Localism is a social movement often associated with “buy local” food initiatives or the prevention of big-box retail expansion. At its core, however, localism is also about fostering local independence by encouraging businesses to opt for local alternatives when making purchasing decisions. In this article, we develop and test hypotheses that organizations with stronger community-oriented identities are more likely to source locally and that this relationship is moderated by the importance of the focal firm’s purchasing decisions. Results support the strong (...) influence of identity but the conditional effect is unconfirmed. (shrink)

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular (...) desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itself – how it can be rearticulated and regained – and partly through reflections on the current state of education in the ‘north’ and the ‘south.’. (shrink)

This collection brings together eighteen of the author's original papers, previously published in a variety of academic journals and edited collections over the last three decades, on the process of interpretation in literature and the visual arts in one comprehensive volume. The volume highlights the centrality of artistic texts to the study of multimodality, organized into six sections each representing a different modality or semiotic system, including literature, television, film, painting, sculpture, and architecture. A new introduction lays the foundation for (...) the theoretically based method of analysis running through each of the chapters, one that emphasizes the interplay of textual details and larger thematic purposes to create an open-ended and continuous approach to the interpretation of artistic texts, otherwise known as the "hermeneutic spiral". Showcasing Michael O'Toole's extensive contributions to the field of multimodality and in his research on interpretation in literature and the visual arts, this book is essential reading for students and scholars in multimodality, visual arts, art history, film studies, and comparative literature. (shrink)

The power of technology to transform religions, science, and political institutions has often been presented as nothing short of revolutionary. Does technology have a similarly transformative influence on societies’ morality? Scholars have not rigorously investigated the role of technology in moral revolutions, even though existing research on technomoral change suggests that this role may be considerable. In this paper, we explore what the role of technology in moral revolutions, understood as processes of radical group-level moral change, amounts to. We do (...) so by investigating four historical episodes of radical moral change in which technology plays a noteworthy role. Our case-studies illustrate the plurality of mechanisms involved in technomoral revolutions, but also suggest general patterns of technomoral change, such as technology’s capacity to stabilize and destabilize moral systems, and to make morally salient phenomena visible or invisible. We find several leads to expand and refine conceptual tools for analysing moral change, specifically by crystallizing the notions of ‘technomoral niche construction’ and ‘moral payoff mechanisms’. Coming to terms with the role of technology in radical moral change, we argue, enriches our understanding of moral revolutions, and alerts us to the depths of which technology can change our societies in wanted and unwanted ways. (shrink)

Enhancing Communication & Collaboration in Interdisciplinary Research, edited by Michael O'Rourke, Stephen Crowley, Sanford D. Eigenbrode, and J. D. Wulfhorst, is a volume of previously unpublished, state-of-the-art chapters on interdisciplinary communication and collaboration written by leading figures and promising junior scholars in the world of interdisciplinary research, education, and administration. Designed to inform both teaching and research, this innovative book covers the spectrum of interdisciplinary activity, offering a timely emphasis on collaborative interdisciplinary work. The book’s four main parts focus (...) on theoretical perspectives, case studies, communication tools, and institutional perspectives, while a final chapter ties together the various strands that emerge in the book and defines trend-lines and future research questions for those conducting work on interdisciplinary communication. (shrink)

Archaeologists have proposed that behavioral knowledge of a tool can be conceptualized as a “recipe”—a unit of cultural transmission that combines the preparation of raw materials, construction, and use of the tool, and contingency plans for repair and maintenance. This parallels theories in cognitive psychology that behavioral knowledge is hierarchically structured—sequences of actions are divided into higher level, partially independent subunits. Here we use an agent-based simulation model to explore the costs and benefits of hierarchical learning relative to holistic learning, (...) where entire behavioral sequences are learned in an all-or-nothing fashion, and diffusionist learning, where actions are completely independent. Hierarchical learning is favored under the reasonable assumptions that learning is associated with some degree of both error and cost, and that behavior can be grouped into subunits that repeat in one or more tool recipes. These general predictions can be tested in the archaeological and ethnographic record. Recent advances in evolutionary developmental biology have revealed a number of parallels between the hierarchically structured, recipe-like organization of behavioral knowledge that we examine here and the manner in which biological organisms develop. (shrink)

This paper presents a new model for how to jointly analyze the ethical and evidentiary dimensions of environmental science cases, with an eye toward making science more participatory and publically...

