch eine Trichotomie ersetzt werden muß. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory of language holds that one fact can represent another, and that propositions are pictures of states of affairs. What makes a fact into a picture of a given s tate of affairs are the correlations between picture elements and objects and the correlations between relations among picture elements and relations among objects. But a problem sometimes raised is that propositions can’t be pictures, as pictures—unlike propositions—do not say anything. An interpretation (e.g. Anscombe’s) holds that the above‐mentioned (...) correlations do make the picture into a proposition. But this neither handles the objection, nor is it Wittgenstein’s view. Further, Wittgenstein’s own account faces serious difficulties in addressing these issues, and the Anscombe‐type interpretation obscures this fact. (shrink)

Dieses Arbeitsinstrument bietet eine Aktualisierung des erstmals 1987 publizierten kritischen Überblicks über die Quellen zu dem im Titel genannten Streit. Es geht dem Verf. vor allem darum, den seit 1987 nicht unerheblichen Fortschritt in Editionen und Forschung zu dokumentieren. Die Regesten der Quellen (S. 45–184) werden zum einen durch einen knappen Bericht zur Forschungslage (S. 2–8), zum Wert der Quellen (S. 9–13), zum reichskirchlichen Ursprung des Streits im sog. Neuchalkedonismus (S. 13–21), zu seinen politischen Hintergründen (S. 21–33) und zu seinem (...) Verlauf (S. 34–44) eingeleitet und zum anderen durch prosopographische Hinweise zu den Regesten (S. 189–279) erschlossen, die, wie der Verf. S. VII feststellt, „durch die Vorarbeiten“ in der PmbZ (Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit) „wesentlich erleichtert“ wurden. Als Anhang bietet dieses Instrument eine Zeittafel, ein Glossar zu den wichtigsten Termini und ein Stellen- und Sachregister (S. 281–307). Eingearbeitet hat der Verf. vor allem die Edition der ACO II,2 von R. Riedinger (1992) und der Scripta saeculi VII vitam Maximi Confessoris illustrantia, die P. Allen und B. Neil im Band 39 des CCSG vorgelegt haben (1999). Auf Grund der bisher schwer zugänglichen Ausgabe von S.L. Epifanovic (Kiew 1917) und ihrer Wiedergabe in der CPG sind zumindest zwei Dubletten in die Regesten aufgenommen worden. Denn die Texte (1) Nr. 67, 67a (CPG 7697, 26); Nr. 90 (CPG 7707, 24) und (2) Nr. 89 (CPG 7697, 27); Nr. 91 (CPG 7707, 25) sind jeweils nur verschiedene Rezensionen. – Die Regesten zur Vorgeschichte des Streits im 6. Jahrhundert (Nr. 1–7), die als „Spitze eines Eisberges“ eingeführt werden (S. 9f.), sind nicht vollständig; insbes. fehlen hier die Zeugnisse aus Kaiser Justinians Schriften (vom Rez., Kaiser Justinian als Kirchenpolitiker und Theologe, Augustinianum 39, 1999, 5–83). Zurecht betont der Verf., dass der Streit schon im Konzil von Chalkedon (451) angelegt ist, sofern durch dessen „Verdammungen … der Grat für die weitere christologische Arbeit … sehr schmal geworden“ war (S. 15f.). Dass hier die historische Forschung ansetzen und ihre Begriffe schärfen muss, hat der Rez. in Studia Patristica 34, 2001, 572–604, gezeigt. Ausführlich belegen die Regesten zum einen die Aussagen von Maximos dem Bekenner, sieht man von seinen „vielen beiläufigen Bemerkungen“ ab (S. 45), und zum anderen den Streit der römischen Kirche seit „der Kampfansage“ unter Papst Johannes IV. (S. 32; Nr. 67b: Januar 641). Dabei wird der Verf. der historischen Kritik an Maximos gerecht, die 1967 mit W. Lackner's Beurteilung der griechischen Vita des Maximos (Nr. 171) begann, 1973 durch die Publikation der syrischen Vita (Nr. 172) einen neuen Anstoß erhielt, 1985 mit R. Riedinger's Nachweis, dass die Akten der Lateransynode von 649 (Nr. 110) „ein Werk der Byzantiner um Maximos“ sind, der diese Synode als 6. Ökumenisches Konzil bezeichnet hat (Nr. 113), und seit 1999 auf Grund der kritischen Ausgabe jener Dokumentation, die Maximos' Anhänger nach 655 publizierten (CCSG 39) zum Urteil geführt hat: „Maximos und seine Schüler“ sind „zu sehr einseitiger Darstellung und zu bewussten Irreführungen fähig gewesen“ (S. 13). Dies gilt auch dann, wenn man in der Beurteilung der theologischen Intentionen des Maximos nicht dem Verf. (S. 20f.), sondern W. Elert (1957), dessen Verdienste der Verf. zurecht würdigt, und anderen Autoren folgt und vor allem eine Entwicklung in Maximos' Christologie aufweist. Eine solche zeigt sich z.B. in Maximos' Interpretation des Geschehens von Gethsemani (Matth. 26,39) und der Oratio 30,12 des Gregor von Nazianz. Hier wäre auch Maximos' Korrektur an der neuchalkedonischen Basis (Nr. 102; CPG 7697, 9) zu nennen, die eine Entwicklung von 633 (Nr. 42; CPG 7699, 19) über den Höhepunkt der Krise um 640 (Nr. 60; CPG 7697, 20) voraussetzt. Wenn es zur zuletzt genannten Quelle heißt, Anastasios I. von Antiochien werde hier „als völlig orthodox beurteilt“, dann sollte man hinzufügen, dass Maximos der Nachweis nur über eine höchst subtile Interpretation gelingt, die auf die durch Anastasios' Text gestellte Frage nach dem einen Subjekt des Wirkens nicht eingeht. Es sei hier die Bemerkung erlaubt, dass es der Maximos–Forschung gut täte, wieder nach Entwicklungen im Denken dieses bedeutenden Theologen zu fragen. – Im Vergleich zum vorgenannten Dossier ist jenes des Anastasios Sinaites (Nr. 173; 175) nicht vollständig erfasst. Dies ist bedauerlich, weil dieser Autor kein Neuchalkedoniker ist und darum die Christologie Kyrills von Alexandrien und somit Chalkedon im Ausgang von der Unterscheidung von drei Klassen christologischer Aussagen der Bibel beurteilt, auf der die Union von 433 gründet, in der sich Kyrill mit den Orientalen verständigt hatte und auf die das Konzil von Chalkedon in der Einleitung zu seiner definitio fidei hinweist. Die dritte Klasse, jene der theandrischen Aussagen, erlaubte es Anastasios gegen seine reichskirchlichen Gegner in Ägypten und Syrien, von ihm Harmasiten genannt, den Tomus Leonis und so die antiochenische Christologie einzubringen und das Zeitalter Justinians und dessen Folgen einfach nicht zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, auch wenn er um das 5. Ökumenische Konzil von Konstantinopel wusste, dessen Sprache jene des sog. Neuchalkedonismus gewesen ist. Abschließend sei betont, dass dieses Arbeitsinstrument höchst sorgfältig zusammengestellt und eingeleitet ist. Dem Rez. ist nur eine Inkonsistenz aufgefallen. Der Verf. vertritt auf S. 23 als historisch gesichert, dass Kaiser Herakleios „später die Verantwortung für die Ekthesis von sich gewiesen hat“, und verweist dazu auf das in CPG 7736 wiedergegebene Zitat der Keleusis (Nr. 68; CPG 9382), dessen Authentizität er jedoch auf S. 97 zurecht bezweifelt. