On behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, I want to thank the Public Health Law Association and the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics for your leadership and the work that both you and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done to grow this field. RWJF is pleased to co-sponsor this conference.The music that opened this talk is a clip from Warren Zevon, who encouraged us musically to “send lawyers, guns and money.” Zevon was a singer/songwriter (...) and social critic whose songs often took a jaundiced, somewhat cynical point of view. Even so, I know that I am probably stretching his meaning when I think of this song. I see “lawyers, guns and money” as his take on the major drivers of how change happens in a society. (shrink)

On behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, I want to thank the Public Health Law Association and the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics for your leadership and the work that both you and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done to grow this field. RWJF is pleased to co-sponsor this conference.The music that opened this talk is a clip from Warren Zevon, who encouraged us musically to “send lawyers, guns and money.” Zevon was a singer/songwriter (...) and social critic whose songs often took a jaundiced, somewhat cynical point of view. Even so, I know that I am probably stretching his meaning when I think of this song. I see “lawyers, guns and money” as his take on the major drivers of how change happens in a society. (shrink)

Like Professor Manser I felt moved to comment on D. Z. Phillips's article on Sartre ); and the editor thoughtfully suggested that we should exchange our comments. We both agree, I think, that Phillips's concern over Sartre's alleged unfairness to waiters has led him to be unfair to Sartre, but whereas Manser is concerned to pursue in general terms the questions of sincerity and commitment I am more concerned to see the example, and the implications that Sartre draws from it, (...) as showing the kind of writer he was and the view of the world that he held. It is this context that seems to me to be lacking in Phillips's article. He thinks that Sartre is unfair to waiters by over-simplifying their attitudes to their jobs, the ways in which they behave when doing them, and the satisfaction that they derive from them. He draws out of these specific comments some more general criticisms of the way in which Sartre over-simplifies the problems of choice: how much of our total personality we express in any particular choice that we make; and the degree of commitment that individual choices involve. All this is very reasonable, but he does not really get to grips with Sartre's concern. (shrink)

We add to Archer's review with mention of sexual orientation differences in aggression and empathy, which suggest a biological basis for the mediating role of empathy. We also note that Archer's view of sex differences will illuminate discussion of conduct disorder, which can only be of help to researchers in this field.

Here reprinted from the 1902 Macmillan edition.

A number of researchers have begun to demonstrate that the widely discussed ?Knobe effect? (wherein participants are more likely to think that actions with bad side-effects are brought about intentionally than actions with good or neutral side-effects) can be found in theory of mind judgments that do not involve the concept of intentional action. In this article we report experimental results that show that attributions of knowledge can be influenced by the kinds of (non-epistemic) concerns that drive the Knobe effect. (...) Our findings suggest there is good reason to think that the epistemic version of the Knobe effect is a theoretically significant and robust effect, and that the goodness or badness of side-effects can often have greater influence on participant knowledge attributions than explicit information about objective probabilities. Thus, our work sheds light on important ways in which participant assessments of actions can affect the epistemic assessments participants make of agents? beliefs. (shrink)

Recent work in experimental philosophy has shown that people are more likely to attribute intentionality, knowledge, and other psychological properties to someone who causes a bad side effect than to someone who causes a good one. We argue that all of these asymmetries can be explained in terms of a single underlying asymmetry involving belief attribution because the belief that one’s action would result in a certain side effect is a necessary component of each of the psychological attitudes in question. (...) We argue further that this belief-attribution asymmetry is rational because it mirrors a belief-formation asymmetry, and that thebelief-formation asymmetry is also rational because it is more useful to form some beliefs than others. (shrink)

It has been argued in the conservation literature that giving conservation absolute priority over competing interests would best protect the environment. Attributing infinite value to the environment or claiming it is ‘priceless’ are two ways of ensuring this priority (e.g. Hargrove 1989; Bulte and van Kooten 2000; Ackerman and Heinzerling 2002; McCauley 2006; Halsing and Moore 2008). But such proposals would paralyse conservation efforts. We describe the serious problems with these proposals and what they mean for practical applications, and we (...) diagnose and resolve some conceptual confusions permeating the literature on this topic. (shrink)

IMITATION is a matter of such familiarity to us all that it goes usually unattended to: so much so that professed psychologists have left it largely undiscussed. Whether it be one of the more ultimate facts or not, suppose we assume it to be so; let us then see what we can explain by it, and where we may be able to trace its influence in the developed mind.