We propose using a bi-axial map as a heuristic for categorizing different dynamics involved in the relationship between quality and popularity. The east–west axis represents the degree to which an agent’s decision is influenced by those of other agents. This ranges from the extreme western edge, where an agent learns individually (no outside influence), to the extreme eastern edge, where an agent is influenced by a large number of other agents. The vertical axis represents how easy or difficult it is (...) for an agent to discern the relative quality of available choices. When a case study is located on the map, it becomes easier to select the range of tools to use for understanding and predicting the relation between quality and popularity. (shrink)

PurposeTo use the power of knowledge acquisition and machine learning in the development of a collaborative computer classification system based on the features of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).MethodsA vocabulary was acquired from four AMD experts who examined 100 ophthalmoscopic images. The vocabulary was analyzed, hierarchically structured, and incorporated into a collaborative computer classification system called IDOCS. Using this system, three of the experts examined images from a second set of digital images compiled from more than 1000 patients with AMD. Images (...) were annotated, and features were identified and defined. Decision trees, a machine learning method, were trained on the data collected and used to extract patterns. Interrelationships between the data from the different clinicians were investigated.ResultsSix drusen classes in the structured vocabulary were largely sufficient to describe all the identified features. The decision trees classified the data with 76.86% to 88.5% accuracy and distilled patterns in the form of hierarchical trees composed of 5 to 15 nodes. Experts were largely consistent in their characterization of soft, and to a lesser extent, hard drusen, but diverge in definition of other drusen. Size and crystalline morphology were the main determinants of drusen type across all experts.ConclusionsMachine learning is a powerful tool for the characterization of disease phenotypes. The creation of a defined feature set for AMD will facilitate the development of an IDOCS-based classification system. (shrink)

This paper argues that a range of current AI systems have learned how to deceive humans. We define deception as the systematic inducement of false beliefs in the pursuit of some outcome other than the truth. We first survey empirical examples of AI deception, discussing both special-use AI systems (including Meta's CICERO) built for specific competitive situations, and general-purpose AI systems (such as large language models). Next, we detail several risks from AI deception, such as fraud, election tampering, and losing (...) control of AI systems. Finally, we outline several potential solutions to the problems posed by AI deception: first, regulatory frameworks should subject AI systems that are capable of deception to robust risk-assessment requirements; second, policymakers should implement bot-or-not laws; and finally, policymakers should prioritize the funding of relevant research, including tools to detect AI deception and to make AI systems less deceptive. Policymakers, researchers, and the broader public should work proactively to prevent AI deception from destabilizing the shared foundations of our society. (shrink)

This collection of essays, all previously published, offers selections from the life work of Robert Nozick. The essays range widely both temporally, from 1969 to 1995, and topically, from an analytic study of coercion to thoughts on Socrates’ profession of ignorance, to short “philosophical fictions.” The themes and approaches will be familiar to those who know anything of Nozick’s work. More than half the book is taken up by formal, analytic studies of topics of social, political, and moral significance. Questions (...) about how we might decide between competing individual preferences, or what strategies of decision making are the most rational and/or effective, or even how we come to judge certain actions immoral, are treated with remarkable precision and the maximum amount of formal, symbolic aid. Indeed, the occasional page packed with little but probability matrices, set theory, and the like makes for slow and somewhat typographically intimidating reading. Yet in Nozick’s hands these tools are well used, and offer to the patient reader both clarity and convincingness to a degree not likely to be available in another format. In fact, I think the formal essays offer the further advantage of being relatively self-contained, and thus fully accessible to anyone with sufficient education to read them. In contrast, some of the less formal work relies on the reader having a great deal of philosophical education and experience. Here to be capable of reading the essay is not sufficient for understanding it; one must also have read a good deal of Quine, and maybe some Hilary Putnam and B. F. Skinner just to be sure. For this reason, the audience for these essays must range, too. I can imagine having great fun reading “Newcomb’s Problem and Two Principles of Choice” with a group of smart undergraduates, and certainly advanced students in the social sciences, with little philosophical training, could profitably work their way through “Coercion” and “Interpersonal Utility Theory,” but most of the book is clearly designed for a rather highly trained philosopher. From this perspective, the chief value of the collection is the convenience of having so much interesting work in one volume. Less book than encyclopedia, it will make a useful reference volume for the serious student of philosophy, a place to turn for guidance in unraveling some of the intricacies of codifying rational principles of choice. (shrink)

