Matthew Walker's article has prompted us to consider neuropsychiatric disorders and pharmacological effects associated with sleep alterations, and aspects of memory affected. Not all disorders involving insomnia show memory impairment, and hypersomnias can be associated with memory deficits. The use of cholinergic medication in dementia indicates that consideration of the link between sleep and memory is more than academic.

Disturbances of consciousness, including fluctuations in attention and awareness, are a common and clinically important symptom in dementia with Lewy bodies. In the present study we investigate potential mechanisms of such disturbances of consciousness in a clinicopathological study evaluating specific components of the cholinergic system. [3H]Epibatidine binding to the high-affinity nicotinic receptor in the temporal cortex differentiated DLB cases with and without DOC, being 62–66% higher in those with DOC. The were no differences between DLB patients with or without DOC (...) in 125I-labeled α-bungaratoxin binding to the low-affinity nicotinic receptor, [3H]pirenzepine binding to the muscarinic M1 receptor, or in choline acetyltransferase activity. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that cholinergic activity is an important neural correlate if consciousness and suggest a mechanism of DOC in DLB involving alterations in the nicotinic receptor, composed of predominantly α4 and β2 subunits. (shrink)

There is increasing public interest in understanding the nature of corporate ethics due to the knowledge that unethical decisions and activities frequently undermine the performance and abilities of many organizations. Of the current literature found on the topic of ways organizations can influence ethical behavior, a majority is found on the issue of corporate codes of ethics.Most discussions on codes of ethics evaluate the contents of the codes and offer opinions on their wording, content, and/or value. Unfortunately, very little research (...) has been devoted towards discovering whether they are effective in promoting ethical decision-making behavior. Thus, due to the lack of empirical research on this particular topic, this paper attempts to further address this issue. (shrink)

If particularism is right, the broad moral claims we make are usually riddled with exceptions. But such generalizations can still be a useful, even necessary part of moral life. They help us show what we should do, and they are essential for understanding why we should do it.

The author develops and elaborates on her account of collective belief, something standardly referred to, in her view, when we speak of what we believe. This paper focuses on a special response hearers may experience in the context of expressions of belief, a response that may issue in offended rebukes to the speaker. It is argued that this response would be appropriate if both speakers and hearers were parties to what the authors calls a joint commitment to believe a certain (...) proposition as a body. This joint commitment puts speakers under an obligation to refrain from speaking in certain ways, and gives hearers a correlative right to such refraining, and hence a basis for offended rebukes. (shrink)

An invaluable complement to the standards works in early modern philosophy, this anthology introduces an important selection from the largely unknown writings of women philosophers of the early modern period. Readings comment on major works of the period and are easily integrated into courses in the history of modern philosophy. Included are letters to prominent philosophers, philosophical tracts arguing a particular view, and comments on controversies of the day. Each section is prefaced by a headnote giving a biographical account of (...) its author and setting the piece in historical context. Atherton's introduction provides a solid framework for assessing these works and their place in modern philosophy. -- from back cover. (shrink)

Businesses that produce bioscience products—gene tests and therapies, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medical devices—are regularly confronted with ethical issues concerning these technologies. Conflicts exist between those who support advancements in bioscience and those who fear the consequences of unfettered scientific license. As the debate surrounding bioscience grows, it will be increasingly important for business managers to consider the larger consequences of their work. This groundbreaking book follows industry research, development, and marketing of medical and bioscience products across a variety of fields, (...) including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and bio-agriculture. Compelling and current case studies highlight the ethical decisions business managers frequently face. With the increasing visibility and public expectation placed on businesses in this sector, managers need to understand the ethical and social issues. This book addresses that need and provides a framework for incorporating ethical analysis in business decision making. (shrink)

"Most modern legal theorists seek to limit their enquiries to a particular sort of law, on the assumption that law is necessarily restricted in its interactions with other social practices. margaret Davies deliberately - and provocatively - questions the usefulness of such 'positivist' dogmas, asserting that the law can and should be seen as multi-dimensional. Davies argues that the law is everywhere - in metaphysics, the social environment, language and the psyche. In a persuasive meeting of postmodern discourse, deconstruction, (...) feminism and legal theory, Davies creates new ways of thinking about the law by creating links with other practices and disciplines where none previously existed. This is a powerful critique of the ideology and theory of law in the West, providing a much-needed link between conventional legal philosophy and modern movements in legal theory." --From back cover. (shrink)

