A collection of fourteen essays which provide an overview of the argument for intelligent design, with diagrams, explanations, and relevant quotations.

Aristotle, Rhetoric I: A Commentary begins the acclaimed work undertaken by the author, later completed in the second (1988) volume on Aristotle's Rhetoric. The first Commentary on the Rhetoric in more than a century, it is not likely to be superseded for at least another hundred years.

This book examines the ideology of elite lawyers and judges from the Gilded Age through the New Deal. Between 1866 and 1937, a coherent outlook shaped the way the American bar understood the sources of law, the role of the courts, and the relationship between law and the larger society. William M. Wiecek explores this outlook--often called "legal orthodoxy" or "classical legal thought"--which assumed that law was apolitical, determinate, objective, and neutral. American classical legal thought was forged in the heat (...) of the social crises that punctuated the late nineteenth century. Fearing labor unions, immigrants, and working people generally, American elites, including those on the bench and bar, sought ways to repress disorder and prevent political majorities from using democratic processes to redistribute wealth and power. Classical legal thought provided a rationale that assured the legitimacy of the extant distribution of society's resources. It enabled the legal suppression of unions and the subordination of workers to management's authority. As the twentieth-century U.S. economy grew in complexity, the antiregulatory, individualistic bias of classical legal thought became more and more distanced from reality. Brittle and dogmatic, legal ideology lost legitimacy in the eyes of both laypeople and ever-larger segments of the bar. It was at last abandoned in the "constitutional revolution of 1937", but--as Wiecek argues in this detailed analysis--nothing has arisen since to replace it as an explanation of what law is and why courts have such broad power in a democratic society. (shrink)

Narrative passages told from a character's perspective convey the character's thoughts and perceptions. We present a discourse process that recognizes characters'.

Mere physical experiences of warmth, distance, hardness, and roughness are found to activate the more abstract psychological concepts that are analogically related to them, such as interpersonal warmth and emotional distance, thereby influencing social judgments and interpersonal behavior without the individual's awareness. These findings further support the principle of neural reuse in the development and operation of higher mental processes.

The low rates of regular exercise and overall physical activity (PA) in the general population represent a significant public health challenge. Previous research suggests that, for many people, exercise leads to a negative affective response and, in turn, reduced likelihood of future exercise. The purpose of this paper is to examine this exercise–affect–adherence relationship from an evolutionary perspective. Specifically, we argue that low rates of physical exercise in the general population are a function of the evolved human tendency to avoid (...) unnecessary physical exertion. This innate tendency evolved because it allowed our evolutionary ancestors to conserve energy for physical activities that had immediate adaptive utility such as pursuing prey, escaping predators, and engaging in social and reproductive behaviors. The commonly observed negative affective response to exercise is an evolved proximate psychological mechanism through which humans avoid unnecessary energy expenditure. The fact that the human tendencies toward negative affective response to and avoidance of unnecessary physical activities are innate does not mean that they are unchangeable. Indeed, it is only because of human-engineered changes in our environmental conditions (i.e., it is no longer necessary for us to work for our food) that our predisposition to avoid unnecessary physical exertion has become a liability. Thus, it is well within our capabilities to reengineer our environments to once again make PA necessary or, at least, to serve an immediate functional purpose. We propose a two-pronged approach to PA promotion based on this evolutionary functional perspective: first, to promote exercise and other physical activities that are perceived to have an immediate purpose, and second, to instill greater perceived purpose for a wider range of physical activities. We posit that these strategies are more likely to result in more positive (or less negative) affective responses to exercise, better adherence to exercise programs, and higher rates of overall PA. (shrink)

The Roberta Kevelson Seminar on Law and Semiotics is integrated in the regular program of a US Law School and student enrollment is honored with credit points. Hitherto, the study of Legal Semiotics has mainly been located outside the Law Schools in the US and the Faculties of Law in the EU. Two important questions within the more general theme of Legal Semiotics and Legal Education arose: (1) the program requirements in an education context, and (2) the attention and interests (...) of the students. This IJSL issue offers essays presented during the Round Table which closed the Seminar, provides some experience-based suggestions for a Seminar program and discusses how to deal with the pragmatic attitude of law students. It interests how those topics relate to legal and semiotic literature and how they focus globally important viewpoints, as can be concluded in the example of the legal semiotics of family structures. (shrink)

