Based upon the Decision Field Theory (Busemeyer and Townsend 1993), we tested a model of dynamic reasoning to predict the effect of time pressure on analytical and experiential processing during decision-making. Forty-six participants were required to make investment decisions under four levels of time pressure. In each decision, participants were presented with experiential cues which were either congruent or incongruent with the analytical information. The congruent/incongruent conditions allowed us to examine how many decisions were based upon the experiential versus the (...) analytical information, and to see if this was affected by the varying degrees of time pressure. As expected, the overall accuracy was reduced with greater time pressure and accuracy was higher when the experiential and analytical cues were congruent than when they were incongruent. Of great interest was the data showing that under high time pressure participants used more experiential cues than at other time pressures. We suggest that the dynamic reasoning paradigm has some future potential for predicting the effects of experiential biases in general, and specifically under time pressure. (shrink)

Technological change is often seen as something that follows its own logic -- something we may welcome, or about which we may protest, but which we are unable to alter fundamentally. This reader challenges that assumption and its distinguished contributors demonstrate that technology is affected at a fundamental level by the social context in which it develops. General arguments are introduced about the relation of technology to society and different types of technology are examined: the technology of production: domestic and (...) reproductive technology; and military technology. The book draws on authors from Karl Marx to Cynthia Cockburn to show that production technology is shaped by social relations in the workplace. It moves on to the technologies of the household and biological reproduction, which are topics that male-dominated social science has tended to ignore or trivialise -- though these are actually of crucial significance where powerful shaping factors are at work, normally unnoticed. The final section asks what shapes the most frightening technology of all -- the technology of weaponry, especially nuclear weapons. The editors argue that social scientists have devoted disproportionate attention to the effects of technology on society, and tended to ignore the more fundamental question of what shapes technology in the first place. They have drawn both on established work in the history and sociology of technology and on newer feminist perspectives to show just how important and fruitful it is to try to answer that deeper question. The first edition of this reader, published in 1985, had a considerable influence on thinking about the relationship between technology andsociety. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded to take into account new research and the emergence of new theoretical perspectives. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to assess the presence of ethics committees in rural critical access hospitals across the United States. Several studies have investigated the presence of ethics committees in rural health care facilities. The limitation of these studies is in the definition of ‘rural hospital’ and a regional or state focus. These limitations have created large variations in the study findings. In this nation-wide study we used the criteria of a critical access hospital (CAH), as defined by (...) the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program (Flex Program, 2007), to bring consistency and clarity to the assessment of the presence of ethics committees in rural hospitals. The Flex Monitoring Team conducted a national telephone survey of 381 CAH administrators throughout the United States. The survey covered a wide variety of questions concerning hospitals’ community benefit, impact activities, and whether the hospital had a formally established an ethics committee. About 230 (60%) of the respondents indicated they had a formally established ethics committee or ethics consultation program at their CAH. The prevalence of ethics committees declined as the CAH location became increasingly rural along a rural–urban continuum. Unlike CAHs, all rural Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers have ethics committees. The results of this study provide an understanding of the limited presence of ethics committee in rural America and the need to consider new approaches for providing ethics assistance. A virtual ethics committee network may be the most efficient and effective way of providing rural hospitals access to a knowledgeable ethics committee or consultant. (shrink)

Covid-19 lockdown restrictions constitute a population-wide “life-change event” disrupting normal daily routines. It was proposed that as a result of these lockdown restrictions, physical activity levels would likely decline. However, it could also be argued that lifestyle disruption may result in the formation of increased physical activity habits. Using a longitudinal design, the purpose of this study was to investigate changes in physical activity of different intensities, across individuals who differed in activity levels prior to lockdown restrictions being imposed, and (...) across three time periods: pre-, during- and post-lockdown. This study also examined the extent to which the experience of daily hassles explained any changes in physical activity. A convenience sample recruited through social media, provided data from an online survey administered during weeks 2–3 of a 5-week lockdown and 231 participants provided complete data again 6 weeks post-lockdown. Participants completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire–Short Form and the Daily Hassles Scale. Results showed that vigorous and moderate intensity PA were significantly lower during- and post-lockdown compared to pre-lockdown in those individuals who had been highly active pre-lockdown. In contrast, for moderately active individuals pre-lockdown, vigorous and moderate intensity PA was significantly higher during-lockdown compared to pre-lockdown, and these increased levels of vigorous PA were maintained post-lockdown. Participants experienced daily hassles due to inner concerns, time pressures, family, and financial concerns to the same extent during- and post-lockdown. Those daily hassles had a small negative predictive effect on post-lockdown PA. It appears that to understand the effect of COVID-19 restrictions on PA, the activity status of individuals pre-lockdown needs to be taken into account. The daily hassles appeared to play a role in post-lockdown PA behavior, but future research should investigate why these results occurred. (shrink)