Professionals in environmental fields engage with complex problems that involve stakeholders with different values, different forms of knowledge, and contentious decisions. There is increasing recognition of the need to train graduate students in interdisciplinary environmental science programs in these issues, which we refer to as “social ethics.” A literature review revealed topics and skills that should be included in such training, as well as potential challenges and barriers. From this review, we developed an online survey, which we administered to faculty (...) from 81 United States colleges and universities offering IESPs. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that IESPs should address values in applying science to policy and management decisions. They also agreed that programs should engage students with issues related to norms of scientific practice. Agreement was slightly less strong that IESPs should train students in skills related to managing value conflicts among different stakeholders. The primary challenges to incorporating social ethics into the curriculum were related to the lack of materials and expertise for delivery, though challenges such as ethics being marginalized in relation to environmental science content were also prominent. Challenges related to students’ interest in ethics were considered less problematic. Respondents believed that social ethics are most effectively delivered when incorporated into existing courses, and they preferred case studies or problem-based learning for delivery. Student competence is generally not assessed, and respondents recognized a need for both curricular materials and assessment tools. (shrink)

Professionals in environmental fields engage with complex problems that involve stakeholders with different values, different forms of knowledge, and contentious decisions. There is increasing recognition of the need to train graduate students in interdisciplinary environmental science programs in these issues, which we refer to as “social ethics.” A literature review revealed topics and skills that should be included in such training, as well as potential challenges and barriers. From this review, we developed an online survey, which we administered to faculty (...) from 81 United States colleges and universities offering IESPs. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that IESPs should address values in applying science to policy and management decisions. They also agreed that programs should engage students with issues related to norms of scientific practice. Agreement was slightly less strong that IESPs should train students in skills related to managing value conflicts among different stakeholders. The primary challenges to incorporating social ethics into the curriculum were related to the lack of materials and expertise for delivery, though challenges such as ethics being marginalized in relation to environmental science content were also prominent. Challenges related to students’ interest in ethics were considered less problematic. Respondents believed that social ethics are most effectively delivered when incorporated into existing courses, and they preferred case studies or problem-based learning for delivery. Student competence is generally not assessed, and respondents recognized a need for both curricular materials and assessment tools. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2602\REVIEWS.262 : 2007-01-24 01:12 eviews THE DENOTING CENTURY, 1 19 90 05 5– –2 20 00 05 5 Michael Scanlan Philosophy / Oregon State U. Corvallis, or 97331, usa [email protected] Guido Imaguire and Bernard Linsky, eds. On Denoting: 1905–2005. Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2005. Pp. 451. 98.00. isbn 3-88405-091-5. his anniversary collection of papers connected with Russell’s 1905 publiTcation of “On Denoting” reflects both the (...) almost mythic status that paper has achieved in analytic philosophy and the quite variegated nature of the significance that philosophers have seen in it. The papers in this collection break down roughly into two sorts. There are those which take a historical approach and attempt to explicate various aspects of the content of the OD article. The other sort might be labelled “application” papers in which Russell’s analysis in OD is seen as a tool or a model for subsequent philosophical work, in the spirit of Ramsey’s much quoted “paradigm of philosophy” remark. The volume opens with a reprint of the OD text with pagination indicated for the original Mind printing, for the text in Collected Papers 4 and for the widely referenced Logic and Knowledge Russell collection edited by R. C. Marsh. The Mind and Papers texts use the American convention of single quotation marks within double quotation marks. The Marsh edition (and the text given here) uses the inverse British convention. Readers need to be aware that paper authors here, and elsewhere, vary in which text they cite. The end of the volume has a comprehensive 21-page bibliography of the secondary literature. In between there are thirteen papers. I will be rather brief with the “application” papers, since I believe that Russell readers will tend to favour the more historically oriented papers. Some of the application papers wander quite far afield from Russell’s treatment of definite descriptions. For instance the paper by Thomas Mormann on “Description, Construction and Representation from Russell and Carnap to Stone” takes off from Russell’s assertion that his theory of descriptions was an early version of his subsequent interest in substituting “constructions” for “inferred entities” such as space-time points. The paper is almost exclusively a (worthwhile and mathematically astute) analysis of Russell’s efforts along these lines in Our russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 26 (winter 2006–07): 167–90 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631 _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2602\REVIEWS.262 : 2007-01-24 01:12 168 Reviews Knowledge of the External World and The Analysis of Matter. The author argues that Russell’s constructions did not actually achieve the effects he wanted, but that (curiously) they can be properly developed within the later framework of topological spaces developed by Marshall Stone in 1937. The paper by Guido Imaguire, “Theory of Descriptions and Inferential Semantics”, explicitly eschews an “exegetical” approach and allies itself with a “systematical approach, in which one analyses possible new features and extensions of the proposed theory” (p. 397). The extension considered here is to “inferential semantics”, especially that of Robert Brandom. The spirit of this approach is to take the semantics of a language to be determined by the set of allowed inferences within that language. Imaguire takes as an essential lesson of Russell’s theory of descriptions that definite descriptions and proper names cannot be treated as singular terms of a language in the same manner. He goes on to argue for a criterion for distinguishing proper names from definite descriptions based on inferences allowed between sentences containing them, and he takes this distinction to argue for a modification of Brandom’s treatment of singular terms in his inferential semantics. Elena Tatievskaya’s paper on “Russell’s Theory of Descriptions and Wittgenstein on Internal Properties of Propositions” is another paper that is mainly about something other than Russell and his theory of descriptions. It is a very detailed study of Wittgenstein’s attempt to make good on his claim that the logical symbols of propositional logic notation, such as v and ~, do not correspond to “logical” components of propositions (Tractatus... (shrink)

