Jill North offers answers to questions at the heart of the project of interpreting physics. How do we figure out the nature of the world from a mathematically formulated theory? What do we infer about the world when a physical theory can be mathematically formulated in different ways? The notion of structure is crucial to North's answers.

Discusses values from the perspective of different health care professionals and why teams and collaborations may succeed or fail.

Howard Brody expresses concern that citing the “two cases that put futility on the map,” namely Helga Wanglie and Baby K, may be providing ammunition to the opponents of the concept of medical futility. He in fact joins well-known opponents of the concept of medical futility in arguing that it is one thing for the physician to say whether a particular intervention will promote an identified goal, quite another to say whether a goal is worth pursuing. In the latter instance, (...) physicians are laying themselves open “to the criticism of taking on basic value judgments that are more appropriately left to patients and their surrogates.” Brody states that in both the Wanglie and Baby K cases, the “basic value judgments” had to do with the worthiness of maintaining unconscious life via medical technology. He classifies this as “a question of professional integrity—but not a question of futility,” adding that “more than semantics hinges on this distinction.” The “more than semantics” factor is a pragmatic, even political one. Failure to make this distinction renders physicians “that much more suspect and less trustworthy in the public debate.”. (shrink)

Introduction: the road ahead -- Pt. I. Envisioning a just place -- 1. Why jewish social justice? -- 2. Place matters -- 3. The ideal city -- Pt. II. Principles and practice of social justice -- 4. Storytelling for social justice -- 5. Creating an integrated Jewish life -- 6. Partnerships and power -- 7. Sacred words: engaging with text and tradition -- Pt. III. Taking action -- 8. Direct service -- 9. Giving and investing money -- 10. Advocacy -- (...) 11. Community organizing -- Conclusion: where justice dwells. (shrink)

Structured directly around the specification of the AQA, this is the definitive textbook for students of Advanced Subsidiary or Advanced Level courses. It covers all the necessary topics for Religious Ethics in an enjoyable student-friendly fashion. Each chapter includes: a list of key issues AQA specification checklist explanations of key terminology helpful summaries self-test review questions exam practice questions. To maximise students' chances of exam success, the book contains a section dedicated to answering examination questions. It comes complete with lively (...) illustrations, a comprehensive glossary, full bibliography and a companion website. (shrink)

We are used to talking about the “structure” posited by a given theory of physics, such as the spacetime structure of relativity. What is “structure”? What does the mathematical structure used to formulate a theory tell us about the physical world according to the theory? What if there are different mathematical formulations of a given theory? Do different formulations posit different structures, or are they merely notational variants? I consider the case of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian classical mechanics. I argue that, (...) contrary to standard wisdom, these are not genuinely equivalent theories: they differ in statespace structure. I suggest that we should be realists about statespace structure. (shrink)

I argue that the fundamental space of a quantum mechanical world is the wavefunction's space. I argue for this using some very general principles that guide our inferences to the fundamental nature of a world, for any fundamental physical theory. I suggest that ordinary three-dimensional space exists in such a world, but is non-fundamental; it emerges from the fundamental space of the wavefunction.

This practical book is designed to help school leaders develop a sustainable culture of learning across the curriculum. It offers a personal insight into how one school embraced a range of dialogic and analytical tools to create an environment in which all stakeholders were inspired to evaluate and innovate. Each chapter tackles one piece of the 'jigsaw' that makes up a successful school environment, considering topics such as Attitudes for Learning, Coaching for learning and Love of Learning. Utilising theory, case (...) studies and activities, it illustrates how the reader can realistically and practically increase student attainment in their own school setting. This book will help leaders: Develop a supportive and encouraging leadership style that will create a cycle of self-improvement and self-efficacy for all ; Adapt the curriculum to focus on progress and engagement ; Use the Philosophy 4 Children strategies to promote deeper thinking and enquiry, increasing the rate of school improvement through a system of enquiry based staff professional development Using an inner city primary school as a working example, this book will be a source of inspiration and encouragement for school leaders, teachers and school advisors looking to cultivate and embed a love of learning into their school. (shrink)

Altered Reading will interest philosophers, literary critics, scholars of religion, and others drawn to Levinas's work.

