Many publicly-funded health systems apply cost-benefit frameworks in response to the moral dilemma of how best to allocate scarce healthcare resources. However, implementation of recommendations based on costs and benefit calculations and subsequent challenges have led to ‘special cases’ with certain types of health benefits considered more valuable than others. Recent debate and research has focused on the relative value of life extensions for people with terminal illnesses. This research investigates societal perspectives in relation to this issue, in the UK.

In this discussion, I engage the politics of intention to explore how structural racism structures the production of meaning and the practice of reason. Building on María Lugones's analysis of intention formation as a form of practical reasoning, I explore the reasoning at work during the 2011 Stand Your Ground (SYG) hearing of black survivor of domestic violence, Marissa Alexander, to contend that structural racism—in this case, both intimate personal violence and intimate state violence against black women—enacts race/gender domination (...) through projecting constructed intentions onto black women as a strategy to rationalize punishing black women. I also discuss two key black feminist critiques of reason—Patricia Hill Collins’ discussion of “controlling images” (2000) and Michelle Cliff's concept of the “mythic mind” (1982)—to propose controlling intentions as a framework to theorize how structural racism produces fictive intentions used to rationalize the criminal punishment of survival and justify that outcome as common sense. (shrink)

The anti- Humean proposal of constructing desire as belief about what would be good must be abandoned on pain of triviality. Our central result shows that if an agent's belief- desire state is represented by Jeffrey's expected value theory enriched with the Desire as Belief Thesis (DAB), then, provided that three pairwise inconsistent propositions receive non- zero probability, the agent must view with indifference any proposition whose probability is greater than zero. Unlike previous results against DAB our Opinionation or Indifference (...) Theorem is a purely synchronic one that depends in no way of the properties of Jeffrey conditionalization. (shrink)

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is responsible for the Code of Professional Conduct that governs the actions of CPAs. In 1988, the Code was revised by the AICPA, but a number of issues still remain unresolved or confounded by the new Code. These issues are examined in light of the profession''s stated commitment to the public good, a commitment that is discussed at length in the new Code.Specifically, this paper reviews the following issues: (1) client confidentiality and (...) whistleblowing, (2) limited liability, and (3) auditor independence. We argue that, in each of these areas, the AICPA promotes a position that is potentially harmful to the public good. (shrink)

It is shown that the Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics can be derived as a corrected form of probability theory. These constructions yield the Schrödinger equation for a particle in an electromagnetic field and exhibit a relationship of this equation to Markov processes. The operator formalism for expectation values is shown to be related to anL 2 representation of marginal distributions and a relationship of the commutation rules for canonically conjugate observables to a topological relationship of two manifolds is (...) indicated. (shrink)

I argue for a cognitive architecture in which folk psychology is supported by an interface of a ToM module and the language faculty, the latter providing the former with interpreted LF structures which form the content representations of ToM states. I show that LF structures satisfy a range of key features asked of contents. I confront this account of ToM with eliminativism and diagnose and combat the thought that "success" and innateness are inconsistent with the falsity of folk psychology. I (...) show that, while my ensemble account of ToM and language refutes the culturalist presuppositions that tend to underlie eliminativist arguments, the falsity of folk psychology is consistent with the account. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of what God's ultimate purposes might be for creating the world, focusing particularly on what His purpose might have been in creating the world via a seemingly partly chance-driven evolutionary process. It argues that God's creation of human beings and other living organisms through an evolutionary process allows for richer and deeper sorts of interconnections between humans and non-human creation than would otherwise be possible. These interconnections are of significant value, mainly because they allow for (...) creation to become more deeply united with ourselves, in fact so united that there exists a deep communion between us and the rest of creation. This communion is not only an intrinsic good, but it enriches us, since part of this communion is creation becoming part of our very self, and thus we consciously share in the richness of creation. (shrink)

Original copyright date: c1972. First Princeton paperback edition, 1975.

Apoptosis is now widely recognized as a common form of cell death and represents a mechanism of cell clearance in many physiological situations where deletion of cells is required. Peptide growth factors, initially characterised as stimulators of cell proliferation, have now been shown to inhibit death in many cell types. Deprivation of growth factors leads to the induction of apoptosis, i.e. condensation of chromatin and degradation in oligonucleosomesized fragments, formation of plasma and nuclear membrane blebs and cell fragmentation into apoptotic (...) bodies which can be taken up by neighbouring cells. Here we discuss the mechanism(;s) by which growth factors may inhibit apoptosis. (shrink)

It is widely accepted by commentators that Descartes believed in freedom of the will, but it is fiercely debated whether he accepted a libertarian or compatibilist notion of freedom. With this paper I argue that an examination of Descartes’ conception of ‘substance,’ specifically his distinction between divine substance and created substance, is a fruitful source for the debate regarding Descartes on freedom of the will. I argue that the commentators who read Descartes as a libertarian are forced to focus on (...) passages that emphasize the similarity between God and humans. This is problematic because Descartes is clear that there is a nonunivocality between God and humans concerning ‘substance.’ This non-univocality between God and humans puts a strain on the libertarian’s focus. During the course of this argument I examine the passages frequently cited by commentators concerning Cartesian freedom and I make explicit the analogy between Descartes’ view on substance and freedom. The upshot is that Descartes’ considered account of substance is further evidence for the compatibilist reading. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE THE SEARCH FOR GOD He who separates the study of philosophy from holy religion errs no less than the man who would separate the pursuit of ...

The Proceedings of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control is based on a two-part conceptual framework composed of public health and legal perspectives. The public health perspective comprises the six target areas and intervention settings that are the focus of the obesity prevention and control efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.This paper presents the legal perspective. Legal preparedness in public health is the underpinning of the framework for the four “assessment” papers and (...) the four “action” papers that are integral to the application of public health law to any particular health issue. In addition, this paper gives real-world grounding to the legal framework through examples that illustrate the four core elements of legal preparedness in public health that are at work in obesity prevention and control. (shrink)

Davis Lewis describes that decision theory is no more than a systematic account of an ordinary, common sense philosophy of mind. It is a tool applied to the task of coming to know ourselves and others as persons. The aim is to extend the value function from individual words to propositions so that it gives a measure of degrees of desire. Decision theorists agree that desirability is to be explicated as expected value. They agree that insofar as decision theory is (...) a normative enterprise, it prescribes that one choose so as to maximize expected value. They agree that the notion of expected value involves the notion of revision of degrees of belief. Desire‐as‐belief implies near‐opinionation or indifference. The author thinks that there is no small irony in the fact that the greatest contemporary defender of Humeanism is also one of the co‐founders of the only version of decision theory. (shrink)

Anonymous sperm donation offspring often yearn for information about their biological fathers, and as they come of age that yearning increases in intensity. We first explore will and interest theory regarding this desire to know one’s heritage and argue that both theories lead to a right of the offspring to know. We then turn to the donor contract, look at the inconsistencies between donor ability to eschew parental responsibility compared to other biological fathers, and argue that there should be a (...) procedure similar to adoption procedures, whereby sperm donors take seriously the legal severing of their parental rights and responsibilities. We conclude that the offspring have a right to their genetic heritage and call for caring reproductive technological practices that ensure children of donors this right. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712204; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 328-344.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 343-344.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.