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editors’ NoteJames M. DuBois, Ana S. Iltis, and Heidi A. WalshFrom childhood, David Slakter had undergone tests and invasive procedures to monitor his nephritis. It was not a surprise when in 2015, doctors told him he needed a kidney transplant. The wife of a childhood friend was a close match and gave him one of her kidneys. Before his transplant, aerobic exercise was difficult; a few months after transplant, (...) Slakter could ride his bike, hike, and work out with a personal trainer. He no longer had to weigh food or gauge his potassium consumption, a concern for people with kidney failure. For Slakter, “life post-transplant has been a significant improvement.”Individuals or family members of those who have received an organ transplant from a living or deceased donor share their stories in this issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics. The symposium is titled “Receiving the Gift of Life: Stories from Organ Transplant Recipients.” Organ transplantation can extend an individual’s life by decades. It can also greatly improve an individual’s quality of life, as was Slakter’s experience. At the same time, organ transplantation is expensive and stressful. Recipients can experience complications, including organ rejection, and there are few appealing alternatives.After her heart transplant, author Leilani R. Graham required four open-heart surgeries, ECMO, and an intra-aortic balloon pump. She experienced delirium, necrotizing pneumonia, and severe muscular atrophy that required her to re-learn how to walk. She struggled with weight gain, explosive mood swings, hair loss, and was terrified that her body would reject the new heart. For Graham, “[Transplant] was not the miracle [she] was hoping for.” Graham says she felt unprepared for and inadequately informed about what to expect after her transplant, which left her “battered, beaten, and bruised” with a 12-inch line from neck to navel and “bullet holes” up and down her torso from the chest tubes. When reflecting on her experience post-transplant, Graham says, “It wasn’t the physical trauma that hurt the most. It was that no one seemed surprised [by the aftereffects of transplant].” Seemingly no one, that is except Graham, who calls on transplant providers to “prioritize empathy.”The symposium editors are Jason T. Eberl and Tristan McIntosh. Three commentary articles, written by Macey Leigh Levan, Heather Lannon, and Vidya A. Fleetwood, Roslyn B. Mannon & Krista L. Lentine, offer important insights into the authors’ stories. The editors thank Mid-America Transplant, the UCSF Lung Transplant Program, Donor Connect, William L. Freeman, MD, MPH, MJIL, CIP, Janet Monk, and the individuals who gave anonymous donations to support the publication of this issue, an open-access VOICES edition of the symposium, and accompanying teaching guides.The research article in this issue, “‘A Shell of My Former Self’: Using Figurative Language to Promote Communication about Patient Suffering,” was written by Tyler Tate, Elizabeth Stein, and Robert A. Pearlman. The relief of suffering is a primary goal of medicine. However, the authors note that clinicians often miss or ignore suffering because they focus on the causes rather than the experience of suffering, or the subjective nature of suffering makes it difficult to discuss. The authors believe that “the key to communicating about suffering lies in finding [End Page vii] the right kind of words to describe the experience” and say that figurative language offers a promising approach. In their research, the authors performed qualitative analysis on 52 works of literature and identified 254 excerpts of figurative language with themes of non-physical or psychological suffering. The authors found 13 salient themes: brokenness, diminishment, disorientation, drowning, emptiness, imprisonment, battle, darkness, isolation, invisibility, lifelessness, punishment, and torture. The authors reiterate that developing a shared language of suffering could foster a therapeutic patient-clinician relationship and improve clinicians’ ability to recognize and address a patient’s experience of suffering.María Susana Ciruzzi wrote the first of two case studies included in this issue. “The Sword of King Solomon” addresses a tragic and difficult subject—how to navigate the situation posed by conjoined twins when “any decision will produce damage and suffering.” The case involves two infant male patients born at 37 weeks gestation as omphalo-ischiopagus conjoined twins... (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew Kieran, ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value’. Philosophy Compass 1/2 (2006): pp. 129–143, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2006.00019.x Author’s Introduction Up until fairly recently it was philosophical orthodoxy – at least within analytic aesthetics broadly construed – to hold that the appreciation and evaluation of works as art and moral considerations pertaining to them are conceptually distinct. However, following on from the idea that artistic value is (...) broader than aesthetic value, the last 15 years has seen an explosion of interest in exploring possible inter‐relations between the appreciative and ethical character of works as art. Consideration of these issues has a distinguished philosophical history but as the Compass survey article suggests (‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43), it is only very recently that figures in the field have returned to it to develop more precisely what they take the relationships to be and why. Consensus is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The reinvigoration of the issues has led sophisticated formalists or autonomists to mount a more considered defence of the idea that aesthetic and literary values are indeed conceptually distinct from the justification or otherwise of the moral perspective or views endorsed in a work (Topic I). The challenges presented by such a defence are many but amongst them are appeals to critical practice (Lamarque and Olsen), scepticism about whether or not art really can give us bona fide knowledge (Stolnitz) and the