This study examined health professionals’ (HPs) experience, beliefs and attitudes towards brain death (BD) and two types of donation after circulatory death (DCD)—controlled and uncontrolled DCD. Five hundred and eighty-seven HPs likely to be involved in the process of organ procurement were interviewed in 14 hospitals with transplant programs in France, Spain and the US. Three potential donation scenarios—BD, uncontrolled DCD and controlled DCD—were presented to study subjects during individual face-to-face interviews. Our study has two main findings: (1) In the (...) context of organ procurement, HPs believe that BD is a more reliable standard for determining death than circulatory death, and (2) While the vast majority of HPs consider it morally acceptable to retrieve organs from brain-dead donors, retrieving organs from DCD patients is much more controversial. We offer the following possible explanations. DCD introduces new conditions that deviate from standard medical practice, allow procurement of organs when donors’ loss of circulatory function could be reversed, and raises questions about “death” as a unified concept. Our results suggest that, for many HPs, these concerns seem related in part to the fact that a rigorous brain examination is neither clinically performed nor legally required in DCD. Their discomfort could also come from a belief that irreversible loss of circulatory function has not been adequately demonstrated. If DCD protocols are to achieve their full potential for increasing organ supply, the sources of HPs’ discomfort must be further identified and addressed. (shrink)

In Spandrels of Truth, Beall concisely presents and defends a modest, so-called dialetheic theory of transparent truth.

Consequence is at the heart of logic, and an account of consequence offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. This text presents what the authors term as 'logical pluralism' arguing that the notion of logical consequence doesn't pin down one deductive consequence relation; it allows for many of them.

A good argument is one whose conclusions follow from its premises; its conclusions are consequences of its premises. But in what sense do conclusions follow from premises? What is it for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises? Those questions, in many respects, are at the heart of logic (as a philosophical discipline). Consider the following argument: 1. If we charge high fees for university, only the rich will enroll. We charge high fees for university. Therefore, only the rich (...) will enroll. There are many different things one can say about this argument, but many agree that if we do not equivocate (if the terms mean the same thing in the premises and the conclusion) then the argument is valid, that is, the conclusion follows deductively from the premises. This does not mean that the conclusion is true. Perhaps the premises are not true. However, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is also true, as a matter of logic. This entry is about the relation between premises and conclusions in valid arguments. (shrink)

The paper reviews a number of approaches for handling restricted quantification in relevant logic, and proposes a novel one. This proceeds by introducing a novel kind of enthymematic conditional.

Males in many non-monogamous species have larger ranges than females do, a sex difference that has been well documented for decades and seems to be an aspect of male mating competition. Until recently, parallel data for humans have been mostly anecdotal and qualitative, but this is now changing as human behavioral ecologists turn their attention to matters of individual mobility. Sex differences in spatial cognition were among the first accepted psychological sex differences and, like differences in ranging behavior, are documented (...) for a growing set of species. This special issue is dedicated to exploring the possible adaptive links between these cognitive and ranging traits. Multiple hypotheses, at various levels of analysis, are considered. At the functional (ultimate) level, a mating-competition hypothesis suggests that range expansion may augment mating opportunities, and a fertility-and-parental-care hypothesis suggests that range contraction may facilitate offspring provisioning. At a more mechanistic (proximate) level, differences in cue availability may support or inhibit particular sex-specific navigation strategies, and spatial anxiety may usefully inhibit travel that would not justify its costs. Studies in four different cultures—Twe, Tsimane, Yucatec Maya, and Faroese—as well as an experimental study using virtual reality tools are the venue for testing these hypotheses. Our hope is to stimulate more research on the evolutionary and developmental processes responsible for this suite of linked behavioral and cognitive traits. (shrink)