This paper explores possible connections between gender and the willingness to engage in unethical business behavior. Two approaches to gender and ethics are presented: the structural approach and the socialization approach. Data from a sample of 213 business school students reveal that men are more than two times as likely as women to engage in actions regarded as unethical but it is also important to note that relatively few would engage in any of these actions with the exception of buying (...) stock with inside information. Fifty percent of the males were willing to buy stock with insider information. Overall, the results support the gender socialization approach. (shrink)

The introduction of Western healthcare, via colonialism, into Africa facilitated a confrontation of indigenous and exogenous “medical” knowledge as well as the attendant praxis. Although colonialism has been expunged from the shores of Africa, the epistemic and ideological frictions it introduced into the sphere of healthcare linger and raise different dilemmas. Against this background, this paper explores pragmatic and ethical approaches that may help engage these tensions in the context of drug development based on validated traditional phytomedicines.

Many scholars and activists seek to eliminate “race”—the word and the concept—from our vocabulary. Their claim is clear: because science has shown that racial essentialism is false and because the idea of race has proved virulent, we should do away with the concept entirely. Michael O. Hardimon criticizes this line of thinking, arguing that we must recognize the real ways in which race exists in order to revise our understanding of its significance. Rethinking Race provides a novel answer to (...) the question “What is race?” Pernicious, traditional racialism maintains that people can be judged and ranked according to innate racial features. Hardimon points out that those who would eliminate race make the mistake of associating the word only with this view. He agrees that this concept should be jettisoned, but draws a distinction with three alternative ideas: first, a stripped-down version of the ordinary concept of race that recognizes minimal physical differences between races but does not consider them significant; second, a scientific understanding of populations with shared lines of descent; and third, an acknowledgment of “socialrace” as a separate construction. Hardimon provides a language for understanding the ways in which races do and do not exist. His account is realistic in recognizing the physical features of races, as well as the existence of races in our social world. But it is deflationary in rejecting the concept of hierarchical or defining racial characteristics. Ultimately, Rethinking Race offers a philosophical basis for repudiating racism without blinding ourselves to reality. (shrink)