recognition that truth often seems to be far removed from what it is we value in our appreciation of works (Lamarque). One way to motivate consideration of the relevance of a work’s moral character to its artistic value concerns the phenomena of imaginative resistance. At least sometimes it would seem that, as Hume originally suggested, we either cannot or will not enter imaginatively into the perspective solicited by a work due to its morally problematic character (Topic II). In some cases, it would seem that as a matter of psychological fact, we cannot do so since it is impossible for us to imagine how it could be that a certain attitude or action is morally permissible or good (Walton). The question then is whether or not this is a function of morality in particular or constraints on imaginative possibility more generally and what else is involved. At other times, the phenomena seem to be driven by a moral reluctance to allow ourselves to enter into the dramatic perspective involved (Moran) or evaluation of the attitude expressed (Stokes). Nonetheless, it is far from obvious that this is so of all the attitudes or responses we judge to be morally problematic. After all, it looks like we can and indeed often do suspend or background particular cognitive and moral commitments in engaging with all sorts of works (Nichols and Weinberg). If the moral character of a work interacts with how we appreciate and evaluate them, then the pressing question is this: is there any systematic account of the relationship available to us? One way is to consider the relationship between our emotional responses to works and their moral character (Topic III). After all, art works often solicit various emotional responses from us to follow the work and make use of moral concepts in so doing (Carroll). Indeed, whether or not a work merits the sought for emotional responses often seems to be internally related to ethical considerations (Gaut). Yet, it is not obvious that we should apply our moral concepts or respond emotionally in our imaginative engagement with works as art as we should in real life (Kieran, Jacobson). A different route is via the thought that art can convey knowledge (Topic IV). There might be particular kinds of moral knowledge art distinctively suited to conveying (Nussbaum) or it may just be that art does so particularly effectively (Carroll, Gaut, Kieran). Either way where this can be tied to the artistic means and appreciation of a work it would seem that to cultivate moral understanding contributes to the value of a work and to betray misunderstanding is a defect. Without denying the relevance of the moral character of a work some authors have wanted to claim that sometimes the immoral aspect of a work can contribute to rather than lessen its artistic value (Topic V). One route is to claim that there is no systematic theoretical account of the relationship available and what the right thing to say is depends on the particular case involved (Jacobson). Another involves the claim that this is so when the defect connects up in an appropriate way to one of the values of art. Thus, it has been claimed, only where a work reveals something which adds to intelligibility, knowledge or understanding in virtue of its morally problematic aspect can this be so (Kieran). The latter position looks like it could in principle be held whilst nonetheless maintaining that the typical or standard relationship is as the moralists would have it. Yet perhaps allowing valence change for such reasons is less a mark of principled explanation and more a function of downright inconsistency or incoherence (Harold). The topics themselves and suggested readings given below follow the structure articulated above as further amplified in the Compass survey article. The design and structure given below can be easily compressed or expanded further. Author Recommends 1 Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 126–60. 2 This article develops the idea that engaging with narrative art calls on moral concepts and emotions and can thereby clarify our moral understanding. 2 Carroll, Noël. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 4 Part IV consists of six distinct essays on questions concerning the inter‐relations between art and morality including the essay cited above and the author’s articulation and defence of moderate moralism. 3 Gaut, Berys. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. 4 Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 7 This monograph provides the most exhaustive treatment of the issues and defends the claim that, where relevant, whenever a work is morally flawed it is of lesser value as art and wherever it is morally virtuous the work’s value as art is enhanced. Chapters 7 and 8 defend concern ethical knowledge and chapter 10 is a development of the article cited above concerning emotional responses. Chapter 3 also gives a useful conceptual map of the issues and options in the debate. 5 Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. 9 A wide ranging and extended treatment of relevant issues which objects to generalising moral treatments of our responses to art works and defends the idea that particular works can be better because of rather than despite their moral defects. 6 Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. 11 A general argument for immoralism is elaborated by outlining when, where and why a work’s morally problematic character can contribute to its artistic value for principled reasons (through enhancing moral understanding). 7 Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. 13 This chapter argues against both aestheticism and straightforward moralism about art, elaborating a defence of immoralism in relation to visual art whilst ranging over issues from pornographic art to the nature and demands of different genres in art. 8 Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’ Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. 15 This article concisely outlines and defends a sophisticated aestheticism that denies the importance of truth to artistic value. 9 Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. 17 This article articulates and defends the claim that no knowledge of any interesting or significant kind can be afforded by works appreciated and evaluated as art. 10 Walton, Kendall. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I.’