Several studies have identified entrepreneurship as a key factor in wealth creations in addition to associating certain personality characteristics to its growth. The question is to what extent have these wealth creations performed ethically. The present study is set to explore the cognitive orientation and demographic factors that are associated with unethical business. Two hundred and fifty-six owner–managers in the age range of 24 to 68 years participated in the survey study. Male participants accounted for 63.3 per cent, while female (...) participants were 36.7 per cent. The results indicate that risk taking and gender factors were consistently and statistically significant predictors of unethical business across the three groups in this study. The group situation appears to have effect on the individual contribution to unethical business. Implications are drawn from the results, and priorities are established for future research. (shrink)

The neutrosophic automorphisms of a neutrosophic groups G (I) , denoted by Aut(G (I)) is a neu-trosophic group under the usual mapping composition. It is a permutation of G (I) which is also a neutrosophic homomorphism. Moreover, suppose that X1 = X(G (I)) is the neutrosophic group of inner neutrosophic auto-morphisms of a neutrosophic group G (I) and Xn the neutrosophic group of inner neutrosophic automorphisms of Xn-1. In this paper, we show that if any neutrosophic group of the sequence (...) G (I), X1, X2, … is the identity, then G (I) is nilpotent. (shrink)

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, ‘As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch’, gathers wider philosophical (...) considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, ‘Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?’, looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, ‘If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you’, focuses to Greta Thunberg’s messages and their responses. The last section, ‘Towards a new normal’, explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles’ parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic education. (shrink)

When experienced in-person, engagement with art has been associated—in a growing body of evidence—with positive outcomes in wellbeing and mental health. This represents an exciting new field for psychology, curation, and health interventions, suggesting a widely-accessible, cost-effective, and non-pharmaceutical means of regulating factors such as mood or anxiety. However, can similar impacts be found with online presentations? If so, this would open up positive outcomes to an even-wider population—a trend accelerating due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its promise, this (...) question, and the underlying mechanisms of art interventions and impacts, has largely not been explored. Participants were asked to engage with one of two online exhibitions from Google Arts and Culture. With just 1–2 min exposure, both improved negative mood, state-anxiety, loneliness, and wellbeing. Stepdown analysis suggested the changes can be explained primarily via negative mood, while improvements in mood correlated with aesthetic appraisals and cognitive-emotional experience of the exhibition. However, no difference was found between exhibitions. We discuss the findings in terms of applications and targets for future research. (shrink)

In his recent book Reflective Democracy, Robert Goodin argues that 'external-collaborative' models of democratic deliberation procedures need to be supplemented by 'internal-reflective' deliberation. The exercise of the moral imagination plays a central role in Goodin's account of 'democratic deliberation within'. By imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of a range of others, he argues, including those who maybe not be able to represent their own interests, we can make their points of view 'communicatively present' in deliberation. Goodin's argument emphasizes the (...) role of art and other forms of cultural representation in helping to bring about this expansion of moral imagination. Drawing on debates in philosophy of mind concerning the scope and limits of our capacities to simulate other minds, I argue that Goodin's analysis of 'democratic deliberation within' conflates different kinds of imaginative project. In doing so, it underestimates both the difficulties of imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of others and the political risks in doing so. I argue, alternatively, that moral engagement with others involves the capacity for sympathy and that art and other forms of cultural representation can enlarge the scope of our sympathies, by assisting us to overcome imaginative resistance to alien points of view. In developing this argument, I provide a qualified defense of Iris Young's claim that respect for others involves 'asymmetrical reciprocity'. (shrink)

This paper analyses the thorny interpretative puzzle surrounding the connection between humanity and the good will. It discusses this puzzle: if the good will is the only good without qualification, why does Kant claim that humanity is something possessing an absolute value? It explores the answers to this question within Kantian scholarship; answers that emanate from a commitment to the human capacity for freedom and morality and to actual obedience to the moral law. In its final analysis, it endorses Richard (...) Dean’s good will reading as the most reflective of Kant’s ethics. It claims that in order for a person to reach the moral ideal of acting rightly and giving priority to moral law, he must always honour his duties to himself. Accordingly, it argues that before a person can be deemed as an object of respect, he must first respect the right of humanity in his own person. (shrink)

