Smoking has long been declared a health hazard. In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General revealed that smoking was related to lung cancer. Subsequent reports linked smoking to numerous other health problems. Recent statements by the Surgeon General indicated smokers do have the right to decide to continue or quit; however, their choice to continue cannot interfere with the nonsmoker's right to breathe smoke-free air.The full impact of adverse health consequences of involuntary smoking may not be recognized yet. Smoke is now (...) known to affect everyone who breathes it. Even when one doesn't smoke, the nonsmoker is susceptible to the ill effects because of inhaling smoke. (shrink)

Introducing the practices of Eastern Hinduism, Shintoism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, a lavishly illustrated volume is complemented by full-color reproductions of sacred art, architecture, symbols, landscapes, ceremonies, and festivals.

For most pre‐modern philosophers, questions about the good life and the happy life were inseparable. Happiness is primarily a subjective notion. The Good Place suggests that relationships are key to the good life. It is a laboratory for testing moral theories, providing the show's writers opportunities to see which theories help the protagonists become better persons. An ethics of virtue is difficult and messy because it does not reduce morality to a simple formula. Instead, it involves an inner transformation of (...) character that leads to virtuous actions. In Aristotle's ethical system, true moral progress toward the good life is within reach. In spite of the verbal commitments made to Kant's ethics, the show ultimately proves to be a vindication of virtue ethics. A universe governed by Aristotelian morality is one in which moral development is possible. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 2, Page 132-150, April 2022. Limited research has been done among pregnant people participating in investigational drug trials. To enhance the ethical understanding of pregnant people’s perspectives on research participation, we sought to describe motives and risk perceptions of participants in a phase 1 trial of ledipasvir/sofosbuvir treatment for chronic Hepatitis C virus during pregnancy. Pregnant people with chronic HCV infection enrolled in an open-label, phase 1 study of LDV/SOF participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews to (...) explore their reasons for participation and experiences within the study. Pregnant people took 12 weeks of LDV/SOF and were interviewed at enrollment and at the end of study. We recorded the interviews, transcribed them verbatim, coded them using NVivo software, and performed inductive thematic analysis. Nine women completed the study yielding 18 interview transcripts. We identified two themes regarding motives and one regarding risk perception. Motives— Women conceptualized study participation as part of the caregiving role they associate with motherhood; participating was viewed as an act of caregiving for their infants, their families, themselves, and other pregnant women with chronic HCV. Women also noted that they faced multiple barriers to treatment prior to pregnancy that created a desire to receive therapy through trial participation. Risk perception— Women acknowledged personal and fetal risk associated with participation. Acceptance of risk was influenced by women’s concepts of motherhood, preexisting knowledge of HCV and medical research, family members, intimate partners, or by the study design. Women enrolled in a phase 1 trial for chronic HCV therapy during pregnancy acknowledged risks of participation and were motivated by hopes for fetal and personal benefit and by lack of prenatal access to treatment. Ethical inclusion of pregnant people in research should acknowledge structural factors that contribute to vulnerability and data deficiencies for treatment in pregnancy. (shrink)

Limited research has been done among pregnant people participating in investigational drug trials. To enhance the ethical understanding of pregnant people’s perspectives on research participation, we sought to describe motives and risk perceptions of participants in a phase 1 trial of ledipasvir/sofosbuvir treatment for chronic Hepatitis C virus during pregnancy. Pregnant people with chronic HCV infection enrolled in an open-label, phase 1 study of LDV/SOF participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews to explore their reasons for participation and experiences within the study. (...) Pregnant people took 12 weeks of LDV/SOF and were interviewed at enrollment and at the end of study. We recorded the interviews, transcribed them verbatim, coded them using NVivo software, and performed inductive thematic analysis. Nine women completed the study yielding 18 interview transcripts. We identified two themes regarding motives and one regarding risk perception. Motives— Women conceptualized study participation as part of the caregiving role they associate with motherhood; participating was viewed as an act of caregiving for their infants, their families, themselves, and other pregnant women with chronic HCV. Women also noted that they faced multiple barriers to treatment prior to pregnancy that created a desire to receive therapy through trial participation. Risk perception— Women acknowledged personal and fetal risk associated with participation. Acceptance of risk was influenced by women’s concepts of motherhood, preexisting knowledge of HCV and medical research, family members, intimate partners, or by the study design. Women enrolled in a phase 1 trial for chronic HCV therapy during pregnancy acknowledged risks of participation and were motivated by hopes for fetal and personal benefit and by lack of prenatal access to treatment. Ethical inclusion of pregnant people in research should acknowledge structural factors that contribute to vulnerability and data deficiencies for treatment in pregnancy. (shrink)