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 68 (1994): 27–51. 19 This article builds on some comments from Hume to develop the idea that when engaging with fictions it seems impossible imaginatively to enter into radically deviant moral attitudes. Online Materials ‘Aesthetics and Ethics: The State of the Art.’American Society of Aesthetics online (Jeffrey Dean):. ‘Art, Censorship and Morality’ downloadable podcast of Nigel Warburton interviewing Matthew Kieran at Tate Britain (BBC/ou Open2.net as part of the Ethics Bites series):. ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43 (Matthew Kieran):. ‘Ethical Criticism of Art.’Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Ella Peek):. ‘Fascinating Fascism.’New York Review of Books Piece Discussing Leni Riefenstahl (Susan Sontag):. ‘The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1450s), Giovanni de Paolo’ (Tom Lubbock):. Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling discuss Lolita (CBS):. Sample Syllabus Topic I Autonomism/aestheticism • Anderson, James C. and Jeffrey T. Dean. ‘Moderate Autonomism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 38.2 (1998): 150–66. • Beardsley, Monroe. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. Chapter 12. • Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement.Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952 [1790]. • Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. • ——. ‘Tragedy and Moral Value.’Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73.2 (1995): 239–49. • Lamarque, Peter and Stein Olsen. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chapter 10. • Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. Topic II Imaginative Capacities, Intelligibility and Resistance • Moran, Richard. ‘The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.’Philosophical Review 103.1 (1994): 75–106. • Nichols, Shaun. ‘Just the Imagination: Why Imagining Doesn’t Behave Like Believing’. Mind & Language 21.4 (2006): 459–74. • Stokes, Dustin. ‘The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance’. British Journal of Aesthetics 46.4 (2006): 387–405. • Tanner, Michael. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, II’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 51–66. • Walton, Kendall (1994). ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 27–51. • Weinberg, Jonathan. ‘Configuring the Cognitive Imagination.’New Waves in Aesthetics. Eds. K. Stock and K. Thomson‐Jones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 203–23. Topic III Moralism and Emotions • Carroll, Noël. ‘Moderate Moralism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 36.3 (1996): 223–37. • Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.126–60. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapter 10. • ——. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. • Hume, David. ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1757]. 133–53. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Emotions, Art and Immorality.’Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Emotions. Ed. Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 681–703. • Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?. London: Penguin, 2004. Chapters 5 and 15. Topic IV Moralism and Knowledge • Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. M. Heath. London: Penguin, 1996 [367–322 BC]. • Carroll, Noël. ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature and Moral Knowledge.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.1 (2002): 3–26. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapters 7 and 8. • Gaut, Berys. ‘Art and Cognition.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 115–26. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54.4 (1996): 337–51. • Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the Moral Imagination.’Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 148–68. • Plato. The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 10. Topic V Immoralist Contextualism • Harold, James. ‘Immoralism and the Valence Constraint.’British Journal of Aesthetics 48.1 (2008): 45–64. • Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. • ——. ‘Ethical Criticism and the Vices of Moderation.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 342–55. • John, Eileen. ‘Artistic Value and Moral Opportunism.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 331–41. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge:The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. • Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. • Patridge, Stephanie. ‘Moral Vices as Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin and Alice.’Philosophia 36.2 (2008): 181–93. Focus Questions 1 What is the strongest argument for the claim that the moral character of a work is not relevant to its artistic value? Does artistic or literary criticism tend to concern itself with the truth or morality of works? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think this is? 2 What different explanations might there be for difficulty with or resistance to imaginatively entering into attitudes you take to be immoral? How might this relate to the way our imaginings work as contrasted with belief? How might different literary or artistic treatments of the same subject matter make a difference? 3 How do narrative works draw on our moral concepts and responses? Can we suspend our normal moral commitments or application of moral concepts in responding emotionally to art works? Should we respond emotionally to art works as we ought to respond to real world events we witness? Why? Why not? 4 How, if at all, do art works convey moral understanding? How, if at all, is this related to the kinds of moral knowledge art works can teach or reveal to us? When, where and why might this be tied to the artistic value of a work? How can we tell where a work enhances our moral understanding as opposed to misleading or distorting it? 5 What art works do you value overall as art which commend or endorse moral values and attitudes that you do not? Is appreciation of them always marred or lessened by the morally dubious aspect? If not, what explains the differences in evaluation? What, if anything, might you learn by engaging with works which endorse moral attitudes or apply moral concepts different from those you take to be justified? How, if at all, might this connect up with what makes them valuable as art? (shrink)