This commentary challenges the argument that the diathesis for hallucinations is equivalent to that for schizophrenia. Evidence against this comes from data on the prevalence of hallucinations in schizophrenia, their nonspecificity, and their relationships with moderating variables. We also highlight, however, the manner in which the Behrendt & Young (B&Y) hypothesis extends recent neuroscientific theories of schizophrenia, and its potential treatment applications.

Narrative passages told from a character's perspective convey the character's thoughts and perceptions. We present a discourse process that recognizes characters' thoughts and perceptions in third-person narrative. An effect of perspective on reference in narrative is addressed: References in passages told from the perspective of a character reflect the character's beliefs. An algorithm that uses the results of our discourse process to understand references with respect to an appropriate set of beliefs is presented.

Nurses have moral obligations incurred by membership in the profession to participate knowingly in health policy advocacy. Many barriers have historically hindered nurses from realizing their potential to advance health policy. The contemporary political context sets additional challenges to policy work due to polarization and conflict. Nursing education can help nurses recognize their role in advancing health through political advocacy in a manner that is consistent with disciplinary knowledge and ethical responsibilities. In this paper, the authors describe an exemplar of (...) Elizabeth Barrett's “Power as Knowing Participation in Change” theory as a disciplinary lens within a doctoral nursing health policy course. Barrett (radically) emphasizes “power as freedom” instead of “power as control.” This approach is congruent with nursing disciplinary values and enhances awareness of personal freedom and building collaborative relationships in the policy process. The theory was used in concert with other traditional policy content and frameworks from nursing and other disciplines. We discuss the role of nursing ethics viewed as professional responsibility for policy action, an overview of Barrett's theory, and the design of the course. Four student reflections on how the course influenced their thinking about policy advocacy are included. While not specific to policymaking, Barrett's theory provides a disciplinary grounding to increase students' awareness of freedom and choices in political advocacy participation. Our experience suggests that Barrett's work can be fruitful for enhancing nurses' awareness of choices to participate in change across settings. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of ethics instruction, religiosity, and intelligence on cheating behavior. A sample of 230 upper level, undergraduate business students had the opportunity to increase their chances of winning money in an experimental situation by falsely reporting their task performance. In general, the results indicate that students who attended worship services more frequently were less likely to cheat than those who attended worship services less frequently, but that students who had taken a course in business ethics were (...) no less likely to cheat than students who had not taken such a course. However, the results do indicate that the extent to which taking a business ethics course influenced cheating behavior was moderated by the religiosity and intelligence of the individual student. In particular, while students who were highly religious were unlikely to cheat whether or not they had taken a business ethics course, students who were not highly religious demonstrated less cheating if they had taken a business ethics course. In addition, the extent of cheating among highly intelligent students was significantly reduced if such students had taken a course in business ethics. Likewise, individuals who were highly intelligent displayed significantly less cheating if they were also highly religious. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This study examined whether undergraduate students’ perceptions regarding the acceptability of cheating were influenced by the amount of ethics instruction the students had received and/or by their personality. The results, from a sample of 230 upper-level undergraduate students, indicated that simply taking a business ethics course did not have a significant influence on students’ views regarding cheating. On the other hand, Machiavellianism was positively related to perceiving that two forms of cheating were acceptable. Moreover, in testing for moderating relationships, the (...) results indicated that the extent to which taking a business ethics course influenced attitudes varied substantially across individuals. Specifically, taking a course in business ethics did result in students who scored lower on Machiavellianism holding even more negative views regarding certain forms of cheating. In addition, individuals with higher grade point averages (GPAs) who had taken a course in business ethics were also less accepting of certain forms of cheating than individuals with similar GPAs who had not taken the business ethics course. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The model of clinical ethics consultation (CEC) defended in the ASBH Core Competencies report has gained significant traction among scholars and healthcare providers. On this model, the aim of CEC is to facilitate deliberative reflection and thereby resolve conflicts and clarify value uncertainty by invoking and pursuing a process of consensus building. It is central to the model that the facilitated consensus falls within a range of allowable options, defined by societal values: prevailing legal requirements, widely endorsed organizational policies, and (...) professional standards of practice and codes of conduct. Moreover, the model stipulates that ethics consultants must refrain from giving substantive recommendations regarding how parties to a moral disagreement in the clinic should evaluate their options. We argue that this model of CEC is incomplete, because it wrongly assumes that what counts as the proper set of allowable options among which the parties are to deliberate will itself always be clearly discernible. We illustrate this problem with a recent case on which one of us consulted—a neonate born with trisomy 18 (T18). We try to show that law, policy, and standards of practice reveal no clear answer to the question posed by the case: namely, whether forgoing gastrostomy tube feedings for a baby with T18 is allowable. We suggest there may be other kinds of cases in which it may simply be unsettled whether a given choice falls within the set of allowable options within which consensus is to be facilitated. What should an ethicist do when confronting such unsettled cases? We agree with the facilitation model that an ethicist should remain neutral among the allowable options, when it is clear what the allowable options are. But, in unsettled cases, the role of a consultant should be expanded to include a process of moral inquiry into what the allowable options should be. We end by raising the issue of whether this means an ethicist should share his or her own conclusions or views about the allowability of a given clinical option. (shrink)