Patients in the vegetative state are wholly unaware of themselves, or their surroundings. However, a minority of patients diagnosed as vegetative are actually aware. What is the well-being of these patients? How are their lives going, for them? It has been argued that on a reasonable conception of well-being, these patients are faring so poorly that it may be in their best interests not to continue existing. I argue against this claim. Standard conceptions of well-being do not clearly support the (...) conclusion that these patients would be better off having life-sustaining treatment withdrawn, and in fact, it may be possible for these patients to retain a passable level of well-being. I suggest that further research into the subjective experiences of these patients will allow us to better promote their well-being. (shrink)

When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism of time, (...) describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/ redeployment of staff outside their specialty areas. The third phase was characterized by the recognition that while the worst of the crisis was waning, its medium- and long-term consequences continued to pose immense challenges. We note that there were times during the crisis that serving in the role of clinical ethics consultant created a sense of dis-ease as novel as the coronavirus itself. In retrospect we learned that our activities far exceeded the familiar terrain of clinical ethics consultation and extended into other spheres of organizational life in novel ways that were unanticipated before this pandemic. To that end, we defined and categorized a middle level of ethics consultation, which we have termed service practice communication intervention (SPCI). This is an underappreciated dimension of the work that ethics consult services are capable of in times of crisis. We believe that the pandemic has revealed the many enduring ways that ethics consultation services can more robustly contribute to the ethical life of their institutions moving forward. (shrink)

The significance of big data for driving health research and improvements in patient care is well recognised. Along with these potential benefits, however, come significant challenges, including those concerning the sharing and linkage of health and social care records. Recently, there has been a shift in attention towards a paradigm of data sharing centred on the ‘trusted research environment’ (TRE). TREs are being widely adopted by the UK’s health data initiatives including Health Data Research UK (HDR UK),1 Our Future Health2 (...) and Genomics England.3 A recent review commissioned by the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (hereafter referred to as the ‘Goldacre Review’) places TREs at the heart of its recommendations around the future of National Health Service (NHS) health data sharing for research, describing them as the ‘clear path forward’ to a health data system in which trust is ‘earned’ through ‘provable, credible steps to protect patient privacy, and by being transparent with everyone about everything that is done with their deepest medical secrets’.4 We argue that rather than building public trust, the TRE model actually reduces the need for trust in the use and sharing of patient health data. This is because trust is importantly connected to vulnerability and uncertainty; an essential part of trusting someone is accepting that one’s trust could be disappointed or betrayed. In attempting to provide assurances or guarantees of data privacy and security, TREs strive to remove this vulnerability, and so remove the need for trust. We do not see this as a problem and are broadly supportive of this kind of data sharing model because of the increased security and oversight it provides. However, having argued that TREs are not actually concerned with trust, we consider the importance of being precise about the words that we use …. (shrink)

This paper explores the new frontier within Kantian scholarship which suggests that Kant places so much special importance on the value of rational nature that the supreme principle of morality and the concept of human dignity are both grounded on it. Advocates of this reading argue that the notion of autonomy and dignity should now be considered as the central claim of Kant’s ethics, rather than the universalisation of maxims. Kant’s ethics are termed as repugnant for they place a high (...) demand on the universalisation of maxims as a universal moral principle. As a result, they argue that there is an urgent need to rescue Kant’s ethics from the controversies surrounding maxims and universalisability, and the best way to rescue his ethics is by “leaving deontology behind”. It must be left behind because the categorical imperative is not needed in order to rescue Kant’s ethics, as deontology is often overrated. Consequently, the highest duties of the human being are to ensure that his fellow human beings enjoy unhindered autonomy and receive the honour that their dignity duly deserves, as well as to look after their welfare and treat them with respect, regardless of their dispositions. I review recent literature to appraise this new frontier within Kantian scholarship. I also explore the works of philosophers, such as Herman, Korsgaard, Wood, Höffe, and, specifically, Hill, on Kant’s conception of human dignity in relation to its conception as autonomy, humanity, and the source of human rights. (shrink)

This essay discusses Wittgenstein's conception of logic, early and late, and some of the types of logical system that he constructed. The essay shows that the common view according to which Wittgenstein had stopped engaging in logic as a philosophical discipline by the time of writing Philosophical Investigations is mistaken. It is argued that, on the contrary, logic continued to figure at the very heart of later Wittgenstein's philosophy; and that Wittgenstein's mature philosophy of logic contains many interesting thoughts that (...) have gone widely unnoticed. (shrink)