As researchers and as adults, caution must be maintained in perpetuating the rational approach to all family experience. Limiting the study of the family to the adult and, more communicatively competent, older siblings creates an artificial barrier that blocks insight into early childhood socialization practices and understandings.This study has raised the notion that children have valuable experiences that they quickly learn, embody, re-produce, and can present to researchers. As family members, they create and perpetuate those practices that reify the patriarchal (...) order. As researchers, the lessons to be learned from such a study are educational. For children, families that “might make your ears pop out” are the social and affectional structure that organizes their lives. The meanings that are produced within this structure are creatively constituted and should be heard. Studying the talk of children about families enriches knowledge and understanding of family relationships and family communication. (shrink)

Although many new ideas are generated, only a few are ever implemented. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that idea evaluation represents an important aspect of the creative process. In the present article, we examine the cognitive operations involved in idea evaluation. We argue that idea evaluation is a complex activity involving appraisal of ideas, forecasting of their implications, and subsequent revision and refinement. We note that the outcomes of these activities depend on both the standards applied in idea evaluation (...) and the context surrounding evaluation of a new idea. Implications for the development of idea evaluation skills are discussed. (shrink)

This paper stems from an ethnographic, multidisciplinary study that explored the views and experiences of practitioners and scientists on social, ethical and clinical dilemmas encountered when working in the area of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for serious genetic disorders. We focus here on staff perceptions and experiences of working with embryos and helping women/couples to make choices that will result in selecting embryos for transfer and disposal of 'affected' embryos, compared to the termination of affected pregnancies following prenatal diagnosis. Analysis and (...) discussion of our data led us to consider the possible advantages of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and whether a gradualist account of the embryo's and fetus's moral status can account for all of these, particularly since a gradualist account concentrates on the significance of time (developmental stage) and makes no comment as to the significance of place (in vitro, in utero). (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is widely recognized as a management theory, yet very little research has considered its implications for individual managerial decision-making. In the two studies reported here, we used stakeholder theory to examine managerial decisions about balancing stakeholder interests. Results of Study 1 suggest that indivisible resources and unequal levels of stakeholder saliency constrain managers’ efforts to balance stakeholder interests. Resource divisibility also influenced whether managers used a within-decision or an across-decision approach to balance stakeholder interests. In Study 2 we (...) examined instrumental and normative implications of these two approaches. We conclude by considering the contributions of this research. (shrink)

Should the assessment of decision‐making capacity (DMC) be risk sensitive, that is, should the threshold for DMC vary with risk? The debate over this question is now nearly five decades old. To many, the idea that DMC assessments should be risk sensitive is intuitive and commonsense. To others, the idea is paternalistic or incoherent, or both; they argue that the riskiness of a given decision should increase the epistemic scrutiny in the evaluation of DMC, not increase the threshold for DMC. (...) We respond to the critics’ main concerns by providing a comprehensive account of how risk‐sensitive DMC is coherent, avoids paternalism, and best fulfills the epistemic goal of DMC evaluations. (shrink)

Do contemporary big-budget blockbuster films like Gravity move something in us that is fundamentally the same as what avant-garde and experimental films have done for more than a century? In a powerful challenge to mainstream film theory, Cinema's Bodily Illusions demonstrates that this is the case. Scott C. Richmond bridges genres and periods by focusing, most palpably, on cinema's power to evoke illusions: feeling like you're flying through space, experiencing 3D without glasses, or even hallucinating. He argues that cinema (...) is, first and foremost, a technology to modulate perception. He presents a theory of cinema as a proprioceptive technology: cinema becomes art by modulating viewers' embodied sense of space. It works primarily not at the level of the intellect but at the level of the body. Richmond develops his theory through examples of direct perceptual illusion in cinema: hallucinatory flicker phenomena in Tony Conrad's The Flicker, eerie depth effects in Marcel Duchamp's Anémic Cinéma, the illusion of bodily movement through onscreen space in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, and Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity. In doing so he combines insights from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and James J. Gibson's ecological approach to perception. The result is his distinctive ecological phenomenology, which allows us to refocus on the cinema's perceptual, rather than representational, power. Arguing against modernist habits of mind in film theory and aesthetics, and the attendant proclamations of cinema's death or irrelevance, Richmond demonstrates that cinema's proprioceptive aesthetics make it an urgent site of contemporary inquiry. (shrink)

