Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these criticisms. Rather, (...) what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

Many business ethicists assume that if a type of conduct is illegal, then it is also unethical. This article scrutinizes that assumption, using the rideshare company Uber’s illegal operation in the city of Philadelphia as a case study. I argue that Uber’s unlawful conduct was permissible. I also argue that this position is not an extreme one: it is consistent with a variety of theoretical commitments in the analytic philosophical tradition regarding political obligation. I conclude by showing why business ethicists (...) would have a better rejoinder to the “dominant view” of business ethics associated with Milton Friedman if they dispensed with the assumption that illegal implies unethical. (shrink)

The essay offers a close reading of the inaugural address _Termite Craze_ by the entomologist Karl Escherich, the first German university president to be appointed by the Nazis. Faced with a divided audience and under pressure to politically align the university, Escherich, a former member of the NSDAP, discusses how and to what extent the new regime can recreate the egalitarian perfection and sacrificial predisposition of a termite colony. The paper pays particular attention to the ways in which Escherich tries (...) to appease the various factions in his audience (faculty, students and the Nazi party); in doing so, it also discusses how Escherich depicts his address in the altered versions of his later memoirs. (shrink)

Data from the Global Environmental Monitoring System indicate that pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and total suspended particulate routinely appear in the lower atmosphere of major cities at concentrations well above health guidelines set by the World Health Organization. As well, cities are major contributors to the build-up of greenhouse gases which now threaten climate change. These findings underscore the detrimental relation that has evolved between urban industrial society and the atmosphere. If this peculiar civilization is to be changed, three (...) principles—equity, sustainability and peaceful development—must guide the reevolution of urban life. The paradigm of commodification needs to be replaced with a model of a commons of life. The article provides a theoretical framework and strategy for reforming global climate policy and urban sustainability planning in a manner consistent with life in the commons. (shrink)

Climate change presents a fundamental challenge to the current global energy regime. Under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international community is developing the architecture of a policy response. Three serious flaws are examined: (a) the potential sacrifice of small island states, (b) the use of market-based policy measures to commodify the atmospheric commons, and (c) the substitution of carbon sequestration for meaningful reductions in energy use. The authors’ analysis of the politics of climate change, based on these issues, (...) suggests a new understanding of ecology is emerging—what they term postmodern ecology—in which a global environmental crisis is risked to secure the future of the world energy regime. An alternative, based on principles of sustainability and equity, is proposed that would require abandoning the global energy status quo. (shrink)

The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEvidence suggests that older adults experience greater emotional well-being compared to younger adults. Appraisal theories of emotion posit that differences in emotional experience are the...

From 1982 through 2016, Korean media outlets have reported over 120 instances of vandalism, arson and harassment targeting Buddhist temples and facilities in South Korea. An extension of on-going tensions between South Korea’s Buddhist and Evangelical Protestant communities, this one-sided wave of violence and harassment has caused the destruction of numerous temple buildings and priceless historical artifacts, millions of USD in damages, and one death. This article surveys these incidents of anti-Buddhist vandalism, arson, and harassment, analyzing their general characteristics and (...) summarizing major instances of each, before examining the frequency of these incidents within the wider chronology of recent Evangelical-Buddhist tensions. It then examines the responses from South Korea’s Buddhist and Evangelical communities and various government agencies, as well as the effects of these responses, before investigating the relationship between these incidents and the mainstream Evangelical doctrines of religious exclusivism, dominionism and spiritual warfare. The article closes with a discussion of the need for further research into these incidents and the wider Evangelical-Buddhist tensions surveyed herein as well as the relevance of such research to inter-religious conflicts outside Korea. (shrink)

Over the last few decades there has emerged a small, yet influential eco-Buddhism movement in South Korea which, since the turn of the millennium, has seen several S?n Buddhist clerics engage in high-profile protests and activism campaigns opposing massive development projects which threatened widespread ecological destruction. This article will survey the issues and events surrounding three such protests; the 2003 samboilbae, or ‘threesteps- one-bow’, march led by Venerable Suky?ng against the Saemangeum Reclamation Project, Venerable Jiyul’s Anti-Mt. Ch?ns?ng tunnel hunger-strike campaign (...) between 2002 and 2006, and lastly Venerable Munsu’s self-immolation protesting the Four Rivers Project in 2010. This article will additionally analyze the attempts by these clerics to deploy innovative and distinctively Buddhist forms of protest, the effects of these protests, and how these protests have altered public perceptions of the role of Buddhist clergy in Korean society. This study will additionally highlight issues relevant to the broader discourse regarding the intersection of Buddhism and social activism, such as the appropriation of traditional Buddhist practices as protest tactics and the potential for conflict between social engagement and the pursuit of Buddhist soteriological goals. (shrink)

