The recovery model has been put forward as a rival to the biomedical model in mental healthcare. It has also been invoked in debate about public policy for individual and community mental health and the broader goal of social inclusion. But this broader use threatens its status as a genuine model, distinct from others such as the biomedical model. This paper sets out to articulate, although not to defend, a distinct recovery model based on the idea that mental health is (...) an essentially normative or evaluative notion. It also aims to show that, supposing this suggestion were to be followed, the norms informing our notion of recovery would be more appropriately construed as eudaimonic than as hedonic in character. (shrink)

Andrew Light and Eric Katz commend environmental pragmatism as a framework of choice for a more pluralistic, and (consequently) more practically effective environmental ethics. There is however a prima facie conflict between the promotion of pluralism and the promotion of pragmatism. I consider two different routes by which Light has attempted to resolve this conflict. Light’s first strategy involves distinguishing philosophical from metaphilosophical forms of pragmatism, locating its “metatheoretically pluralist” potential in the latter. I argue that the distinction collapses, leaving (...) the conflict unresolved. Light’s second strategy involves interpreting metatheoretical pluralism as a form of practical compatibilism. I argue that metatheoretical pluralism, thus interpreted, holds no remedy for the perceived practical ineffectiveness of the field. Not only would it fail to qualify as a viable form of pluralism, but its widespread adoption would actively undermine the real work of environmental ethics: that of fostering a senseof the special significance of enlightened and principled action in defense of environmentalist ideals, in the face of the consequentialism which dominates global environmental decision making. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that science fiction draws inspiration from science fact. It is a less familiar thought—though still widely acknowledged—that science has sometimes drawn its inspiration from science fiction. (Arthur C. Clarke’s idea of geostationary communications satellites is a well-known example.) However, the debt of science to science fiction extends beyond such specific examples of scientific and technological innovations. This essay explores the paradoxical-sounding thesis that science itself, as we now know it, was originally the product of a science (...) fiction vision. At a time when the collective endeavours of early modern researchers amounted to something less than science, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) helped show what wonders might be achieved by organised and methodical state-sponsored scientific research. Bacon’s vision was highly prescient: many of the scientific possibilities he sketched have since become realities. It was also highly influential: early modern science bears the characteristic stamp of Bacon’s vision, and that same influence is discernible right down to the present day. (shrink)

J. S. Mill’s case against censorship rests on a conception of relevant communications as truth apt. If the communication is true, everyone benefits from the opportunity to exchange error for truth. If it is false, we benefit from the livelier impression truth makes when it collides with error. This classical liberal model is not however adequate for today’s world. In particular, it is inadequate for dealing with the problem of stereotyping. Much contemporary communication is not truth apt. Advertising and journalism, (...) film and fashion portray images that can be neither verified nor refuted. Moreover, where these images do bear some relation to reality, any truth they may possess is not necessarily beneficial. Cultural stereotypes, for example, can be harmful even when true, to the extent that they reflect a distorted reality (the realities of life under conditions of injustice and exploitation). Exposure to such stereotypes affects a community’s self-conception. The resulting harms may be direct or indirect. Indirect harm is done when a stereotype affects a community’s capacity for self-determination, perpetuating existing inequalities by restricting the options its members understand to be available to them. Direct harm is done when a stereotype induces a distorted self-conception. Pace Kant, human dignity is not purely a function of our capacity to be authors of a universal moral law. It also resides in our capacity to achieve an undistorted self-conception. Thus true communications that reflect a distorted historical reality may threaten our dignity, through their effects on our self-conception, independent of any consequences they may have for self-determining action. (shrink)

Principle 2 of the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (MCA) requires that decision-making capacity should be assumed, unless there is conclusive evidence, on a balance of probabilities, to the contrary (Department of Constitutional Affairs 2005). In his article “The Paradox of the Assessment of Capacity Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005,” Ajit Shah (2011) raises the concern that the new Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS), introduced through the Mental Health Act (Department of Health 2007), conflict with this principle (henceforth, the principle (...) of presumed capacity) because, in practice, they will encourage the routine assessment of capacity even in the absence of any positive evidence of diminished capacity .. (shrink)

The considerable variation in shape, size, structure and properties of the enamel cap covering mammalian teeth is a topic of great evolutionary interest. No existing theories explain how such variations might be fit for the purpose of breaking food particles down. Borrowing from engineering materials science, we use principles of fracture and deformation of solids to provide a quantitative account of how mammalian enamel may be adapted to diet. Particular attention is paid to mammals that feed on ‘hard objects’ such (...) as seeds and dry fruits, the outer casings of which appear to have evolved structures with properties similar to those of enamel. These foods are important in the diets of some primates, and have been heavily implicated as a key factor in the evolutionary history of the hominin clade. As a tissue with intrinsic weakness yet exceptional durability, enamel could be especially useful as a dietary indicator for extinct taxa. BioEssays 30:374–385, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Over 20 years ago the Programme Director of Greenpeace UK identified the primary challenge facing the modern environmental movement as that of moving beyond the “struggle for proof” to generating effective environmental action. There is a mass of widely-accepted evidence to support environmentalist claims, but effective environmental action is rare, both at governmental and at grass-roots levels. Arguably, the malaise is less a political one than an ontological one. We “know” that environmental problems are “real”, but we fail to grasp (...) them as happening here, to us. It is as if they unfolded in a “media-only reality” (Rose, 1993). This ontological malaise can be understood along Heideggerian lines as a form of world-alienation. Alienation is often understood, following Marx, as estrangement from our true human nature, consequent on interpreting ourselves as mere resources. On Heidegger’s view, however, self and world are inextricably linked. Conscious beings are not trapped inside their own heads, never to bridge the gap to the world outside. Rather, consciousness just is the intentional reaching out to things. Heidegger’s view of the self-world relation implies a modified concept of alienation. Our alienated condition stems as much from interpreting the world around us as a mere resource as it does from interpreting ourselves as mere resources. We may understand the natural systems on which our lives depend in far more detail than our grandparents did; but where those systems are understood as brute agglomerations of objects the resulting knowledge is alienated and alienating. Our very “theory of the real” serves to make the earth unreal for us. This, I argue, is the true import of Heidegger’s concern with the world “conceived and grasped as picture”. It also illuminates his remark in the 1966 Der Spiegel interview: “It is no longer upon an Earth that man lives today.”. (shrink)