BackgroundECMO is a particularly scarce resource during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its allocation involves ethical considerations that may be different to usual times. There is limited pre-pandemic literature on the ethical factors that ECMO physicians consider during ECMO allocation. During the pandemic, there has been relatively little professional guidance specifically relating to ethics and ECMO allocation; although there has been active ethical debate about allocation of other critical care resources. We report the results of a small international exploratory survey of ECMO (...) clinicians’ views on different patient factors in ECMO decision-making prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We then outline current ethical decision procedures and recommendations for rationing life-sustaining treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examine the extent to which current guidelines for ECMO allocation (and reported practice) adhere to these ethical guidelines and recommendations.MethodsAn online survey was performed with responses recorded between mid May and mid August 2020. Participants (n = 48) were sourced from the ECMOCard study group—an international group of experts (n = 120) taking part in a prospective international study of ECMO and intensive care for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey compared the extent to which certain ethical factors involved in ECMO resource allocation were considered prior to and during the pandemic.ResultsWhen initiating ECMO during the pandemic, compared to usual times, participants reported giving more ethical weight to the benefit of ECMO to other patients not yet admitted as opposed to those already receiving ECMO, (p < 0.001). If a full unit were referred a good candidate for ECMO, participants were more likely during the pandemic to consider discontinuing ECMO from a current patient with low chance of survival (53% during pandemic vs. 33% prior p = 0.002). If the clinical team recommends that ECMO should cease, but family do not agree, the majority of participants indicated that they would continue treatment, both in usual circumstances (67%) and during the pandemic (56%).ConclusionsWe found differences during the COVID-19 pandemic in prioritisation of several ethical factors in the context of ECMO allocation. The ethical principles prioritised by survey participants were largely consistent with ECMO allocation guidelines, current ethical decision procedures and recommendations for allocation of life-sustaining treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

In a study of the kin investment of aunts and uncles we show that the laterality effect expected as a result of paternity uncertainty is statistically reliable but somewhat smaller than the sex effect. Matrilateral aunts invest significantly more than patrilateral aunts, and the same is true for uncles. Regardless of laterality, however, aunts invest significantly more than uncles. Multivariate controls show that the matrilateral bias is fully independent of any age or distance confounds that might result from sex differences (...) in age at marriage or dispersal. We discuss our results in relation to recent findings on the kin investment of grandparents (Euler and Weitzel 1996). In addition, we propose a simple method for estimating the level of paternity uncertainty from kin investment data; application of this method to our data on aunts and uncles suggests that between 13% and 20% of children are not the offspring of their putative father. Our parallel analyses of Euler and Weitzel’s (1996) data on grandparental investment suggest a similar estimate, that paternity uncertainty lies between 9% and 17%. (shrink)

We are pluralists about logical consequence [1]. We hold that there is more than one sense in which arguments may be deductively valid, that these senses are equally good, and equally deserving of the name deductive validity. Our pluralism starts with our analysis of consequence. This analysis of consequence is not idiosyncratic. We agree with Richard Jeffrey, and with many other philosophers of logic about how logical consequence is to be defined. To quote Jeffrey.

Reproduced from Robert J.C. Young, Torn Halves. Pages: 256. ISBN: 0-7190-477-3 ; 0-7190-4776-5. Price: 14.99 ; 40.00.

On the face of it, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s views bear a strong resemblance to contemporary disjunctivist theories of perception, especially John McDowell’s epistemological disjunctivism. Like McDowell (and other disjunctivists), Merleau-Ponty seems to be a direct realist about perception and holds that veridical and illusory perceptions are distinct. This paper furthers this comparison. Furthermore, it is argued that elements of Merleau-Ponty’s thought provide a stronger case for McDowell’s kind of epistemological view than McDowell himself provides. Merleau-Ponty’s early thought can be used to (...) develop a unique version of epistemological disjunctivism that is worth consideration alongside contemporary views on perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Since the Global Financial Crisis, a surge of interest in the use of finance as a tool to address social and economic problems suggests the potential for a generational shift in how the finance industry operates and is perceived. J. C. de Swaan seeks to channel the forces of well-intentioned finance professionals to improve finance from within and help restore its focus on serving society. Drawing from inspiring individuals in the field, de Swaan proposes a framework for pursuing a viable (...) career in finance while benefiting society and upholding humanistic values. In doing so, he challenges traditional concepts of success in the industry. This will also engage readers outside of finance who are concerned about the industry's impact on society. (shrink)