This chapter demonstrates that the Seventh Letter, explicitly and throughout its entirety, thematizes hearing and listening, and it comprises an exhortation to listen well. After laying down groundwork showing that logos must include listening, not merely assertion or expression, the chapter first demonstrates the political significance of the exhortation to listen based on a unified reading of the Letter that conjoins the concerns of the so-called digression with the rest of its content. It situates the “weakness of logos” taken up (...) in the digression, which most scholars treat in an ontological-linguistic weakness, as an aural phenomenon within the Letter’s distinctly political aims. That is to say, the “weakness of logos,” referred to in the so-called digression is also a weakness of hearers and hearing and is thus a political weakness, as well. The chapter then goes on to argue that the politics of listening in the Seventh Letter, as well as in some aspects of Socratic dialectic, rely necessarily on certain forms of domination or compelled listening, and I therefore consider the links between hearing and tyranny in the Letter. Finally, I speculate on what a more liberated politics of listening and hearing might look like and what role the Platonic writings might play as a propaedeutic to better listening in the city. I conclude by arguing that because of the “weakness of logos,” Plato’s task is inherently paradoxical: Plato calls us to hear what we are not yet able to hear, tyrannizing in order to liberate our sense of hearing. (shrink)

Or better: time asymmetry in thermodynamics. Better still: time asymmetry in thermodynamic phenomena. “Time in thermodynamics” misleadingly suggests that thermodynamics will tell us about the fundamental nature of time. But we don’t think that thermodynamics is a fundamental theory. It is a theory of macroscopic behavior, often called a “phenomenological science.” And to the extent that physics can tell us about the fundamental features of the world, including such things as the nature of time, we generally think that only fundamental (...) physics can. On its own, a science like thermodynamics won’t be able to tell us about time per se. But the theory will have much to say about everyday processes that occur in time; and in particular, the apparent asymmetry of those processes. The pressing question of time in the context of thermodynamics is about the asymmetry of things in time, not the asymmetry of time, to paraphrase Price ( , ). I use the title anyway, to underscore what is, to my mind, the centrality of thermodynamics to any discussion of the nature of time and our experience in it. The two issues—the temporal features of processes in time, and the intrinsic structure of time itself—are related. Indeed, it is in part this relation that makes the question of time asymmetry in thermodynamics so interesting. This, plus the fact that thermodynamics describes a surprisingly wide range of our ordinary experience. We’ll return to this. First, we need to get the question of time asymmetry in thermodynamics out on the table. (shrink)

We should see the debate over the existence of spacetime as a debate about the fundamentality of spatiotemporal structure to the physical world. This is a non-traditional conception of the debate, which captures the spirit of the traditional one. At the same time, it clarifies the point of contention between opposing views and offsets worries that the dispute is stagnant or non-substantive. It also unearths a novel argument for substantivalism, given current physics. Even so, that conclusion can be overridden by (...) future physics. I conclude that this debate is a substantive one, which the substantivalist is currently winning. (shrink)

Regina R. is a 12-year-old girl with recently diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetes. Before discharging her from the hospital, her family physician and consulting diabetes specialist try to instruct the girl and her parents in the appropriate program of treatment, including diet, insulin, and regular self-monitoring. However, the parents become upset when they learn what is involved in insulin treatment and inform the family physician they plan to employ the services of an alternative healing clinic that promises to cure their daughter with (...) a combination of herbal potions, macrobiotics, aroma therapy, therapeutic touch, Ayurveda, homeopathy, and guided imagery. (shrink)

The Institute of Medicine and the American Heart Association have issued a “call to action” to expand the performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Widespread advertising campaigns have been created to encourage more members of the lay public to undergo training in the technique of closed-chest compression-only CPR, based upon extolling the virtues of rapid initiation of resuscitation, untempered by information about the often distressing outcomes, and hailing the “improved” results when nonprofessional bystanders are involved. We (...) describe this misrepresentation of CPR as a highly effective treatment as the fetishization of this valuable, but often inappropriately used, therapy. We propose that the medical profession has an ethical duty to inform the public through education campaigns about the procedure's limitations in the out-of-hospital setting and the narrow clinical indications for which it has been demonstrated to have a reasonable probability of producing favorable outcomes. (shrink)

This chapter is unique for several reasons. First, it brings together two unlikely authors, a PhD ethicist and her 15‐year‐old high‐school daughter, whose diverse interests include thinking about depictions of female characters in graphic novels. Second, it compares two unlikely DC female characters, Wonder Woman (the Amazonian princess heroine who protects innocent citizens from evil) and Harley Quinn (the ever‐evolving anti‐hero who vacillates between being an outright villain to being merely window dressing for her boyfriend, the Joker). The conclusion of (...) the chapter is unlikely, too: neither Wonder Woman nor Harley Quinn can ultimately succeed in their roles as moral hero and immoral anti‐hero when their popularity depends upon them being depicted as sexual objects. The chapter uses Aristotle's ethics to show that it isn't Wonder Woman's virtue that is thwarted, but her phronesis. Harley's antiheroism is similarly in jeopardy, since phronesis helps any person set and meet goals. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Dark Brew: Traditional Existentialism and Community Coffee and Otherness: Community and Coffee Coffee, Community, and Hope.