Abstract While agreeing that dynamical models play a major role in cognitive science, we reject Stepp, Chemero, and Turvey's contention that they constitute an alternative to mechanistic explanations. We review several problems dynamical models face as putative explanations when they are not grounded in mechanisms. Further, we argue that the opposition of dynamical models and mechanisms is a false one and that those dynamical models that characterize the operations of mechanisms overcome these problems. By briefly considering examples involving the generation (...) of action potentials and circadian rhythms, we show how decomposing a mechanism and modeling its dynamics are complementary endeavors. (shrink)

In this paper we will argue in favor of federal funding of elective abortion, more specifically in support of Medicaid funding. To do so, we will address the restrictions on public funding presently in place and demonstrate that the various justifications offered in their defense are in­adequate. We will then suggest that the ‘failure to enable’ represented by a ban on Federal funding is morally equivalent to an outright prohibition on abortion for the target population. Just as a moral equivalence (...) can be established between killing and letting die in symmetrical cases, like criteria for equivalence can be established that help to identify those failures to make possible that are morally indistinguishable from proscriptions. On this basis, it can be shown that restrictions on Federal funding in such contexts can be thought to carry the same moral liability as prohibitions. (shrink)

In 2004, the United States Sentencing Commission amended the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to allow firms that create “effective compliance and ethics programs” to receive better treatment if prosecuted for fraud. Effective compliance and ethics, however, appear to be limited to activities focused on complying with the firms’ internal legal and ethical standards. We explored a potential connection between the firms’ external corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviors and internal compliance: Is there an organizationally valid relationship between these two firm activities? That (...) is, when organizations demonstrate CSR with behaviors external to the firm, such as employee volunteerism, are their employees more likely to demonstrate uncompromised legal and ethical compliance behavior internally? We collected data from 164 working professionals enrolled in a top-tier MBA program in the southeastern United States regarding their employer-sponsored volunteer activities and their intentions to comply in various organizational compliance vignettes. We found that employer-sponsored volunteerism is associated with uncompromised compliance choices in one of the three vignettes. This finding indicates preliminary support for further inquiry into the relationship within the firm between external CSR behaviors and policies regarding organizational compliance. Post hoc analyses suggest that employer-sponsored volunteerism is strongly associated with a positive organizational identity, but organizational identity is not associated with the significant compliance vignette. This evidence suggests that the underlying mechanism that connects external CSR behaviors and internal compliance intentions is complex and requires future study. (shrink)