In a previous paper we have shown that in quantum chromodynamics the gluon propagator vanishes in the infrared limit, while the ghost propagator is more singular than a simple pole. These results were obtained after angular averaging, but in the current paper we go beyond this approximation and perform an exact calculation of the angular integrals. The powers of the infrared behaviour of the propagators are changed substantially. We find the very intriguing result that the gluon propagator vanishes in the (...) infrared exactly like p2, whilst the ghost propagator is exactly as singular as 1/p4. We also find that the value of the infrared fixed point of the QCD coupling is much decreased from the y-max estimate: it is now equal to 4π/3. Following a recent study by von Smekal et al.[1], we analyzed in Ref.[2] the coupled Dyson- Schwinger equations for the gluon and ghost form factors F and G. The approximations were two-fold: firstly the vertices were taken bare, and secondly angular averaging was introduced (the so-called y-max approximation). Deferring to later work an improvement of the vertices. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus has recently invoked the work of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty in criticizing the ‘Myth of the Mental’. In criticizing that supposed myth, Dreyfus argues for a kind of foundationalism that takes embodied coping to be a self‐sufficient layer of human experience that supports our ‘higher’ mental activities. In turn, Merleau‐Ponty’s phenomenology is found, in Dreyfus’s recent writings, to corroborate this foundationalism. While Merleau‐Ponty would agree with many of Dreyfus’s points, this paper argues that he would not, in fact, agree with (...) the foundationalism. Furthermore, when understood in the right way, Merleau‐Ponty’s early phenomenology supports the idea, opposed to Dreyfus’s foundationalism, that conceptual activities are tied up with our coping activities. The paper ends by considering the upshot of this reading of Merleau‐Ponty’s work for Dreyfus’s phenomenology. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is often interpreted as claiming that opportunities for action are directly present in perceptual experience. However, he does not provide much evidence for how or why this would occur, and one can doubt that this is an appropriate interpretation of his phenomenological descriptions. In particular, it could be argued the Merleau-Pontyian descriptions mistakenly attribute pre-perceptual or post-perceptual elements such as allocation of attention or judgment to the perceptual experience itself. This paper argues for the Merleau-Pontyian idea that opportunities (...) for action are present in perceptual experience. It further argues that the phenomenological descriptions can be supported and explained via reference to contemporary research on motor imagery. In particular, it will be argued that non-conscious, covert motor imagery is used to prepare for and regulate skilled actions, and that it is plausible that this imagery combines with perception (likely vision) to create a single experience of the environment as enabling action. The paper will also show that contemporary views on motor imagery are broadly compatible with Merleau-Ponty’s aims. (shrink)

In this volume of fourteen original essays, a distinguished team of contributors explore the extent to which, if at all, deflationism can accommodate paradox.

Basic disagreements about what makes human life valuable hinder use of the concept of futility to decide whether it is appropriate to continue life support for one in a permanent state of unconsciousness, or to provide intensive medical care to one in the last stages of a terminal illness (the “paradigm cases”). Triage planning (the process of establishing criteria for health care prioritization) is an attractive alternative framework for addressing the paradigm cases. Triage planning permits society to see the cases (...) in the context of diverse moral perspectives, limited resources, and competing health care demands. Furthermore, at least one essential question posed by the paradigm cases is whether treatment is wasteful, and triage planning is a useful model for identifying and eliminating wasteful medical care. The authors describe how triage planning can be implemented to address the paradigm cases, and conclude that it offers one way of moving debate about these cases beyond futility. (shrink)