We review scholarship that examines relationships - and distinctions - between religion and delusion. We begin by outlining and endorsing the position that both involve belief. Next, we present the prevailing psychiatric view that religious beliefs are not delusional if they are culturally accepted. While this cultural exemption has controversial implications, we argue it is clinically valuable and consistent with a growing awareness of the social - as opposed to purely epistemic - function of belief formation. Finally, we review research (...) on continuities between religious and delusional cognition, which reveals that religious content is quite common in delusions and which provides tentative evidence for a positive relationship between religious belief and delusion-like belief in the general population. (shrink)

Capturing the lively modernist milieu of Kenneth Burke's early career in Greenwich Village, where Burke arrived in 1915 fresh from high school in Pittsburgh, this book discovers him as an intellectual apprentice conversing with "the moderns." Burke found himself in the midst of an avant-garde peopled by Malcolm Cowley, Marianne Moore, Jean Toomer, Katherine Anne Porter, William Carlos Williams, Allen Tate, Hart Crane, Alfred Stieglitz, and a host of other fascinating figures. Burke himself, who died in 1993 at the (...) age of 96, has been hailed as America's most brilliant and suggestive critic and the most significant theorist of rhetoric since Cicero. Many schools of thought have claimed him as their own, but Burke has defied classification and indeed has often been considered a solitary, eccentric genius immune to intellectual fashions. But Burke's formative work of the 1920s, when he first defined himself and his work in the context of the modernist conversation, has gone relatively unexamined. Here we see Burke living and working with the crowd of poets, painters, and dramatists affiliated with Others magazine, Stieglitz's "291" gallery, and Eugene O'Neill's Provincetown Players; the leftists associated with the magazines The Masses and Seven Arts; the Dadaists; and the modernist writers working on literary journals like The Dial, where Burke in his capacity as an associate editor saw T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" into print for the first time and provided other editorial services for Thomas Mann, e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound, and many other writers of note. Burke also met the iconoclasts of the older generation represented by Theodore Dreiser and H. L. Mencken, the New Humanists, and the literary nationalists who founded Contact and The New Republic. Jack Selzer shows how Burke's own early poems, fiction, and essays emerged from and contributed to the modernist conversation in Greenwich Village. He draws on a wonderfully rich array of letters between Burke and his modernist friends and on the memoirs of his associates to create a vibrant portrait of the young Burke's transformation from aesthete to social critic. (shrink)

