The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global threat to physical and mental health worldwide. Research has highlighted adverse impacts of COVID-19 on wellbeing but has yet to offer insights as to how wellbeing may be protected. Inspired by developments in wellbeing science and guided by our own theoretical framework, we examined the role of various potentially protective factors in a sample of 138 participants from the United Kingdom. Protective factors included physical activity, tragic optimism, gratitude, social support, and nature connectedness. (...) Initial analysis involved the application of one-sample t-tests, which confirmed that wellbeing in the current sample was significantly lower compared to previous samples. Protective factors were observed to account for up to 50% of variance in wellbeing in a hierarchical linear regression that controlled for a range of sociostructural factors including age, gender, and subjective social status, which impact on wellbeing but lie beyond individual control. Gratitude and tragic optimism emerged as significant contributors to the model. Our results identify key psychological attributes that may be harnessed through various positive psychology strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of hardship and suffering, consistent with an existential positive psychology of suffering. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Reading of Bayle: An Inquiry into the Source and Role of the Memoranda J. P. PITTION MY PURPOSE IN THIS PAPER is to discuss an aspect of Hume's reading of Pierre Bayle, the French "Philosopher of Rotterdam. ''1 I am not concerned here with the identification of Hume's direct borrowings from Bayle in the Treatise, nor with the much wider problem of a probable influence of Bayle on (...) Hume. It is indeed possible to identify in the Treatise a number of specific points taken from Bayle. Kemp Smith listed four at least: the account of skepticism, the discussion of Spinoza, the discussion of animal intelligence, and the criticism of the argument from design. 2 All of these come from Bayle's Dictionnaire. External evidence confirms that in 1732 Hume had a work of Bayle, presumably a copy of the Dictionnaire. Other borrowings from Bayle have been identified in the Treatise and in Hume's other works. This is no surprise, for in the eighteenth century Bayle's Dictionnaire was used as it was intended in the first instance, that is, as a reference work. In detailing the borrowings from Bayle, Kemp Smith also touched upon the broader question of influence when he stated that Hume's Pyrrhonism, particularly in relation to his treatment of religion, may also come from Bayle. Many recent scholars have followed suit. A problem of influence however is always a difficult one, and particularly so in this case. There was, as R. H. Popkin has pointed out, a broad awareness of continental skepticism among British philosophers of the eighteenth century. 3 However, apropos Berkeley, A. A. Luce has remarked that the trouble with eighteenth-century continental skepticism was that it had various objectives and took various forms. 4 This is true of Bayle himself. Within skepticism Bayle's position was known for its extremism, and it was this extremism that brought him notoriety. During the eighteenth century Bayle was the philosopher who promoted a systematic use of the Pyrrhonic mode of argument. He was acknowledged above all for having set up a double paradox: that any attempt at a rational theodicy must lead to Manicheism and that to argue for a rationalist Christian ethics is to argue the case of an atheistic one as well. In other words, in the early eighteenth century Bayle played the part of a contemporary Pyrrho and Zeno of Elea: he was known for this double stance, and it is for ' This is a slightly revised version of a paper read at the McGill Bicentennial Hume Conference, held at McGiUUniversity, Montreal, in September, 1976. I wishto offer my thanks to Professors H. M. Bracken and D. F. Norton for their assistanceon this version, and I am particularly grateful to Professor James Moore of Concordia University for his comments on the interpretation put forward here in relation to section III of the Memoranda (seen. 8). 2N. KempSmith, The Philosophy of David Hume (NewYork, 1964),pt. III, chap. XIV, app. C. 3 "David Hume and the Pyrrhonian Controversy," Review of Metaphysics VI (September, 1952):65-81. 4 The Dialectic of Immaterialisrn (London, 1963),p. 67. [373] 374 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY this stance that he was mentioned. It is doubtful whether many of those who do refer to Bayle during this period understood him beyond these terms, whether they sought to understand, or whether they even bothered to read Bayle's lengthy arguments. It is clear that few really grasped his complex, often ambiguous objectives. Mention of a Baylian position by an eighteenth-century writer is therefore no guarantee that the writer has actually read Bayle's works: Bayle is a sort of figurehead for Pyrrhonism, Manicheism, or often even atheism, but one can doubt that there is behind the mention of these basic positions any serious reflection on his thought. There are exceptions of course. Luce and H. M. Bracken have shown that Bayle played a seminal role in the formation of Berkeley's thought? But as a rule, knowledge of Bayle among writers of the Enlightenment was vague; references to him, nonspecific. In most cases it is scarcely possible to speak of an influence. My aim in this... (shrink)

Whereas several commentators have held that Kant’s argument for the postulate of private right fails insofar as it begs the question, I argue here that this criticism misses the mark. Critics have...