Argues that role obligations are not marginal, "that they are central to morality and should be taken seriously." "A 'role obligation' is a moral requirement, which attaches to an institutional role, whose content is fixed by the function of the role, and whose normative force flows from the role." Rejects what he calls the doctrine of perfect adequacy which holds that role obligations are both comprehensive and transparent. Although this may have been plausible at earlier times, it is clearly implausible (...) now. It is the implausibility of this doctrine which has led theorists to accept the standard view: which holds that role obligations that are noncontractual are extremely problematic. Once we reject the doctrine of perfect adequacy, however, we can see the significance of role obligations more clearly. [The content of role obligations, Hardimon admits, is indeterminate in the sense that it is subject to constructive interpretation. This suggests, however, that the obligations are not the source of their normative power, rather it is their justifying value which explains why some role requirements are obligatory. This is confirmed by the rest of the article.] One thing that should lead us to question the notion that we do not have obligations of this sort by considering what it would be like to have no noncontractual role obligations. [This, however, does not establish that the force of role obligations flows from the obligations themselves.] One objection to NCR obligations is that they may require acting in accordance with an unjust institution. However, the solution here is the same as with contractual obligations: unjust institutions and contracts do not bind. Moves on to identity. "What I am assuming is that most of us do at least tacitly conceive of ourselves as family members and citizens, that these self-understandings are central to our own general self-conception, and that we can, through reflection come to recognize that we do in fact conceive of ourselves in these ways. If this is correct, then abandoning the idea that we have noncontractual role obligations would require radical revision of our self-conception, for we cannot give up the idea of nonctractual role obligation without also ceasing to conceive of ourselves as family members and citizens. What, after all, would it mean to say that we conceive of ourselves as family members but regard oursleves as having no familial obligations whatsoever?...The upshot of the last two paragraphs is that the cost of abandoning our conception of ourselves as family members and citizens would be enormous." [The moral significance of identity is unclear here - is the only normative element loss of identity with rejection of role obligations? What of the case when one's identity is caught up in a role which requires one to act immorally in other ways?] If impressment is our concern, it shouldn't be, for role obligations are not like impressment - one is born into them, not impressed [how does this make a difference?]. Role must be reflectively acceptable to produce genuine obligations. "Determining whether a given social role is reflectively acceptable involves stepping back from that role in thought and asking whether it is a role people ought to occupy and play. Determining that a given social role is reflectively acceptable involves judging that it is meaningful, rational, or good." [Hence, some independent value is going to do all the work for role obligations - the normative force of a role does not flow from the role itself.] Concerning voluntary roles - even if we agree that voluntary acceptance is essential, this omits important elements of role identification. "The key component of the idea of identifying with a role is that of conceiving of oneself as someone for whom the norms, that is, the evaluative standards associated with a role, its rights, duties, virtues, ideals, and supererogations, have reason-giving force. Here is the idea. If you identify with a role, its norms will function for you as reasons. If you are a judge who identifies with the role of judge, the fact that this is something judges do will give you a reason for doing it." [Clearly a non-sequiter - conceiving of oneself as having a reason does not give oneself a reason for doing - there must actually be a reason for doing something. Moreover, the content of the role may be in question - and here we are to engage in constructive interpretation, which is just to say that we are to identify some underlying value and this will serve to justify and determine the content of the role. Refers to usage of "look, its your job" as basis for substantiating claims about the normative force of identity. "But here a basic point of similarity emerges between contractual and noncontractual role obligations. People can and do identify with their noncontractual roles and not just with their contractual roles. And when they do, assuming that the appropriate background moral conditions are in place, the fact taht they occupy these roles will provide them with reasons for carrying out the tasks of their noncontractual roles...The basic form of motivation provided by identification with contractual and noncontractual role obligations is the same.". (shrink)