Moral virtue is, for Aristotle, a state to which an agent’s motivation is central. For anyone interested in Aristotle’s account of moral development this invites reflection on two questions: how is it that virtuous motivational dispositions are established? And what contribution do the moral learner’s existing motivational states make to the success of her habituation? I argue that views which demand that the learner act with virtuous motives if she is to acquire virtuous dispositions misconstrue the nature and structure of (...) the habituation process, but also obscure Aristotle’s crucial insight that the very practice of virtuous actions affords a certain discovery and can be transformative of an agent’s motivational states. Drawing attention, in Aristotle’s account, to an asymmetry between the agential perspective and the observation of others, I consider what the agential perspective affords the learner, and offer a novel interpretation of the role a learner’s existing motives play in her habituation. (shrink)

This paper challenges the common assumption that an agreement is an exchange of promises. Proposing that the performance obligations of some typical agreements are simultaneous, interdependent, and unconditional, it argues that no promise-exchange has this structure of obligations. In addition to offering general considerations in support of this claim, it examines various types of promise-exchange, showing that none satisfy the criteria noted. Two forms of conditional promise are distinguished and both forms are discussed. A positive account of agreements as joint (...) decisions founded in a joint commitment is sketched. It is argued that the example agreements represent especially clearly the normative structure of social union. (shrink)

Along the way, she calls upon us to recognize the mysteries that lie at the heart of our lives and the metaphysical reality that gives meaning to life.The ...

Theoretical variables : an overview -- Limited and unlimited law -- Legal materialism and social existence -- A new legal materialism -- Inner and outer space -- Scales of law -- Subjects and perspective -- Imagining law -- Pathfinding -- Conclusion.

This article offers a critique of Thomas Scanlon's well-known account of promissory obligation by reference to the rights of promisees. Scanlon's account invokes a moral principle, the "principle of fidelity". Now, corresponding to a promisor's obligation to perform is a promisee's right to performance. It is argued that one cannot account for this right in terms of Scanlon's principle. This is so in spite of a clause in the principle relating to the promisee's "consent", which might have been thought to (...) do the trick. Most likely this argument can be applied to all "moral principle" accounts of promissory obligation. An alternative both to these and to "social practice" accounts is needed. (shrink)

Fifteen original essays open up a novel area of inquiry: the distinctively ethical dimensions of women's experiences of and in aging. Contributors distinguished in the fields of feminist ethics and the ethics of aging explore assumptions, experiences, practices, and public policies that affect women's well-being and dignity in later life. The book brings to the study of women's aging a reflective dimension missing from the empirical work that has predominated to date. Ethical studies of aging have so far failed to (...) emphasize gender. And feminist ethics has neglected older women, even when emphasizing other dimensions of 'difference.' Finally work on aging in all fields has focused on the elderly, while this volume sees aging as an extended process of negotiating personal and social change. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe role of Concrete Utopias in the works of Roy Bhaskar are contrasted with the ‘Real Utopias’ of Erik Olin Wright. Critical Realism treats them as ‘possibilities’ that are real because re...

In a well-known series of articles, Norman Daniels has drawn a contrast between wide reflective equilibrium and a more traditional method of theory acceptance in ethics that would be employed by a sophisticated moral intuitionist. The more traditional method is geared towards achieving a narrow equilibrium, or ‘an ordered pair of a set of considered moral judgments acceptable to a given person P at a given time, and a set of moral principles that economically systematizes.’ Although we might achieve narrow (...) reflective equilibrium by deducing particular moral judgments from self-evident moral principles, the more plausible approach is to start from our particular moral judgments. Here we begin by screening our intial moral judgments to eliminate those in which we have little confidence and those made under circumstances conducive to error. We then search for general moral principles that best account for the remaining ‘considered’ moral judgments. (shrink)

Many have asked how and why feminist theory makes a distinctive contribution to bioethics. In this essay, I outline two ways in which feminist reflection can enrich bioethical studies. First, feminist theory may expose certain themes of androcentric reasoning that can affect, in sometimes crude but often subtle ways, the substantive analysis of topics in bioethics; second, it can unearth the gendered nature of certain basic philosophical concepts that form the working tools of ethical theory.