The dominant unspoken philosophical basis of medical care in the United States is a form of Cartesian reductionism that views the body as a machine and medical professionals as technicians whose job is to repair that machine. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for an alternative philosophy of medicine based on the concept of healing relationships between clinicians and patients. This is accomplished first by exploring the ethical and philosophical work of Pellegrino and Thomasma and then by connecting (...) Martin Buber's philosophical work on the nature of relationships to an empirically derived model of the medical healing relationship. The Healing Relationship Model was developed by the authors through qualitative analysis of interviews of physicians and patients. Clinician-patient healing relationships are a special form of what Buber calls I-Thou relationships, characterized by dialog and mutuality, but a mutuality limited by the inherent asymmetry of the clinician-patient relationship. The Healing Relationship Model identifies three processes necessary for such relationships to develop and be sustained: Valuing, Appreciating Power and Abiding. We explore in detail how these processes, as well as other components of the model resonate with Buber's concepts of I-Thou and I-It relationships. The resulting combined conceptual model illuminates the wholeness underlying the dual roles of clinicians as healers and providers of technical biomedicine. On the basis of our analysis, we argue that health care should be focused on healing, with I-Thou relationships at its core. (shrink)

Sound propagation within certain non-relativistic condensed matter models obeys a relativistic wave equation despite such systems admitting entirely non-relativistic descriptions. A natural question that arises upon consideration of this is, “do devices exist that will experience the relativity in these systems?” We describe a thought experiment in which ‘acoustic observers’ possess devices called sound clocks that can be connected to form chains. Careful investigation shows that appropriately constructed chains of stationary and moving sound clocks are perceived by observers on the (...) other chain as undergoing the relativistic phenomena of length contraction and time dilation by the Lorentz factor, \, with \ the speed of sound. Sound clocks within moving chains actually tick less frequently than stationary ones and must be separated by a shorter distance than when stationary to satisfy simultaneity conditions. Stationary sound clocks appear to be length contracted and time dilated to moving observers due to their misunderstanding of their own state of motion with respect to the laboratory. Observers restricted to using sound clocks describe a universe kinematically consistent with the theory of special relativity, despite the preferred frame of their universe in the laboratory. Such devices show promise in further probing analogue relativity models, for example in investigating phenomena that require careful consideration of the proper time elapsed for observers. (shrink)

To properly understand behavior, we must obtain both ultimate and proximate explanations. Put briefly, ultimate explanations are concerned with why a behavior exists, and proximate explanations are concerned with how it works. These two types of explanation are complementary and the distinction is critical to evolutionary explanation. We are concerned that they have become conflated in some areas of the evolutionary literature on human behavior. This article brings attention to these issues. We focus on three specific areas: the evolution of (...) cooperation, transmitted culture, and epigenetics. We do this to avoid confusion and wasted effort—dangers that are particularly acute in interdisciplinary research. Throughout this article, we suggest ways in which misunderstanding may be avoided in the future. (shrink)

Niche construction refers to the activities of organisms that bring about changes in their environments, many of which are evolutionarily and ecologically consequential. Advocates of niche construction theory (NCT) believe that standard evolutionary theory fails to recognize the full importance of niche construction, and consequently propose a novel view of evolution, in which niche construction and its legacy over time (ecological inheritance) are described as evolutionary processes, equivalent in importance to natural selection. Here, we subject NCT to critical evaluation, in (...) the form of a collaboration between one prominent advocate of NCT, and a team of skeptics. We discuss whether niche construction is an evolutionary process, whether NCT obscures or clarifies how natural selection leads to organismal adaptation, and whether niche construction and natural selection are of equivalent explanatory importance. We also consider whether the literature that promotes NCT overstates the significance of niche construction, whether it is internally coherent, and whether it accurately portrays standard evolutionary theory. Our disagreements reflect a wider dispute within evolutionary theory over whether the neo-Darwinian synthesis is in need of reformulation, as well as different usages of some key terms (e.g., evolutionary process). (shrink)

Philosophy, science, and common sense all refer to propositions--things we believe and say, and things which are true or false. But there is no consensus on what sorts of things these entities are. Jeffrey C. King, Scott Soames, and Jeff Speaks argue that commitment to propositions is indispensable, and each defend their own views on the debate.