When it comes to using patient data from the National Health Service for research, we are often told that it is a matter of trust: we need to trust, we need to build trust, we need to restore trust. Various policy papers and reports articulate and develop these ideas and make very important contributions to public dialogue on the trustworthiness of our research institutions. But these documents and policies are apparently constructed with little sustained reflection on the nature of trust (...) and trustworthiness, and therefore are missing important features that matter for how we manage concerns related to trust. We suggest that what we mean by ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthiness’ matters and should affect the policies and guidance that govern data sharing in the NHS. We offer a number of initial, general reflections on the way in which some of these features might affect our approach to principles, policies and strategies that are related to sharing patient data for research. This paper is the outcome of a ‘public ethics’ coproduction activity which involved members of the public and two academic ethicists. Our task was to consider collectively the accounts of trust developed by philosophers as they applied in the context of the NHS and to coproduce an argumentative position relevant to this context. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

James Mark Baldwin left a legacy that has yet to be fully examined, one with profound implications for science and the humanities. In some sense it paralleled that of his friend Charles Sanders Peirce, whose semiotics became understood only a century later. Baldwin was trying to make sense of complex biological and social processes that only now have come into the limelight as biological sciences have re-emerged in psychology. Baldwin's focus on development, based on the observation of his (...) own children and extrapolated to his general theoretical scheme, is fully in line with where contemporary biological sciences are heading. This is exemplified by the bounded flexibility of the work of the genetic system. The general principle of persistent exploration of the environment with the result of creating novelty, which was the core of Baldwin's theoretical system, has since the 1960s become the guiding idea in genetics. Contemporary developmental science is rooted in Baldwin's thinking. In his new introduction, Jaan Valsiner shows that Baldwin's Genetic Theory of Reality demonstrates how human beings are in their nature social beings, establishes an alternative conceptualization of evolutionary theory, and formulates a system of developmental logic, all of which serve as the foundation for developmental psychology as a whole. This is a work of social science rediscovery long overdue. (shrink)

In Book II of the Republic, Socrates briefly depicts a city where each inhabitant contributes to the welfare of all by performing the role for which he or she is naturally suited. Socrates calls this city the `true city ' and the `healthy one'. Nearly all commentators have argued that Socrates' praise of the city cannot be taken at face value, claiming that it does not represent Socrates' preferred community. The point of this paper is to argue otherwise. The claim (...) is that Socrates genuinely believes the city is a healthy and desirable city, and that he believes that the First City is in fact superior to the Kallipolis. (shrink)

Philosophy: its relation to life and education.--The ideslism of Spinoza.--Recent discussion in materialism.--Professor Watson on reality and time.--The cosmic and the moral.--Psychology past and present.--The postulates of physiological psychology.--The origin of volition in childhood.--Imitation: a chapter in the natural history of consciousness.--The origin of emotional expression.--The perception of external reality.--Feeling, belief, and judgment.--Memory for square size.--The effect of size-contrast upon judgments of position in the retinal field.--An optical illusion.--New questions in mental chronometry. Types of reaction.--The "type-theory" of reaction.--The psychology of (...) religion.--Shorter philosophical papers.--Shorter literary papers. (shrink)

Utilitarian ideas in nineteenth-centuryAmerica have been given short shrift inmodern historical and philosophicalscholarship. Collecting the relevant publishedwork together in one place is an essentialstarting point for any serious investigation of American utilitarians andtheir critics. James Crimmins and Mark Spencer have made an expertselection from scattered sources of around 60 important articles andessays. These include treatments of Bentham by his friend John Neal,editor of The Yankee, and commentaries on John Stuart Mill gatheredfrom rare American journals. There are also discussions (...) of utilitarianjurisprudence by the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, andpieces by many other writers. This collection, with its substantialeditorial introduction, will be vital reading for historians of ideas,scholars of philosophy and political thought, and any one elseinterested in the fate of utilitarianism in America. (shrink)