The first aim of the paper is to proffer a series of objections to the God machine thought experiment, as presented by Savulescu and Persson, The Monist, 95, 399-421,. The second aim is to show that these objections must be overcome by any form of direct moral intervention by technological means, not just the God machine. The objections raised against the god machine involve questioning its intelligibility in light of established views on the relationship between beliefs, desires, intention and intentional (...) action, pointing out the seeming inability of individuals to attribute warranted moral praise to others or themselves in the case of abstentions from grossly immoral acts identifying a problematic ‘slippery slope’ argument, and questioning the rationale underlying the Freedom Lover’s intention to enrol on a moral enhancement course, as well as arguing that that Savulescu and Persson’s notion of ‘complete freedom’ is too stringent. (shrink)

Insofar as psychiatrists and neurologists tend to the cognitive well-being of others, their work is interwoven with philosophical concerns and theoretical assumptions about the nature of the mind, its myriad functions, and the conditions governing its multiform pathologies. That the mind figures so prominently in their ordinary language attests to the wealth of insights that stands to be gained through a dialogue with philosophy. In one of the earliest efforts to taxonomize psychiatric medicine, Allgemeine Psychopathologie, Jaspers incisively remarks that "the (...) exclusion of philosophy would be disastrous for psychiatry…if any psychopathologist thinks he can disregard philosophy and leave it aside as useless he will... (shrink)

Postmodern understandings of the god concept, based upon sociological and anthropological insights, support the ontological reality of the god concept. AII such god constructs can be understood as real but human products which come out of a situated Drama of the Holy. The reality quotient of any god concept can be seen as a function of solidarity activities within a society. Social justice concerns are, thus, the best indicators of that reality quotient while divisive, exploitative and oppressive practices in the (...) world tend to desanctify both society and nature thus justify Death of God analyses. Two interrelated solidarity activities are discussed for their efficacy in sanctification of nature and society: 1) situated Dramas of the Holy and, 2) social policies in the political economy. A variety of grand narratives are mentioned, each with differing foundational concepts, with which to institute social justice as we move into the 21st century. (shrink)

Philosophical tradition sharply distinguishes the conditions under which belief and action are reasonable. This dissertation examines one attempt to sustain this division, namely, the Humean analysis of practical reasons. The Humean analysis divides practical reasons into end and means. The former concerns what one should pursue as goal. The latter, what one should do to realize one's ends. Humeans argue that end reasons are not subject to the conditions of reasonable belief. Since end reasons pick out what has value for (...) an agent, Humeans contend that what makes life meaningful lies largely outside epistemic criteria. I find that Humeans base this claim on two distinct arguments. Each assumes that end reasons are unfit for epistemic appraisal because they lack some feature owned by psychological states suited to epistemic appraisal. A psychological state is fit for epistemic assessment only if its attitude ascribes a truth value to its content and its content owns a truth value. I examine the first conjunct. Regarding , Humeans argue that all genuine end reasons move their agents and, thus, these reasons are wants or take wants as components, since desire is the only source of agent-motivation. But in desiring that p, one does not ascribe a truth-value to p. Thus, end reasons lie outside epistemic criteria, assuming that only those psychological states whose attitude ascribes a truth value to its content are fit for epistemic assessment. Among those who claim that end reasons are a type of conative psychological state in that all genuine end reasons must move their agents are: R. M. Hare, P. H. Nowell-Smith, Gilbert Harman, Donald Davidson, B. A. O. Williams, and Daniel Dennett. I argue that this appeal to motivation fails by examining when an actor is an agent, finding that these conditions do not require that all genuine end reasons motivate. I add that rational failings, such as weakness of will, strongly suggest that not all genuine end reasons motivate. I conclude that end reasons are best conceived as a type of belief and, thus, these reasons do not lie outside epistemic assessment due to their psychological attitude. (shrink)

Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon--the legacy of P.T. Barnum's 'humbug' culminating with the currency of Donald J. Trump's 'fake news'. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, with race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, (...) and 'What Is It?', an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution. Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans like Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. This brilliant and timely work asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of 'truthiness' where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art."--Dust jacket flap. (shrink)