Many drugs used in paediatric medicine are off-label. There is a rising call for the use of adaptive clinical trial designs in responding to the need for safe and effective drugs given their potential to offer efficiency and cost-effective benefits compared with traditional clinical trials. ADs have a strong appeal in paediatric clinical trials given the small number of available participants, limited understanding of age-related variability and the desire to limit exposure to futile or unsafe interventions. Although the ethical value (...) of adaptive trials has increasingly come under scrutiny, there is a paucity of literature on the ethical dilemmas that may be associated with paediatric adaptive designs. This paper highlights some of these ethical concerns around safety, scientific/social value and caregiver/guardian comprehension of the trial design. Against this background, the paper develops a non-static conceptual lens for understanding PADs. It shows that ADs are epistemically open and reduce some of the knowledge-associated uncertainties inherent in clinical trials as well as fast-track the time to draw conclusions about the value of evaluated drugs/treatments. On this note, the authors argue that PADs are ethically justifiable given they have multiple layers of safety, exposing enrolled children to lesser potential risks, create social/scientific value generally and for paediatric populations in particular, specifically foster the flourishing of paediatric populations and can significantly improve paediatric trial efficiency when properly designed and implemented. However, because PADs are relatively new and their regulatory, ethical and logistical characteristics are yet to be clarified in some jurisdictions, the cooperation of various public and private stakeholders is required to ensure that the interests of children, their caregivers and parents/guardians are best served while exposing paediatric research subjects to the most minimal of risks when they are enrolled in paediatric trials that use ADs. Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. Not applicable. (shrink)

This book provides an authoritative account of Hegel's social philosophy at a level that presupposes no specialised knowledge of the subject. Hegel's social theory is designed to reconcile the individual with the modern social world. Michael Hardimon explores the concept of reconciliation in detail and discusses Hegel's views on the relationship between individuality and social membership, and on the family, civil society, and the state. The book is an important addition to the string of major studies of Hegel published (...) by Cambridge. It will interest a broad swathe of readers in philosophy, (both students and specialists), and could be used in courses on political and social theory. -/- . (shrink)

The ordinary concept of race is important and poorly understood. The present article seeks to address this problem by providing a general answer to the question: What is the concept of race?

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 53-55.

This book offers an examination of the political and ontological significance of the authorship of Søren Kierkegaard in relation to German Idealism and contemporary European philosophy.

Funding broadly connotes the notion of an institution and/or institutions making money and other resources available to individual researchers and organizations to accomplish specific projects. Whi...

Throughout his career, Wittgenstein was preoccupied with issues in the philosophy of perception. Despite this, little attention has been paid to this aspect of Wittgenstein's work. This volume redresses this lack, by bringing together an international group of leading philosophers to focus on the impact of Wittgenstein's work on the philosophy of perception. The ten specially commissioned chapters draw on the complete range of Wittgenstein's writings, from his earliest to latest extant works, and combine both exegetical approaches with engagements with (...) contemporary philosophy of mind. Topics covered include: perception and judgement in the _Tractatus _ aspect-perception the putative intentionality of perception representationalism. The book also includes an overview which summarises the evolution of Wittgenstein's views on perception throughout his life. With an outstanding array of contributors, _Wittgenstein and Perception_ is essential reading for students and scholars of Wittgenstein’s work, as well as those working in philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception. Contributors: Yasuhiro Arahata, Michael Campbell, William Child, Daniel Hutto, Michael O’Sullivan, Marie McGinn, Michel terHark, Charles Travis, and José Zalabardo. (shrink)

In the last few decades, several philosophers have written on the topic of moral revolutions, distinguishing them from other kinds of society-level moral change. This article surveys recent accounts of moral revolutions in moral philosophy. Different authors use quite different criteria to pick out moral revolutions. Features treated as relevant include radicality, depth or fundamentality, pervasiveness, novelty and particular causes. We also characterize the factors that have been proposed to cause moral revolutions, including anomalies in existing moral codes, changing honour (...) codes, art, economic conditions and individuals or groups. Finally, we discuss what accounts of moral revolutions have in common, how they differ and how moral revolutions are distinguished from other kinds of moral change, such as drift and reform. (shrink)

The power of the scientific enterprise presents multiple avenues for harnessing and increasingly controlling biological phenomena and instituting interventions in different areas of biomedicine (Af...