Andrew Light and Eric Katz commend environmental pragmatism as a framework of choice for a more pluralistic, and more practically effective environmental ethics. There is however a prima facie conflict between the promotion of pluralism and the promotion of pragmatism. I consider two different routes by which Light has attempted to resolve this conflict. Light’s first strategy involves distinguishing philosophical from metaphilosophical forms of pragmatism, locating its “metatheoretically pluralist” potential in the latter. I argue that the distinction collapses, leaving the (...) conflict unresolved. Light’s second strategy involves interpreting metatheoretical pluralism as a form of practical compatibilism. I argue that metatheoretical pluralism, thus interpreted, holds no remedy for the perceived practical ineffectiveness of the field. Not only would it fail to qualify as a viable form of pluralism, but its widespread adoption would actively undermine the real work of environmental ethics: that of fostering a senseof the special significance of enlightened and principled action in defense of environmentalist ideals, in the face of the consequentialism which dominates global environmental decision making. (shrink)

The distinction between therapeutic and non-therapeutic research is a familiar one in research ethics. This chapter argues that the term “therapeutic research” is a misnomer. I consider two broad types of ostensibly therapeutic research: controlled trials, and innovative/experimental treatments. I argue that in the former case the term therapeutic research is a misnomer because no reasonable researcher can expect patients/subjects to derive any therapeutic advantage from being entered into an ethically conducted controlled trial. In the latter case, while accepting that (...) there may well be a reasonable expectation of therapeutic benefit from innovative treatments, I argue that the decision whether it is in the interests of a given patient to receive a given treatment is properly made on purely clinical grounds. There is no special feature of the research situation, in either of these types of case, which serves to ensure that participation, qua research subject, is in a patient’s interests. (shrink)

These are the working notes of the workshop on Model-based and Qualitative Reasoning in Biomedicine, which was held during the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, AIME’03, on 19th October, 2003, in Protaras, Cyprus. The workshop brought together various researchers involved in the development and use of model-based and qualitative reasoning methods in tackling biomedical problems. Much of the biomedical knowledge is essentially model-based, as it is the understanding of the structure and function of biomedical systems that researchers wish (...) to achieve, and this is best done by developing models of these systems. In situations where it may not be appropriate or possible to use quantitative methods, researchers use qualitative approaches. Depending on the biomedical problem concerned, such descriptions may involve causal, temporal and spatial knowledge, possibly of an uncertain nature. Also in the medical management of disorders in patients, qualitative and model-based approaches are being used. For example, systems used for diagnosing disease rely on explicit models of normal or abnormal structure and behaviour (often referred to as ’first-principles models’) of the underlying disease process. Qualitative knowledge plays a role in the modelling of disease and treatment processes, including the handling of the uncertainty involved in these processes. Hence, there is little doubt that model-based and qualitative methods fit the biomedical domain really well. However, one of the problems with research in the biomedical field is that researchers applying model-based and qualitative-reasoning methods are often closely linked to their application field, such as, for example, cell biology or clinical medicine, and find it difficult to keep in contact with colleagues doing similar research, but working in a different biomedical application field. This is even more difficult if the techniques used are also different. For example, researchers involved in Bayesian network research and researchers using qualitative simulation methods hardly exchange views and ideas, despite the fact that their methods have in common that they emphasise representing qualitative biomedical knowledge. It was the aim of this workshop to bring together researchers along the entire spectrum of the biomedical field, from health-care research and clinical medicine to human biology, using a variety of methods and techniques, from (qualitative) Bayesian networks and symbolic machine learning, to qualitative simulation.. (shrink)

This article interprets the state of “subjection,” which Foucault took to be characteristic of the modern subject of power/knowledge, as an abiding psychic disposition analogous to Heidegger’s “inauthentic self-understanding.” The author begins by arguing, against prevailing orthodoxy, that in Discipline and Punish, Foucault is already centrally concerned with the power effects of forms of psychic self-relation. He then argues that the psychic state of subjection should not be understood as a constellation of ideas, beliefs, or other “representations” but along de-essentialized (...) Heideggerian/aristotelian lines as a “habit” of the soul—the effect of training and technology rather than ideology. (shrink)

It is now widely acknowledged that social theorists can make an important contribution to our understanding of environmental risk. There is however a danger that the current ascendancy of social theory will encourage a tendency to assimilate issues around environmental risk to those at stake in entrenched debates between realist and constructivist social theorists. I begin by citing a recent example of this trend, before going on to argue that framing the issues in terms of a monism/pluralism dichotomy would make (...) for a more informative analysis. Nothing that realists and constructivists can make common cause against risk monism, I turn, in the second half of the paper, to setting out a positive case for risk pluralism. Citing some fictional examples of risk behaviour, I show how different individuals might rationally adopt different perspectives on the same risk. I conclude by exploring some implications of the truth of risk pluralism for two current approaches to environmental decision-making. I argue that the importance of risk pluralism lies in its capacity to highlight the shortcomings of the latter approach. (shrink)