This book, the last volume in the Social Morphogenesis series, examines whether or not a Morphogenic society can foster new modes of human relations that could exercise a form of 'relational steering', protecting and promoting a nuanced version of the good life for all. It analyses the way in which the intensification of morphogenesis and the diminishing of morphostasis impact upon human flourishing. The book links intensified morphogenesis to promoting human flourishing based on the assumption that new opportunities open up (...) novel experiences, skills, and modes of communication that appeal to talents previously lacking any outlet or recognition. It proposes that equality of opportunity would increase as ascribed characteristics diminished in importance, and it could be maintained as the notion of achievement continued to diversify. Digitalization has opened the cultural 'archive' for more to explore and, as it expands exponentially, so do new complementary compatibilities whose development foster yet further opportunities. If more people can do more of what they do best, these represent stepping stones towards the 'good life' for more of them. (shrink)

Teaching chemistry remains a profoundly challenging activity. This paper arises from reflection on the challenges of creating meaningful assessments. Herein a simple framework to assist in making more visible the different kinds of knowledge required for mastery of chemistry is described. Building from a realist foundation the purpose of this paper is to lay the intellectual scaffolding for the framework. By situating the framework theoretically, it is intended to highlight the value of engaging with philosophy for the project of knowledge (...) building in chemistry. Use of this framework has laid bare some significant limitations to the ways in which organic chemistry has been assessed. Making the visible to students aids in their engagement with knowledge and for a small minority has developed their understanding of science more generally. The framework provides a simple, easily usable tool for the evaluation of chemistry assessments. (shrink)

This volume examines the influence that Epicureanism and Stoicism, two philosophies of nature and human nature articulated during classical times, exerted on the development of European thought to the Enlightenment. Although the influence of these philosophies has often been noted in certain areas, such as the influence of Stoicism on the development of Christian thought and the influence of Epicureanism on modern materialism, the chapters in this volume forward a new awareness of the degree to which these philosophies and their (...) continued interaction informed European intellectual life well into early modern times. The influence of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies in the areas of literature, philosophy, theology, and science are considered. Many thinkers continue to perceive these philosophies as significant alternatives for understanding the human and natural worlds. Having become incorporated into the canon of philosophical alternatives, Epicureanism and Stoicism continued to exert identifiable influences on scientific and philosphical thought at least until the middle of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

What is a social rule? This paper first notes three important problems for H.L.A. Hart’s famous answer in the Concept of Law. An alternative account that avoids the problems is then sketched. It is less individualistic than Hart’s and related accounts. This alternative account can explain a phenomenon observed but downplayed by Hart: the parties to a social rule feel that they are in some sense ‘bound’ to conform to it.

A high level of citizen involvement in civic life is presumed crucial to the well-being of democracy, but the actual discourse of citizen involvement has rarely been analyzed. This article analyzes citizen participation in the school board meetings of one US community that was in the midst of conflict. After providing background on education governance practices and the community that was studied, citizen participation is examined. Citizen commentaries at school board meetings are shown to be a distinct speech genre and (...) the genre is described. Then, we characterize the discourse practices used to express negative sentiment. Feeling-limned description, avowal of feelings, rhetorical questions, reported speech, use of god and devil terms, and using meeting rules as weapons were the main negative sentiment strategies. In the conclusion we suggest when low levels of citizen involvement should be acceptable, and why `reasonable hostility' is a desirable form of citizen expression. (shrink)

An introduction to paradoxes showing that they are more than mere puzzles but can prompt new ways of thinking.

This article examines two modalities of law, depicted spatially as the vertical and the horizontal. The intellectual background for seeing law in vertical and horizontal dimensions is to be found in much socio-legal scholarship. These approaches have challenged the modernist, legal positivist and essentially vertical view of law as a system of imperatives emanating from a hierarchically superior source such as a sovereign. In keeping with the socio-legal critical tradition, but approaching it from the perspective of legal philosophy, my aim (...) is to address three matters. First, why is vertical law problematic for feminists? Second, what are the theoretical characteristics of law in its horizontal register? Third, how is an appreciation of this ‘flat’ law useful for feminist legal theory and practice? In particular, I consider the ways in which feminist legal theory operating in the horizontal dimension can transgress, without transcending, the vertically determined perimeters of the nation state. (shrink)

If you developed Alzheimer disease, would you want to go all the way to the end of what might be a decade‐long course? Some would; some wouldn't. Options open to those who choose to die sooner are often inadequate. Do‐not‐resuscitate orders and advance directives depend on others' cooperation. Preemptive suicide may mean giving up years of life one would count as good. Do‐it‐yourself methods can fail. What we now ask of family and clinicians caring for persons with dementia, and of (...) patients given no better option than to go on with lives they may not want, is unacceptable. To explore how one might better control one's own dying and avoid burdening others with overwhelming care and morally painful choices, we propose a thought experiment: an advance directive implant that would enable persons with early dementia, while competent, to arrange their own deaths without the subsequent intervention of anyone else. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Observations on Collective Action Approaches to Collective Action The Personal Intentions Approach The ‘We ‐ Intentions’ Approach The Joint Commitment Approach Concluding Remarks Further reading.