One way to be a thoughtful consumer of the news is to pay attention to the quality of the news sources you watch, listen to, and read. Good journalists follow a code of ethics when preparing and delivering news reports. Through age-appropriate language and real-life examples, this intriguing book tells young readers more about that code, why it exists, and how it's changed over the years. They'll also learn how to tell if new sources they follow adhere to it through (...) practical examples and useful fact boxes."--Amazon.com. (shrink)

God knows when we are feeling down, or happy, or need help apologizing, or when we are scared, but most importantly, he wants us to know that he loves us no matter how we feel.

This chapter contains sections titled: Nietzsche's Understanding of the Aphorism How Aphorisms Reconfigure the “Habits of the Senses” The Art of Exegesis.

We describe a set of two computer‐implemented models that solve physics problems in ways characteristic of more and less competent human solvers. The main features accounting for different competences are differences in strategy for selecting physics principles, and differences in the degree of automation in the process of applying a single principle. The models provide a good account of the order in which principles are applied by human solvers working problems in kinematics and dynamics. They also are sufficiently flexible to (...) allow easy extension to several related domains of physics problems. (shrink)

The conversation with Jill H. Casid and Anna Campbell is a reconceptualization of several themes to develop an aesthetic that incorporates notions of the necropolitical and redefines the concept of the Anthropocene as the Necrocene. The Necrocene implies an era marked by death, decay, and the consequences of human impact on the environment, as well as a critical reflection on the choices individuals and societies make that contribute to the transition from the Anthropocene to the Necrocene. These reflections serve (...) as cautionary tales or reflections on the unsustainable path of the Anthropocene. An important reflection in the interview is how queer and transgender people are using art and assemblages to refuse the terms of the current tensions of the culture wars. (shrink)

This book analyzes contemporary visual art produced in the context of conflict and trauma from a range of countries, including Colombia, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Australia. It focuses on what makes visual language unique, arguing that the "affective" quality of art contributes to a new understanding of the experience of trauma and loss. By extending the concept of empathy, it also demonstrates how we might, through art, make connections with people in different parts of the world whose experiences differ (...) from our own. The book makes a distinct contribution to trauma studies, which has tended to concentrate on literary forms of expression. It also offers a sophisticated theoretical analysis of the operations of art, drawing on philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, but setting this within a postcolonial framework. _Empathic Vision_ will appeal to anyone interested in the role of culture in post-September 11 global politics. (shrink)

The concept of meaningful work has recently received increased attention in philosophy and other disciplines. However, the impact of the increasing robotization of the workplace on meaningful work has received very little attention so far. Doing work that is meaningful leads to higher job satisfaction and increased worker well-being, and some argue for a right to access to meaningful work. In this paper, we therefore address the impact of robotization on meaningful work. We do so by identifying five key aspects (...) of meaningful work: pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development, self-esteem and recognition, and autonomy. For each aspect, we analyze how the introduction of robots into the workplace may diminish or enhance the meaningfulness of work. We also identify a few ethical issues that emerge from our analysis. We conclude that robotization of the workplace can have both significant negative and positive effects on meaningful work. Our findings about ways in which robotization of the workplace can be a threat or opportunity for meaningful work can serve as the basis for ethical arguments for how to—and how not to—implement robots into workplaces. (shrink)

We often use symmetries to infer outcomes’ probabilities, as when we infer that each side of a fair coin is equally likely to come up on a given toss. Why are these inferences successful? I argue against answering this with an a priori indifference principle. Reasons to reject that principle are familiar, yet instructive. They point to a new, empirical explanation for the success of our probabilistic predictions. This has implications for indifference reasoning in general. I argue that a priori (...) symmetries need never constrain our probability attributions, even when it comes to our initial credences. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Malament (2004) employs a time reversal transformation that differs from the standard one, without explicitly arguing for it. This is a new and important understanding of time reversal that deserves arguing for in its own right. I argue that it improves upon the standard one. Recent discussion has focused on whether velocities should undergo a time reversal operation. I address a prior question: What is the proper notion of time reversal? This is important, for it will (...) affect our conclusion as to whether our best theories are time-reversal symmetric, and hence whether our spacetime is temporally oriented. *Received February 2007; revised March 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208306, New Haven, CT 06520-8306; e-mail: jill[email protected]. (shrink)