There is debate as to whether quantum field theory is, at bottom, a quantum theory of fields or particles. One can take a field approach to the theory, using wave functionals over field configurations, or a particle approach, using wave functions over particle configurations. This article argues for a field approach, presenting three advantages over a particle approach: particle wave functions are not available for photons, a classical field model of the electron gives a superior account of both spin and (...) self-interaction as compared to a classical particle model, and the space of field wave functionals appears to be larger than the space of particle wave functions. The article also describes two important tasks facing proponents of a field approach: legitimize or excise the use of Grassmann numbers for fermionic field values and in wave functional amplitudes, and describe how quantum fields give rise to particle-like behavior. (shrink)

The research is devoted to the morphology that V.N. Ilyin developed in the work Static and Dynamics of Pure Form and other archival texts. Morphology is central to the philosophy of V.N. Ilyin, but it remains an unexplored subject. The article’s author explores the morphology of the philosopher from a historical and philosophical point of view. In addition to apparent influences (G.W. Leibniz, E. Husserl, N. Lossky), the article’s author revealed the connection of V.N. Ilyin’s ideas with the history of (...) Western European philosophy and his attitude to medieval thinkers. The author considered how V.N. Ilyin understood and assessed his modern philosophy and its results by the middle of the twentieth century. V.N. Ilyin especially paid attention to phenomenology and its connection with morphology, analyzing phenomenology's influence on existential philosophy. In addition to phenomenology, V.N. Ilyin highly appreciated the intuitism of H. Bergson and N. Lossky. The third main philosophical direction in the twentieth century for V.N. Ilyin was religious philosophy (Neo-Thomists and followers of H. Bergson), which aimed at creating axiology, a new system of values. V.N. Ilyin sought to combine various philosophical ideas in the project of morphology based on logic and scientific methodology. He stated the need to reform formal logic and create “metalogic” that would be more consistent with the philosophical tasks of the twentieth century. The morphology of V.N. Ilyin is based on the idea of synthesis and focuses on creating universal science. The comparison of various philosophical ideas of the twentieth century with morphology makes it possible to understand better his philosophical worldview, the course of his reflections, and the meaning of the morphological project. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Virgil and the ModernsMichael L. HallVirgil and the Moderns, by Theodore Ziolkowski; xv & 274 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, $35.00.Theodore Ziolkowski’s Virgil and the Moderns is a wonderful book. Everyone interested in modern literature and the western cultural heritage should read it. Ziolkowski does much more than tell us about Virgil and his influence on modern authors and readers; he traces the Latin poet’s appeal from (...) the nineteenth century forward, focusing on different national trends and responses to the Roman past. His book is a veritable education in modern literature and cultural history.In the introductory chapter Ziolkowski situates Virgil in the twentieth century, with references to the Virgilian epigraph on the title page of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and the Virgilian motto to the first volume of Toynbee’s A Study of History (1934). Ziolkowski concentrates attention, in fact, on the appeal to Roman history in many early twentieth-century historians, and he explores the various European and American reactions to the bimillennial celebrations in 1930 of Virgil’s birth. Like the Bible, the Roman past seems to speak directly to a great variety of points of view: “Roman history, properly comprehended in its broad outlines, is and remains the best teacher not only for today, but indeed for all times”; thus opined the author of Mein Kampf.Ziolkowski’s second chapter, “The Ideological Lives,” begins by observing that “every biography is ideological” and quoting Duane Reed Stuart’s comment that “Every age has tended to fashion a Virgil after its own image.” Ziolkowski tests this proposition against the many “modern” biographies of Virgil that appeared in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially during the bimillennial celebrations. In Italy he finds Virgil described as “a Latin nationalist with conservative messages for the present on government and agriculture”; in France he discovers “a protofascist emerging from the bohemian life of the rive gauche of ancient Rome”; in Germany he encounters “an agrarian anima naturaliter christiana destined to become Father of the West in opposition to the rise of Nazism”; and in Latin America he sees that Virgil has become “an apostle of peace among the pagans with the providential mission to serve the generations as a pedagogue for Christ.”In the five chapters that follow, Ziolkowski shows that these various versions of Virgil’s life and influence resulted in a similar diversity of literary manifestations. In Europe, each country found a Virgil suited to its own preoccupations and prejudices. A rich and indeed overwhelming curriculum in modern literature could be constructed from the authors and texts Ziolkowski discusses in these brief surveys of works influenced by Virgil’s poetry. But although he is a deft literary critic, Ziolkowski goes further, to trace biographical and cultural influences. We discover, for example, that Gide was obsessed with the Eclogues, that it was the Georgics that Mr. Carmichael “liked to lie awake a little reading” in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and that Joe Paterno’s first and most enduring hero [End Page 175] was Virgil’s Aeneas, “to whom he was introduced by his high school Latin teacher at Brooklyn Prep.”I confess that my favorite parts of the book were the chapters on Virgil in Britain and the “New World.” I thought I was a pretty good student of the classics and of British and American literature, but I am ashamed to admit how much I learned from Ziolkowski’s discussions of Virgil’s influence on Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and Cyril Connolly, on Willa Cather and Robert Frost, on Archibald MacLeish, Allen Tate, and Robert Lowell. Ziolkowski is a treasure, and he has given us a rare treat in this very thoughtful study of the way our cultural inheritance is passed on and reaffirmed. As he himself remarks in the book’s final sentences on the ties that bind us to Virgil and our common past: “This reaffirmation, attained at the cost of great spiritual engagement by our intellectual predecessors, we neglect today at our peril.”Michael L. HallAlexandria, VirginiaCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

BackgroundDebates around euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are ongoing around the globe. Public support has been mounting in Western countries, while some decline has been observed in the USA and Eastern Europe. Physicians’ support for euthanasia and PAS has been lower than that of the general public, but a trend toward higher acceptance among physicians has been seen in recent years. The aim of this study was to examine the current attitudes of Finnish physicians toward euthanasia and PAS and whether there (...) have been changes in these attitudes over three decades.MethodsA questionnaire survey was conducted with all Finnish physicians of working age in 2020 and the results were compared to previous studies conducted in 1993, 2003 and 2013.ResultsThe proportions of physicians fully agreeing and fully disagreeing with the legalization of euthanasia increased from 1993 to 2020. The number of physicians, who expressed no opinion for or against euthanasia decreased from 19 to 5% during the same period. The proportion of physicians having no opinion of whether a physician should be punished for assisting in a suicide decreased from 20 to 10%.ConclusionsThis study shows that Finnish physicians’ ambivalence toward euthanasia and PAS has decreased. The ongoing debate has probably forced physicians to form more solid opinions on these matters. Our study highlights that attitudes toward euthanasia and PAS are still divided within the medical profession. (shrink)

Each of our theories of mental representation provides some insight into how the mind works. However, these insights often seem incompatible, as the debates between symbolic, dynamical, emergentist, sub-symbolic, and grounded approaches to cognition attest. Mental representations—whatever they are—must share many features with each of our theories of representation, and yet there are few hypotheses about how a synthesis could be possible. Here, I develop a theory of the underpinnings of symbolic cognition that shows how sub-symbolic dynamics may give rise (...) to higher-level cognitive representations of structures, systems of knowledge, and algorithmic processes. This theory implements a version of conceptual role semantics by positing an internal universal representation language in which learners may create mental models to capture dynamics they observe in the world. The theory formalizes one account of how truly novel conceptual content may arise, allowing us to explain how even elementary logical and computational operations may be learned from a more primitive basis. I provide an implementation that learns to represent a variety of structures, including logic, number, kinship trees, regular languages, context-free languages, domains of theories like magnetism, dominance hierarchies, list structures, quantification, and computational primitives like repetition, reversal, and recursion. This account is based on simple discrete dynamical processes that could be implemented in a variety of different physical or biological systems. In particular, I describe how the required dynamics can be directly implemented in a connectionist framework. The resulting theory provides an “assembly language” for cognition, where high-level theories of symbolic computation can be implemented in simple dynamics that themselves could be encoded in biologically plausible systems. (shrink)