Background: Ethics consultation is used regularly by some doctors, whereas others are reluctant to use these services.Aim: To determine factors that may influence doctors to request or not request ethics consultation.Methods: A survey questionnaire was distributed to doctors on staff at the University Community Hospital in Tampa, Florida, USA. The responses to the questions on the survey were arranged in a Likert Scale, from strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree to strongly agree. Data were analysed with (...) the Wilcoxon test for group comparisons, the χ2 test to compare proportions and a logistic regression analysis.Results: Of the 186 surveys distributed, 121 were returned, giving a 65% response rate. Demographic data were similar between the groups saying yes and no . No statistically significant differences were observed between the user and non-user groups in terms of opinions about ethics consultants having extensive training in ethics or participating in ethics educational opportunities. On the issue “Ethics committee members or consultants cannot grasp the full picture from the outside”, the non-users were neutral, whereas the users somewhat disagreed . Even more significant was the difference between surgeons and non-surgeons, where, by logistic regression analysis, surgeons who believed that ethics consultants could not grasp the full picture from the outside were highly likely to not use . Non-users of ethics consultations thought that it was their responsibility to resolve issues with the patient or family . Users of ethics consultation believed in shared decision making or the importance of alternate points of view .Implications: Ethics consultations are used by doctors who believe in shared decision making. Doctors who did not use ethics consultation tended to think that it was their responsibility to resolve issues with patients and families and that they were already proficient in ethics. (shrink)

Three experiments explore the role of working memory in motor skill acquisition and performance. Traditional theories postulate that skill acquisition proceeds through stages of knowing, which are initially declarative but later procedural. The reported experiments challenge that view and support an independent, parallel processing model, which predicts that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired separately and that the former does not depend on the availability of working memory, whereas, the latter does. The behaviour of these two processes was manipulated (...) by providing or withholding visual (and auditory) appraisal of outcome feedback. Withholding feedback was predicted to inhibit the use of working memory to appraise success and, thus, prevent the formation of declarative knowledge without affecting the accumulation of procedural knowledge. While the first experiment failed to support these predictions, the second and third experiments demonstrated that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired independently. It is suggested that the availability of working memory is crucial to motor performance only when the learner has come to rely on its use. (shrink)

I argue that Kant’s mature political philosophy entails the provisionality thesis. The provisionality thesis asserts that in a world like ours, populated with beings sufficiently like us, acquired rights (rights to external objects of choice, including property, sovereignty and territory) are necessarily provisional. I motivate the standard view, which restricts the notion of provisional right to the state of nature and the transition from the state of nature to the civil condition. I then provide two textual arguments against it. I (...) conclude by reflecting on the normative implications of the provisionality thesis, arguing that they are more modest than has been formerly appreciated. (shrink)

Although many recent free speech skeptics claim Millian credentials, they neglect the more pessimistic elements of Mill's account of human nature. Once we recover the darker elements of Mill's thought, American-style laissez-faire in the domain of expression looks significantly more attractive. Indeed, this paper argues that if Mill is correct about human nature, we have good reason to oppose recent proposed restrictions on expression and to embrace a legal regime that tolerates much speech that is false, obscene, demeaning, and even (...) hateful. While philosophers are right to worry about the substantial moral costs of such regimes, we ought to attempt to address these costs in ways that do not amount to rejecting the regimes themselves. (shrink)

Moral conflicts occur in theories that involve more than one principle. I examine basic ways of dealing with moral dilemmas in medical ethics and in ethics generally, and propose a different approach based on a principle I call the "mutuality principle". It is offered as an addition to Tom Beauchamp and James Childress' principlism. The principle calls for the mutual enhancement of basic moral values. After explaining the principle and its strengths, I test it by way of an examination of (...) three responses—in the recent Festschrift for Dr Raanon Gillon—to a case involving parental refusal of a blood transfusion. The strongest response is the one that comes closest to the requirements of the mutuality principle but yet falls short. I argue that the mutuality principle provides an explicit future orientation in principlism and gives it greater moral coherence. (shrink)

Philosophy is experiencing a resurgence of property (PD) and generic substance dualism (SD). One important argument for SD that has played a role in this resurgence is some version of a modal argument. Until recently, premise (3) of the argument (Possibly, I exist, and no wholly physical objects exist.) has garnered most of the attention by critics. However, more recently, the focus has also been on (2) (Wholly physical objects are essentially, wholly, and intrinsically physical and wholly spiritual substances are (...) essentially, wholly, and intrinsically immaterial.). Andrew Bailey has provided one of the best criticisms of (2) on offer. In what follows, I present and clarify one form of the argument and defend premise (2) by responding to important defeaters proffered by Andrew Bailey and his contingent physicalism. (shrink)