This article challenges the orthodox view that there is and can be no scientifically valid concept of race applicable to human beings by presenting a candidate scientific concept of biological race. The populationist concept of race specifies that a “race” is a subdivision of Homo sapiens—a group of populations that exhibits a distinctive pattern of genetically transmitted phenotypic characters and that belongs to an endogamous biological lineage initiated by a geographically separated and reproductively isolated founding population. The viability of the (...) PRC is shown by demonstrating its capacity to withstand a wide range of objections. A common theme is that the objections turn on misconceptions of the idea of a scientific concept of race. The final section argues that the PRC will not foster racism. (shrink)

Do pharmaceutical companies have a moral obligation to expand access to investigational drugs to patients outside the clinical trial? One reason for thinking they do not is that expanded access programs might negatively affect the clinical trial process. This potential impact creates dilemmas for practitioners who nevertheless acknowledge some moral reason for expanding access. Bioethicists have explained these reasons in terms of beneficence, compassion, or a principle of rescue, but their arguments have been limited to questions of moral permissibility, leaving (...) for future research the question of whether expanded access is morally obligatory. We take up this further question and argue that pharmaceutical companies have a moral obligation to expand access. Our defense is not based on beneficence, compassion, or rescue, but instead on a reciprocal moral expectation resulting from existing social commitments that help ensure a robust pharmaceutical practice within the broader healthcare system. Our aim is to give this obligation, along with several others, a coherent and plausible structure within the wider clinical trial process so that one might better explain the sources of the dilemmas and their possible resolutions. (shrink)

Contexts where the same clinician with an ongoing physician-patient relationship seeks to enroll his or her own patient(s) into a clinical research are ethically tricky due to the associated role c...

One of the central characteristics of public health disasters is the rapid overlapping of different needs and priorities that require making critical choices that inevitably elicit conflicti...

I argue that culture is not essential to race by considering the strongest and most persuasive contemporary articulation of the view that culture is essential to race—that provided by Chike Jeffers I then argue for the possibility of conceiving of race without adverting to culture by presenting the minimalist conception of race I developed in Rethinking Race as an example of a conception of race that makes no reference to culture. I next show how the ancestry-related features of culture that (...) might be thought to be racial but fall outside of the minimalist race can be captured in a minimalist conception of ethnicity. I finally explain why we are better off conceiving of race in a way that does not advert to culture and conclude. (shrink)

Editorial Introduction to 'Real Objects or Material Subjects? Essays in Contemporary Continental Metaphysics' by Michael Burns & Brian Smith.

Adrian Johnston is well known for his work at the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis, German idealism, contemporary French philosophy and most recently cognitive neuroscience. In the context of the current issue, Johnston represents the most complete development of a contemporary theory of Transcendental Materialism. In the following interview we explore both the implications of Johnston’s previous work, as well as the directions his most recent projects are taking.

Kierkegaards deiktische Theologie wird in einer Reihe von Textinterpretationen entwickelt, die seine oft übersehenen erbaulichen Reden in einem neuen Licht präsentieren. Das Buch setzt sich mit dem traditionellen Bild der Religiosität bei Kierkegaard auseinander, wie sie in den Begriffen der Religiosität A und B zum Ausdruck kommt, und bringt neue Argumente im Sinne einer deiktischen Theologie. Sie wird in einer doppelten Perspektive entfaltet: Der Mensch richtet seinen Blick auf Gott - und Gott begegnet ihm, indem er den Menschen auf seinen (...) Nächsten hinweist. Deiktische Theologie ist weder eine Schöpfungstheologie (Religiosität A) noch eine Offenbarungstheologie (Religiosität B), sondern sie erfasst die Spannung zwischen Schöpfung und Offenbarung, die u.a. im trinitarischen Gottesbegriff begründet wird. Die Entwicklung der deiktischen Theologie Kierkegaards geschieht in der Interpretation zentraler Texte aus den erbaulichen Reden, der Einübung im Christentum sowie der Unwissenschaftlichen Nachschrift. Wichtige Themen sind darüber hinaus: die Zeitlichkeit, das Verhältnis zwischen dem Humanen und dem Christlichen, die Reue, die Sünde, das Abendmahl, das Leiden, die Nachfolge Christi, Himmelfahrt und Auferstehung. (shrink)