Powered by ‘big health data’ and enormous gains in computing power, artificial intelligence and related technologies are already changing the healthcare landscape. Harnessing the potential of these technologies will necessitate partnerships between health institutions and commercial companies, particularly as it relates to sharing health data. The need for commercial companies to be trustworthy users of data has been argued to be critical to the success of this endeavour. I argue that this approach is mistaken. Our interactions with commercial companies need (...) not, and should not, be based on trust. Rather, they should be based on confidence. I begin by elucidating the differences between trust, reliability, and confidence, and argue that trust is not the appropriate attitude to adopt when it comes to sharing data with commercial companies. I argue that what we really should want is confidence in a system of data sharing. I then provide an outline of what a confidence-worthy system of data sharing with commercial companies might look like, and conclude with some remarks about the role of trust within this system. (shrink)

Unresponsive wakefulness syndrome is a disorder of consciousness wherein a patient is awake, but completely non-responsive at the bedside. However, research has shown that a minority of these patients remain aware, and can demonstrate their awareness via functional neuroimaging; these patients are referred to as having ‘cognitive motor dissociation’. Unfortunately, we have little insight into the subjective experiences of these patients, making it difficult to determine how best to promote their well-being. In this paper, I argue that the capacity to (...) experience pain or pleasure is a key component of well-being for these patients. While patients with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome are believed to be incapable of experiencing pain or pleasure, I argue that there is evidence to support the notion that CMD patients likely can experience pain and pleasure. I analyze current neuroscientific research into the mechanisms of pain experience in patients with disorders of consciousness, and provide an explanation for why CMD patients likely can experience physical pain. I then do the same for physical pleasure. I conclude that providing these patients with pleasurable experiences, and avoiding subjecting them to pain, are viable means of promoting their well-being. (shrink)

The logical problem of artificial intelligence—the question of whether the notion sometimes referred to as ‘strong’ AI is self-contradictory—is, essentially, the question of whether an artificial form of life is possible. This question has an immediately paradoxical character, which can be made explicit if we recast it (in terms that would ordinarily seem to be implied by it) as the question of whether an unnatural form of nature is possible. The present paper seeks to explain this paradoxical kind of possibility (...) by arguing that machines can share the human form of life and thus acquire human mindedness, which is to say they can be intelligent, conscious, sentient, etc. in precisely the way that a human being typically is. (shrink)

Neuroimaging research regularly yields “incidental findings”: observations of potential clinical significance in healthy volunteers or patients, but which are unrelated to the purpose or variables of the study.

What is philosophy? How is it possible? This essay constitutes an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of what might be a good answer to either of these questions by reflecting on one particular characteristic of philosophy, specifically as it presents itself in the philosophical practice of Socrates, Plato and Wittgenstein. Throughout this essay, I conduct the systematic discussion of my topic in parallel lines with the historico-methodological comparison of my three main authors. First, I describe a certain neglected (...) aspect of the Socratic method. Then, exploring the flipside of this aspect, I show that despite the fact that both Socrates and Wittgenstein understand their philosophical approaches as being essentially directed at the particular problems and modes of understanding that are unique to single individuals, they nevertheless aspire to philosophical understanding of the more ‘mundane’ kind that is directed at the world. Finally, interpreting parts of Plato’s dialogues Phaedrus and Laches, I further develop my case for seeing the role of mutual understanding in philosophy as fundamentally twofold, being directed both at the individual and what they say (the word), and at things that are ‘external’ to this human relation at any particular moment of philosophical understanding (the world). (shrink)

Concern for human vulnerability seems to be at the heart of bioethical inquiry, but the concept of vulnerability is under-theorized in the bioethical literature. The aim of this article is to show why bioethics needs an adequately theorized and nuanced conception of vulnerability. We first review approaches to vulnerability in research ethics and public health ethics, and show that the bioethical literature associates vulnerability with risk of harm and exploitation, and limited capacity for autonomy. We identify some of the challenges (...) emerging from this literature: in particular, how to reconcile universal human vulnerability with a context-sensitive analysis of specific kinds and sources of vulnerability; and how to reconcile obligations to protect vulnerable persons with obligations to respect autonomy. We then briefly survey some of the theoretical resources available within the philosophical literature to address these challenges, and to assist in understanding the conceptual connections between vulnerability and related concepts such as harm, exploitation, needs, and autonomy. We also sketch out a taxonomy of sources and kinds of vulnerability. Finally, we consider the implications for policy evaluation of making vulnerability an explicit and central focus of bioethics. Our investigation is in the form of a broad survey motivating a research agenda rather than a detailed analysis. (shrink)