Ethical loneliness is the experience of being abandoned by humanity, compounded by the cruelty of wrongs not being heard. It is the result of multiple lapses on the part of human beings and political institutions that, in failing to listen well to survivors, deny them redress by negating their testimony and thwarting their claims for justice. Jill Stauffer examines the root causes of ethical loneliness and how those in power revise history to serve their own ends rather than the (...) needs of the abandoned. Out of this discussion, difficult truths about the desire and potential for political forgiveness, transitional justice, and political reconciliation emerge. Moving beyond a singular focus on truth commissions and legal trials, she considers more closely what is lost in the wake of oppression and violence, how selves and worlds are built and demolished, and who is responsible for re-creating lives after they are destroyed. Stauffer boldly argues that rebuilding worlds and just institutions after violence is a broad obligation and that those who care about justice must first confront their own assumptions about autonomy, liberty, and responsibility before an effective response to violence can take place. In building her claims, Stauffer draws on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Améry, Eve Sedgwick, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as concrete cases of justice and injustice across the world. (shrink)

One of the most entrenched commandments in medicine is: “Never take away a patient's hope!” Often it is issued during the treatment of a terminally ill patient to spur and justify the continuation of aggressive life-prolonging efforts. Hope has been called one of a patient‘s “most powerful internal resources,” and “a powerful ally, our last defense against despair.” One editorialist confidently stated: “[C]ommunicating hope can improve patients’ prognosis.”.

A few years ago a battered infant was admitted to a California hospital. After a period of observation and testing, the physicians concluded that the infant had been beaten so badly that his brain was almost completely destroyed, leaving him permanently unconscious. The hospital had just adopted a policy specifying that life-sustaining treatment for permanent unconsciousness was futile and, therefore, not indicated. According to this policy, after suitable subspecialty consultations and deliberations, including efforts to gain parental agreement and documentation of (...) unanimous ethics committee support, the patient's physician had the authority to discontinue life-sustaining treatment. The infant's physician wished to do this. The mother, however, who was the prime battery suspect, insisted that the baby be kept alive. (shrink)

Dominant food systems, based on industrial methods and corporate control, are in a state of flux. To enable the transition towards more sustainable and just food systems, food movements are claiming new roles in governance. These movements, and the initiatives they spearhead, are associated with a range of labels (e.g., food sovereignty, food justice, and community food security) and use a variety of strategies to enact change. In this paper, we use the concept of relational fields to conduct a post-hoc (...) analysis of nine cases, examining how social movement organizations and other actors actively create new deliberative governance spaces. We argue that successes are related to the “power to convene,” a process-oriented approach that increases movements’ capacity to mobilize; leverage different types of power; and integrate, coordinate, and build a systems-oriented vision. The power to convene and create deliberative spaces is demonstrated in a variety of contexts and often results in outcomes that further movement aims, including policy change and repositioning food movement actors vis-à-vis others in the field. Our findings suggest that success is not only measured as policy outcomes, but as an advantageous repositioning of social movement actors that enables them to be part of governance processes beyond simple policy advocacy. (shrink)

Partly because physicians can “never say never,” partly because of the seduction of modern technology, and partly out of misplaced fear of litigation, physicians have increasingly shown a tendency to undertake treatments that have no realistic expectation of success. For this reason, we have articulated common sense criteria for medical futility. If a treatment can be shown not to have worked in the last 100 cases, we propose that it be regarded as medically futile. Also, if the treatment fails to (...) restore consciousness or alleviate total dependence on intensive care, we propose such treatment be judged futile. This definition provides clear end points and encourages the profession to review data from the past and perform, prospective clinical studies that not only report treatments that work but also treatments that do not work. We have also argued that, in a variety of settings, physicians have no ordinary ethical obligation to offer futile interventions. Although physicians should inform, and discuss all decisions to withhold or withdraw medical treatments with patients, they need not obtain the patient's permission to desist from futile interventions. (shrink)