Contractarians aim to derive moral principles from the dictates of instrumental rationality alone. But it is well-known that contractarian moral theories struggle to identify normative principles that are both uniquely rational and morally compelling. Michael Moehler's recent book, *Minimal Morality* seeks to avoid these difficulties by developing a novel "two-level" social contract theory, which restricts the scope of contractarian morality to cases of deep and persistent moral disagreement. Yet Moehler remains ambitious, arguing that a restricted version of Kant's categorical imperative (...) is a uniquely rational principle of conflict resolution. We develop a formal model of Moehler's informal game-theoretic argument, which reconstructs a valid argument for Moehler's conclusion. This model, in turn, enables us to expose how a successful argument for Moehler's contractarian principle rests on assumptions that can only be justified by subtle yet significant departures from the standard conception of rationality. We thus extend our understanding of familiar contractarian difficulties by showing how they arise even if we restrict the scope of contractarian morality to a domain where its application seems both promising and necessary. We show that the problem lies not in contractarians' immodest ambitions but in the modest resources rationality can offer to satisfy them. (shrink)

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is a technique that may aid researchers in their attempts to elucidate the underlying brain functions involved in consciousness. By employing TMS along with other neuroimaging methods and case studies, researchers may be aided in addressing their various hypotheses. Employing the ‘brain as mobile’ analogy, it may be possible to determine the individual contributions of single elements of the brain without upsetting the overall balance.

This paper defends traditional political philosophy against the challenges Gaus leverages against it in The Open Society and Its Complexities. Granting Gaus that consensus on the principles of political philosophy is not forthcoming and that complexity undermines many of our most ambitious reform efforts, the paper argues that much work remains for political philosophy as it has been practiced for centuries. This is for three reasons. First, Gaus's own defense of the open society requires resources from the very traditions that (...) he tends to dismiss. Secondly, the kinds of reform Gaus encourages us to focus on in light of complexity presuppose answers to philosophical questions, answers that philosophers have long attempted to provide. Thirdly, not all politically salient philosophical questions are aimed at action guidance. Despite the value in Gaus's analysis, I conclude that political philosophy's future will look, at least in part, like its storied past. (shrink)

This paper responds to the recent situationist critique of practical rationality and decision-making. According to that critique, empirical evidence indicates that our choices are governed by morally irrelevant situational factors and not durable character traits, and rarely result from overt rational deliberation. This critique is taken to indicate that popular moral theories in the Western tradition are descriptively deficient, even if normatively plausible or desirable. But we believe that the situationist findings regarding the sources of, or influences over, our moral (...) agency do not reflect durable features of human nature, and claim that these findings are a byproduct of a deficient approach to moral education. Existing models of moral education, which are “positive” in nature, do a poor job of developing virtuous people. Instead, we argue that a “negative” approach to moral education, traceable to Locke, Smith, and Rousseau, would be more successful. This strategy represents something of a compromise between the strategies adopted by thinkers like Rachana Kamtekar : 458–491 2004), who argues that traditional moral categories escape largely untouched by findings in social psychology, and John Doris :504–530 1998) and Gilbert Harman : 87–94 2003), who argue that findings in psychology prove our traditional moral theories are defective. (shrink)

1. The Commentariolum Petitionis is not in the Codex Mediceus of Cicero's correspondence with his brother Quintus, but it appears at the end of the letters to Quintus in the other manuscripts. It starts in the normal manner of a letter and is, or purports to be, a collection of tips on canvassing set in the particular context of M. Cicero's consular candidature in 64: a composition of his brother Quintus. It is printed as no. 12 in Tyrrell and Purser's (...) collection of Cicero's Letters. (shrink)

PRELIMINARY NOTE1 Quae sint, quae fuerint, quae max futura trahantur. THE present work is not a history of political theories, of which a number of very ...

Quantum theory is one of science's most thrilling, challenging and even mysterious areas. Scientists such as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrödinger uncovered bizarre paradoxes in the early 20th century that seemed to destroy the fundamental assumptions of 'classical physics' - the basic laws we are taught in school. Notoriously difficult, quantum theory is nonetheless an amazing and inspiring intellectual adventure, explained here with patience, wit and clarity.

Any discussion of the relativity of categories necessarily opens up questions of prime interest for the theory of knowledge, and it appears to me that L. von Bertalanffy's paper points to certain implications which, though they were incidental to his particular approach to the problem, might repay further elaboration.