Though assumptions about language underlie all bioethical work, the field has rarely partaken of theories of language. This article encourages a more linguistically engaged bioethics. We describe the tacit conception of language that is frequently upheld in bioethics—what we call the representational view, which sees language essentially as a means of description. We examine how this view has routed the field’s theories and interventions down certain paths. We present an alternative model of language—the pragmatic view—and explore how it expands and (...) clarifies traditional bioethical concerns. To lend concreteness, we apply the pragmatic view to a pervasive concept in bioethics and adjacent fields: decision making. We suggest that problems of the decision-making approach to bioethical issues are grounded in adherence to the representational view. Drawing on empirical work in surgery and critical care, we show how the pragmatic view productively reframes bioethical questions about how medical treatments are pursued. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to explain one of the most controversial views attributed to the Stoic Chrysippus: that the impossible can follow from the possible. My solution finds in Chrysippus a distinction later made by the medieval logician John Buridan: that between being possible (there being a state of affairs that may occur) and being possibly-true (there being some proposition whose truth-conditions are that state of affairs). Buridan and Chrysippus have radically opposing views on the nature of propositions. What (...) their conceptions share is the conclusion that at least some propositions must be contingent beings. They argue for this while maintaining a rigorous commitment to the view that propositions are strictly bivalent. In 2. I explain the Chrysippean passage in terms of a distinction Buridan makes explicitly. In 3. I show how the distinction follows implicitly from the Stoic theory of quantification. In 4. I compare the modality with other aspects of Stoic logic. In 5. I discuss how the distinction behaves in the future tense. (shrink)

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica series (2003–2009) and its prequel series Caprica (2009–2010) provoked viewers to consider anew perennial philosophical questions regarding, among others, the nature of personhood and the role of religion in culture and politics. While no single philosophical viewpoint encapsulates the creators’ vision as a whole, the theory of biopolitics, as formulated by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and others, is a fruitful lens through which various points of story and character development may be analyzed. Two noteworthy areas of (...) attention are, first, whether a race of intelligent, self-aware beings, who have been artificially created, should be considered “persons” with attendant moral and legal status, and second, whether the purported ontological division between the “biological” and the “artificial” has moral import concerning the degree of control one class of beings may legitimately exercise over another. (shrink)

Background Research is crucial to improve treatment, survival and quality of life for children with cancer. However, recruitment of children for research raises ethical challenges. The aim of this study was to explore and describe ethical values and challenges related to the recruitment of children with cancer for research, from the perspectives and experiences of healthcare professionals in the Swedish context. Another aim was to explore their perceptions of research ethics competence in recruiting children for research. Methods An explorative qualitative (...) study using semi-structured interviews with key informants. Seven physicians and ten nurses were interviewed. Interviews were analysed using inductive qualitative content analysis. Results The respondents’ ethical challenges and values in recruitment mainly concerned establishing relationships and trust, meeting informational needs, acknowledging vulnerability, and balancing roles and interests. Ensuring ethical competence was raised as important, and interpersonal and communicative skills were highlighted. Conclusion This study provides empirical insight into recruitment of children with cancer, from the perspectives of healthcare professionals. It also contributes to the understanding of recruitment as a relational process, where aspects of vulnerability, trust and relationship building are important, alongside meeting informational needs. The results provide knowledge on the complexities raised by paediatric research and underpin the importance of building research ethics competence to ensure that the rights and interests of children with cancer are protected in research. (shrink)

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) organelle is the key intracellular site of both protein and lipid biosynthesis. ER dysfunction, termed ER stress, can result in protein accretion within the ER and cell death; a pathophysiological process contributing to a range of metabolic diseases and cancers. ER stress leads to the activation of a protective signalling cascade termed the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR). However, chronic UPR activation can ultimately result in cellular apoptosis. Emerging evidence suggests that cells undergoing ER stress and UPR (...) activation can release extracellular signals that can propagate UPR activation to target tissues in a cell non‐autonomous signalling mechanism. Separately, studies have determined that the UPR plays a key regulatory role in the biosynthesis of bioactive signalling lipids including sphingolipids and ceramides. Here we weigh the evidence to combine these concepts and propose that during ER stress, UPR activation drives the biosynthesis of ceramide lipids, which are exported and function as cell non‐autonomous signals to propagate UPR activation in target cells and tissues. (shrink)

This essay provides evidence to support a promising conceptual and potentially practical set of ideas at once both principled and effective found in the work of Max Weber and Alfred Schutz addressed to the issue of ‘adequacy’ as a goal in social research. Efforts to achieve adequacy beyond the epistemological conditions required by Weber’s demand that evidence meet both causal adequacy and adequacy on the level of meaning were significantly refocused by Schutz’s later concern, responding specifically to Weber, that the (...) social sciences also address themselves to his postulate of adequacy. It states that “Each term used in a scientific system referring to human action must be so constructed that a human act performed within the life-world by an individual actor in the way indicated by the typical construction would be reasonable and understandable for the actor himself, as well as for his fellow men”. A serious attempt to implement a more expansive notion of adequacy by practically activating this postulate in the ways suggested can be beneficial not only for the social research situation but in everyday life as well. (shrink)