Huw Price argues that there are two conceptions of the puzzle of the time‐asymmetry of thermodynamics. He thinks this puzzle has remained unsolved for so long partly due to a misunderstanding about which of these conceptions is the right one and what form a solution ought to take. I argue that it is Price's understanding of the problem which is mistaken. Further, it is on the basis of this and other misunderstandings that he disparages a type of account which does, (...) in fact, hold promise of a solution. (shrink)

Can the documentary be useful? Can a film change how its viewers think about the world and their potential role in it? In Kill the Documentary, the award-winning director Jill Godmilow issues an urgent call for a new kind of nonfiction filmmaking. She critiques documentary films from Nanook of the North to the recent Ken Burns/Lynn Novick series The Vietnam War. Tethered to what Godmilow calls the "pedigree of the real" and the "pornography of the real," they fail to (...) activate their viewers' engagement with historical or present-day problems. Whether depicting the hardships of poverty or the horrors of war, conventional documentaries produce an "us-watching-them" mode that ultimately reinforces self-satisfaction and self-absorption. In place of the conventional documentary, Godmilow advocates for a "postrealist" cinema. Instead of offering the faux empathy and sentimental spectacle of mainstream documentaries, postrealist nonfiction films are acts of resistance. They are experimental, interventionist, performative, and transformative. Godmilow demonstrates how a film can produce meaningful, useful experience by forcefully challenging ways of knowing and how viewers come to understand the world. She considers her own career as a filmmaker as well as the formal and political strategies of artists such as Luis Buñuel, Georges Franju, Harun Farocki, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Rithy Panh, and other directors. Both manifesto and guidebook, Kill the Documentary proposes provocative new ways of making and watching films. (shrink)

Background Investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) is a technique that involves uploading genotypes developed from perpetrator DNA left at a crime scene, or DNA from unidentified remains, to public genetic genealogy databases to identify genetic relatives and, through the creation of a family tree, the individual who was the source of the DNA. As policymakers demonstrate interest in regulating IGG, it is important to understand public perspectives on IGG to determine whether proposed policies are aligned with public attitudes.Methods We conducted eight (...) focus groups with members of the public (N = 72), sampled from four geographically diverse US regions, to explore general attitudes and perspectives regarding aspects of IGG practices, applications, and policies. Five major topics were explored in each focus group: when IGG should be used; who should perform IGG; how to approach consent for genetic database users; what systems of oversight should govern IGG practitioners; and whether to notify database users if their data are involved in law enforcement (LE) matching.Results Participants were supportive of IGG in most scenarios, especially for cold and violent cases. The favorable attitudes toward IGG were, however, tempered by distrust of law enforcement among some participants. All participants agreed that databases must inform users if IGG is allowed, but they did not agree on how individual database users should be allowed to opt out or whether to notify them if their data are involved in specific investigations. All participants agreed that IGG should be subject to some prescriptive guidelines, regulations, or accountability mechanisms.Conclusions These findings suggest broad public support for IGG, and interest in developing systems of accountability for its practice. Our study provides useful insight for policy makers, genomic database stewards, law enforcement, and other stakeholders in IGG’s practice, and suggests multiple directions for future research. (shrink)

In Wrong Medicine, Lawrence J. Schneiderman, M.D., and Nancy S. Jecker, Ph.D., address issues that have occupied the media and the courts since the time of Karen Ann Quinlan. The authors examine the ethics of cases in which medical treatment is offered--or mandated--even if a patient lacks the capacity to appreciate its benefit or if the treatment will still leave a patient totally dependent on intensive medical care. In exploring these timely issues Schneiderman and Jecker reexamine the doctor-patient (...) relationship and call for a restoration of common sense and reality to what we expect from medicine. They discuss economic, historical, and demographic factors that affect medical care and offer clear definitions of what constitutes futile medical treatment. And they address such topics as the limits on unwanted treatment, the shift from the "Age of Physician Paternalism" to the "Age of Patient Autonomy," health care rationing, and the adoption of new ethical standards. (shrink)

Previous studies have documented the fallibility of attempts by surrogates and physicians to act in a substituted judgment capacity and predict end-of-life treatment decisions on behalf of patients. We previously reported that physicians misperceive their patients' preferences and substitute their own preferences for those of their patients with respect to four treatments: cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the event of cardiac arrest, ventilator for an indefinite period of time, medical nutrition and hydration for an indefinite period of time, and hospitalization in the (...) event of pneumonia. (shrink)