Many secret signs and symbols area associated with the Yoruba as we have it amongst many tribes in Nigeria. Some of these signs and symbols have deep meanings and have connotations amongst the tribe. They form the everyday language of the people and a thorough understanding of them is key in their relationship with one another as a people. The objective of this study is to express the cultural connotations of selected symbols in relation to the Yoruba people of Nigeria. (...) The study hinges on the theories of Mimesis, Structural Formalism and Semiotics. This was validated through ethnographic study of symbols such as art, architecture, clothing, body marks and decorations among others to discover deep and hidden information about cultural beliefs and assumptions among the people under study. Pertinent literatures were reviewed, interviews were conducted, information was sourced from the internet and personal experience was explored. The study points out to the fact that a lot of deep and secret meanings are attached to the selected signs and symbols. The paper concludes that meanings expressed are generally accepted by a host of the Yoruba people; however, there could be slight differences in belief system from one locality to another. The paper had contributed to the pool of knowledge by bringing unknown and hidden meanings of selected signs and symbols of the Yoruba people to limelight. The paper recommends that signs and symbols commonly used in communication among the Yoruba people of Nigeria should incorporated into the curricula of schools; especially Yoruba as a subject and taught to preserve the tradition from extinction. It is also recommended that folklores, mythology and oral tradition be encouraged among younger generation so as to preserve cultural values. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson and Sebastian Sunday-Grève discuss the question of where philosophy starts, and the idea of philosophy as a non-natural science.

Giant bones unearthed throughout the Mesoamerican countryside provoked early modern thinkers to grapple with the earth’s ages, partially syncretizing Nahua histories of human conquest with Spanish colonial medicinal and natural historical knowledge. European naturalists’ willingness to accept the giant remains required them to embrace localized Mesoamerican cosmologies. The fossilized landscape provided evidence that conquest and eradication had happened before at the hands of the peoples whom the Spaniards had conquered in turn. Lost from early modern collections and failing to translate (...) far beyond New Spain during the sixteenth century, the giant remains highlight the possibilities and challenges of integrating Mesoamerican knowledge into the global history of science, with an emphasis on emplaced thinking, medicine and the body, and deeper temporal frameworks. Moving beyond itinerary histories to globalizing cosmologies in the history of science can better explain the compromises Europeans and Mesoamericans were required to make to enter into a syncretic intellectual contract, as well as the non-European concept of time that came with local reckonings with the human and more-than-human natural world. (shrink)

An important goal of ethical investment is to influence companies to improve their ethical and environmental performance. The principal means that many ethical funds employ is passive market signalling, which may not, on its own, have a significant effect. A much more promising approach may be active engagement. This paper reports on a questionnaire study of a sample of 1146 ethical investors in order to assess whether U.K. ethical investors would support more activist ethical investment and whether they would be (...) prepared to invest in companies which are failing ethically in order to do so. The results show general support for the current practice of passive signalling accompanied by "soft" engagement in the form of lobbying and the development of dialogue in order to improve corporate practice. The "harder" options of investing in companies that err in order to change them is, however, favoured by consistent minorities. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to give an account of a methodological link between drama and political theory. This account is drawn primarily from the early philosophical work of Deleuze. Following Deleuze, we will refer to it as ‘the method of dramatization’. We will argue that dramatization is a method aimed at determining the quality of political concepts by ‘bringing them to life’, in the way that dramatic performances bring to life the characters and themes of a play-script. We (...) demonstrate that this can be specified in relation to the development of this method in Deleuze's early philosophical work as a practical, critical and artistic method and, in relation to the ontological assumptions he articulated and defended in Difference and Repetition, as a process of intensification of the Idea of the political. By way of example, we discuss how the dramatization of the concept of ideology functions in Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. We conclude with some lines of inquiry that could be pursued by political theorists looking to investigate further the dramatic nature of method in political theory. (shrink)