We are material things of a specific sort: animals of the primate species Homo sapiens. This is the view known as animalism. The most common reason for rejecting animalism is that it is has unattractive consequences about what it takes for philosophers to persist through time. If human animals are animals essentially, then our being animals implies that we are animals essentially. If they are animals accidentally, then animalism implies that we are animals only accidentally. Aristotelians say that an animal (...) is a compound of matter and form. Animalists accept the indisputable fact that we have important features not shared by any nonhuman organisms that we know of: the capacity for sophisticated rational thought, for instance, and to speak a language with a complex grammatical structure. Since animals are bodies, it follows that people are not animals. Animals, even human animals, cannot have life after death. (shrink)

The term “lean in” was popularized by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, via her #1 Best Seller encouraging women to defy their fears and dare to be leaders in their fields. She received criticism because although admitting to external barriers contributing to the gender gap in leadership, the scope of her book focused on the internal shortcomings of women. She asserted that women are hindered by barriers that exist within themselves, and provided practical tips, backed by research, to equip women with (...) strategies to proactively progress in the workplace instead of shying away. Sandberg is not the first to raise concern about gender inequality. Other women in history like Susan B. Anthony and Maggie Lena Walker also challenged lopsided gender roles through their words and actions. Using the critical biography methodology, this paper explores these women’s experiences, philosophies and contributions, reflects on Sandberg’s insight, and develops a framework, based on the theory of planned behavior as well as the ethical principles of utilitarianism and corporate social responsibility, that links internal factors, organizational external factors, and societal external factors to intentions to lean in and leaning in behavior. Thus, via critical biography, this paper examines both internal and external factors, showing how they are linked, and how they may impact leaning in intentions and behavior. The paper also discusses how leaning in may influence both individual and gender mobility for women, and ultimately, increased gender equality. (shrink)

This article proposes a theological emphasis to the definition of προσλαμβάνω in Romans 14–15. Previous accounts have emphasised the domestic and social implication of Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’ (Rom. 15:7a). The result has been that what Paul might have meant by God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ (Rom. 14:3 and 15:7b) has been governed by the ethical imperative. In order to investigate the ‘welcome’ of God and Christ, this article proposes a context of three important Septuagintal antecedents as yet unconsidered: 1 Samuel (...) 12, Psalm 18, and Psalm 65: In this context, God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ in Rom. 14–15 incorporates notions of justification, election, salvation, and unified worship. A theological reading of προσλαμβάνω, using these intertextual resources, therefore provides a stronger position from which to understand Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’. (shrink)

Both the concept of a Darwinian tree of life (TOL) and the possibility of its accurate reconstruction have been much criticized. Criticisms mostly revolve around the extensive occurrence of lateral gene transfer (LGT), instances of uptake of complete organisms to become organelles (with the associated subsequent gene transfer to the nucleus), as well as the implications of more subtle aspects of the biological species concept. Here we argue that none of these criticisms are sufficient to abandon the valuable TOL concept (...) and the biological realities it captures. Especially important is the need to conceptually distinguish between organismal trees and gene trees, which necessitates incorporating insights of widely occurring LGT into modern evolutionary theory. We demonstrate that all criticisms, while based on important new findings, do not invalidate the TOL. After considering the implications of these new insights, we find that the contours of evolution are best represented by a TOL. (shrink)

Nelson et al. (2023) make a unique contribution, raising key questions and considerations about the value of lived experiences as they pertain to normative debates in bioethics. The authors grapple...

James Stacey Taylor, in his book Markets With Limits, argues that Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski, in their book Markets Without Limits, systematically mischaracterize the views of the anti-commodification theorists they are critiquing, attributing to them positions (e.g., semiotic essentialism and an asymmetry thesis) that they do not hold. Further, Taylor offers an anti-commodification hypothesis of his own to explain why talented academics like Brennan and Jaworski could fall into such systematic mistakes – namely, that the intrusion of market norms (...) into academia incentivizes scholars to prioritize original arguments in prominent venues over careful fact-checking. I argue that Taylor is correct in charging that Brennan and Jaworski have gotten their opponents’ views wrong; and I show how their subsequent replies to Taylor’s criticisms have been unconvincing. I also argue, however, that Taylor may be over-hasty in identifying the likely causes of their errors. (shrink)

l. THE GENERAL PROBLEM OF EPISTEMOLOGY There is a philosophical issue that surely precedes all other possible questions. It concerns the very possibility of our thinking about some thing to some purpose. Short of this no philosophy, theory or research would be possible. But it is not immediately clear that we are assured that what purports to be effective thought, and cognition is such in reality. What guarantee is there for instance that when one is under the impression that one (...) is thinking that "the cat is on the mat" it is in fact the case that one is thinking this? One could not be thinking at all, only having a misleading mystic experience. And then even if one was thinking, one might not be really thinking of the cat being on the mat, but only that one wishes there was a cat, and wonders whether if there was it would be on the mat, and yet the subjective impression was that one was thinking: "The cat is on the mat". Then one might in some way try to think 'the cat is on the mat. ' yet be mistaken in that there aren't any material objects at all, and all one does is to inventory god's perceptions. And so on, and so on! These are of course the kind of problem that the layman habitually views with disdainful alarm. (shrink)