:Recent neuroimaging research on disorders of consciousness provides direct evidence of covert consciousness otherwise not detected clinically in a subset of severely brain-injured patients. These findings have motivated strategic development of binary communication paradigms, from which researchers interpret voluntary modulations in brain activity to glean information about patients’ residual cognitive functions and emotions. The discovery of such responsiveness raises ethical and legal issues concerning the exercise of autonomy and capacity for decisionmaking on matters such as healthcare, involvement in research, and (...) end of life. These advances have generated demands for access to the technology against a complex background of continued scientific advancement, questions about just allocation of healthcare resources, and unresolved legal issues. Interviews with professionals whose work is relevant to patients with disorders of consciousness reveal priorities concerning further basic research, legal and policy issues, and clinical considerations. (shrink)

From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and (...) warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen. (shrink)

‘Bah! Humbug!’ It's the most famous line in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , but is it the most important? Surely not, for this Christmas classic is not centrally about Christmas, but about a man, the holiday being the convenient setting for his transformation. What kind of transformation? Why a moral transformation of course, because the man, Ebenezer Scrooge, through multiple encounters with the spirit world, becomes a good man by the end of the story. But where does this story (...) begin, what are we to think of Scrooge at the outset and how is his transformation accomplished? These are the questions I take up here, for while Scrooge is tightfisted, covetous and hard-hearted, he is still a man of principle. Judged by the standards of some views on ethics, Scrooge isn't actually all that bad. How can that be? Let's start with a quick overview of two centuries of ethical theory. (shrink)

Modelling that exploits visual elements and information visualisation are important areas that have contributed immensely to understanding and the computerisation advancements in many domains and yet remain unexplored for the benefit of the law and legal practice. This paper investigates the challenge of modelling and expressing structures and processes in legislation and the law by using visual modelling and information visualisation (InfoVis) to assist accessibility of legal knowledge, practice and knowledge formalisation as a basis for legal AI. The paper uses (...) a subset of the well-defined Unified Modelling Language (UML) to visually express the structure and process of the legislation and the law to create visual flow diagrams called lawmaps, which form the basis of further formalisation. A lawmap development methodology is presented and evaluated by creating a set of lawmaps for the practice of conveyancing and the Landlords and Tenants Act 1954 of the United Kingdom. This paper is the first of a new breed of preliminary solutions capable of application across all aspects, from legislation to practice; and capable of accelerating development of legal AI. (shrink)

American football is played in a chaotic visual environment filled with relevant and distracting information. We investigated the hypothesis that collegiate football players show exceptional skill at shielding their response execution from the interfering effects of distraction ( interference control ). The performances of 280 football players from National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I football programs were compared to age-matched controls in a variant of the Eriksen flanker task ( Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974 ). This task quantifies the magnitude of (...) interference produced by visual distraction on split-second response execution. Overall, football athletes and age controls showed similar mean reaction times (RTs) and accuracy rates. However, football athletes were more proficient at shielding their response execution speed from the interfering effects of distraction (i.e., smaller flanker effect costs on RT). Offensive and defensive players showed smaller interference costs compared to controls, but defensive players showed the smallest costs. All defensive positions and one offensive position showed statistically smaller interference effects when compared directly to age controls. These data reveal a clear cognitive advantage among football athletes at executing motor responses in the face of distraction, the existence and magnitude of which vary by position. Individual differences in cognitive control may have important implications for both player selection and development to improve interference control capabilities during play. (shrink)

Despite the iconic roles of coelacanths, cycads, tadpole shrimps, and tuataras as taxa that demonstrate a pattern of morphological stability over geological time, their status as living fossils is contested. We responded to these controversies with a recommendation to rethink the function of the living fossil concept. Concepts in science do useful work beyond categorizing particular items and we argued that the diverse and sometimes conflicting criteria associated with categorizing items as living fossils represent a complex problem space associated with (...) answering a range of questions related to prolonged evolutionary stasis. Turner defends the living concept against a variety of recent skeptics, but his criticism of our approach relies on a misreading of our main argument. This misreading is instructive because it brings into view the value of three central themes for rethinking the living fossil concept—the function of concepts in biology outside of categorization, the methodological importance of distinguishing parts and wholes in conceptualizing evolutionary phenomena, and articulating diverse explanatory goals associated with these phenomena. (shrink)

From Santa, elves and Ebenezer Scrooge, to the culture wars and virgin birth, _Christmas - Philosophy for Everyone_ explores a host of philosophical issues raised by the practices and beliefs surrounding Christmas. Offers thoughtful and humorous philosophical insights into the most widely celebrated holiday in the Western world Contributions come from a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, theology, religious studies, English literature, cognitive science and moral psychology The essays cover a wide range of Christmas themes, from a defence of (...) the miracle of the virgin birth to the relevance of Christmas to atheists and pagans. (shrink)

Mālik and Medina: Islamic Legal Reasoning in the Formative Period. By Umar F. Abd-Allah Wymann-Landgraf. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 101. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Pp. xiv + 552. $277, €199.