In the Groundwork, Kant seems to make two paradoxical claims about the source of human dignity. First, he claims that if “rational nature exists as an end in itself” (Kant, 1998, p. 36), it is because “humanity is… dignity, insofar it is capable of morality” (Kant, 1998, p. 42). Second, he claims that although “autonomy is the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature” (Kant, 1998, p. 43), the human being can only have “dignity… insofar (...) he fulfils all his duties” (Kant, 1998, p. 46). This paper argues that neither claim is repugnant because Kant seeks to advance two kinds of dignity. Kant intends to elucidate that the human being possesses a basic ‘entitled dignity’ in virtue of his capacity for morality, but that he needs to become a moral being in order for him to realise his ‘true dignity’. This paper claims that the formal condition under which a person can be worthy of respect is identical with the condition of realising his ‘true dignity’. (shrink)

Patients with disorders of consciousness after severe brain injury need surrogate decision makers to guide treatment decisions on their behalf. Formal guidelines for surrogate decisionmaking generally instruct decision makers to first appeal to a patient’s written advance directive, followed by making a substituted judgment of what the patient would have chosen, and lastly, to make decisions according to what seems to be in the patient’s best medical interests. Substituted judgment is preferable because it is taken to preserve patient autonomy, by (...) using a patient’s past wishes and values to reconstruct what they would have chosen for themselves. In this paper, the author argues that for a certain population of patients, the standard interpretation of substituted judgment cannot ensure the preservation of patient autonomy. Patients with “covert awareness” may continue to have values and an authentic sense of self, which may differ from their past values and wishes. Accordingly, surrogate decision makers should make decisions based on how the patient is likely to experience their condition in the present, rather than their past wishes and values. (shrink)

For a period in the middle of the present century moral philosophy was dominated by the debate between prescriptivists and descriptivists. Prescriptivists proclaimed a gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, between facts and values, and cheerfully accepted the sceptical consequence that morals, and values generally, could not be objects of knowledge.

This article presents a theory of intuitive skill in terms of three constitutive elements: getting things right intuitively, not getting things wrong intuitively, and sceptical ability. The theory draws on work from a range of psychological approaches to intuition and expertise in various domains, including arts, business, science, and sport. It provides a general framework that will help to further integrate research on these topics, for example building bridges between practical and theoretical domains or between such apparently conflicting methodologies as (...) a heuristics and biases approach on the one hand and one based on naturalistic decision-making on the other. In addition, the theory provides a clearer and more precise account of relevant concepts, which will help to inspire new directions for future research. Intuitive skill is defined as a high level of intuitive ability, that is, the ability to make good use of intuition; specifically, a high level of ability at either getting things right intuitively, not getting things wrong intuitively, or sceptical ability, where the latter is the ability to detect instances of getting things wrong intuitively so as to avoid forming incorrect intuitive judgements, which may itself be partly intuitive. (shrink)

Sebastian Sunday-Grève and Timothy Williamson discuss the question of where philosophy starts and the idea of philosophy as a non-natural science.

The concept of dignity plays a foundational role in the more recent versions of Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities theory. However, despite its centrality to her theory, Nussbaum’s conception of dignity remains under-theorised. In this paper we critically examine the role that dignity plays in Nussbaum’s theory by, first, developing an account of the concept of dignity and introducing a distinction between two types of dignity, status dignity and achievement dignity. Next, drawing on this account, we analyse Nussbaum’s conception of dignity and (...) contrast it with Kant’s conception of dignity. On the basis of this comparison between Nussbaum and Kant, we highlight tensions between Nussbaum’s Aristotelianism, which is central to her conception of dignity, and her commitment to political liberalism. This leads us to conclude that Nussbaum’s claim that her conception of dignity is only a partial political conception is implausible and that her conception of dignity seems to commit her to a satisficing form of perfectionist liberalism. (shrink)

Patients with severe disorders of consciousness are thought to be unaware of themselves or their environment. However, research suggests that a minority of patients diagnosed as having a disorder of consciousness remain aware. These patients, designated as having “cognitive motor dissociation”, can demonstrate awareness by imagining specific tasks, which generates brain activity detectable via functional neuroimaging. The discovery of consciousness in these patients raises difficult questions about their well-being, and it has been argued that it would be better for these (...) patients if they were allowed to die. Conversely, I argue that CMD patients may have a much higher level of well-being than is generally acknowledged. It is far from clear that their lives are not worth living, because there are still significant gaps in our understanding of how these patients experience the world. I attempt to fill these gaps, by analyzing the neuroscientific research that has taken place with these patients to date. Having generated as comprehensive a picture as possible of the capacities of CMD patients, I examine this picture through the lens of traditional philosophical theories of well-being. I conclude that the presumption that CMD patients do not have lives worth living is not adequately supported. (shrink)