Shoemaker (1996) presented a priori arguments against the possibility of ‘self-blindness’, or the inability of someone, otherwise intelligent and possessed of mental concepts, to introspect any of her concurrent attitude states. Ironically enough, this seems to be a position that Gopnik (1993) and Carruthers (2006, 2008, 2009a,b) have proposed as not only possible, but as the actual human condition generally! According to this ‘Objectivist’ view, supposed introspection of one's attitudes is not ‘direct’, but an ‘inference’ of precisely the sort we (...) make about the attitudes of others, an inference that has the advantage in our own case of only our own sensory data and memories, our behavior, and of the context we are in; i.e. we are all substantially self- blind. After sorting out a number of methodological and verbal issues, I argue, first, that the a priori arguments against Objectivism don't succeed, and that Gopnik and Carruthers are right to regard the issue as an empirical one. On the other hand, I think they seriously underestimate the difficulty of establishing Objectivism. It is unlikely there is an inferential procedure from the data of pure sensation, behavior and context to the relevant self-attributions that would be as spectacularly reliable as people manifestly seem to be. Moreover, there is a simpler model: the mind very likely consists of a panoply of sub-routines some of whose outputs are ‘tagged’ for their having been so processed, rather in the way that software ‘documents’ are on standard computers. Introspection plausibly consists in a person's simply attending to distinctive constellations of these tags, even though they may lack phenomenal feels. This draws attention to an important independent fact: that much of phenomenology (or ‘what it's like’ to be in a certain state) may be constituted by facts that are not phenomenal. (shrink)

Reform of the federal income tax system has become a perennial item on the domestic policy agenda of the United States, although there is considerable uncertainty over specifics. Indeed the recent report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended not one but two divergent policy directions. In Fundamental Tax Reform, top experts in tax policy discuss a wide range of issues raised by the prospect of significant tax reform, identifying the most critical questions and considering whether the (...) answers are known, unknown--or unknowable. The debates over tax reform usually concern the advantages and disadvantages of income-based taxation as opposed to any of the several alternative forms of consumption-based taxation. The book opens with chapters that discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and political feasibility of these options. Other chapters consider the effect of tax reform on businesses, especially their investment behavior, and include a discussion of possible problems in any transition to a consumption-based tax; international taxation issues arising in an era of globalization; and individual behavioral response to tax reform, including a view of the topic from the perspective of the relatively new field of behavioral economics. ContributorsRosanne Altshuler, Alan J. Auerbach, John W. Diamond, Harry Grubert, Arnold C. Harberger, Kevin A. Hassett, Thomas J. Kniesner, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Edward J. McCaffery, Kathryn Newmark, David Rapson, Daniel Shaviro, Joel Slemrod, James P. Ziliak, George R. ZodrowDiscussants James Alm, Henry J. Aaron, Charles L. Ballard, Leonard E. Burman, Robert S. Chirinko, Robert D. Dietz, Malcolm Gillis, Roger H. Gordon, Jane G. Gravelle, Timothy S. Gunning, James M. Poterba, Thomas S. Neubig, Alan Viard, George Yin John W. Diamond is Edward and Hermena Kelly Fellow in Tax Policy and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University. George R. Zodrow is Professor of Economics and Rice Scholar at the Baker Institute and International Research Fellow at the Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford University. (shrink)

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

Originally delivered to mark the fiftieth anniversary of both Frantz Fanon’s death and the publication of his seminal discourse on decolonization, The Wretched of the Earth, these remarks seek to offer a preliminary outline of Fanon’s continuing relevance to the present. Conceptually spanning such touchstone elements of Fanon’s thought as sociogeny, race, violence, the human, and the relation between decolonial ethics and decolonial politics, the authors turn our attention to diagnosing the neoliberal face of contemporary coloniality/modernity and contributing to movements (...) from the Arab (or North African) Spring to the Occupy movement, from Philadelphia’s “flash mobs” to the new Latin American Left. (shrink)

Data are lacking with regard to participants' perspectives on return of genetic research results to relatives, including after the participant's death. This paper reports descriptive results from 3,630 survey respondents: 464 participants in a pancreatic cancer biobank, 1,439 family registry participants, and 1,727 healthy individuals. Our findings indicate that most participants would feel obligated to share their results with blood relatives while alive and would want results to be shared with relatives after their death.

Flesh of My Flesh is a collection of articles by today's most respected scientists, philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, and law professors about whether we should allow human cloning. It includes historical pieces to provide background for the current debate. Religious, philosophical, and legal points of view are all represented.

Human clinical research has become a huge economic enterprise (Morin et al. 2002; Noah 2002). Because the human subject at the center can be so easily marginalized, many commentators recommend spec...

Objectives: Bronchoalveolar lavage obtained at bronchoscopy is useful for research on pulmonary defence mechanisms. Bronchoscopy involves some discomfort and risk to subjects. We audited the process of consent, experienced adverse effects and reasons for participation among research bronchoscopy volunteers.Design: 100 consecutive volunteer research subjects attending for bronchoscopy, repeat bronchoscopy or routine recruitment clinic were interviewed. Information was gathered about volunteer motivation, perception of the consent process and adverse effects of bronchoscopy. Suggestions for improvement were requested. Responses were themed by a (...) second investigator prior to data analysis.Results: 81 bronchoscopy-experienced subjects and 19 new volunteers were interviewed. 19 subjects reported adverse symptoms during or after bronchoscopy, but no symptoms were of sufficient severity that they would not repeat the procedure. The frequency of symptoms was not related to gender, the quality of the lavage or the HIV status of the subject. 76 subjects reported that the information given pre-procedure was useful and adequate but 43 had further questions mostly relating to their own results. The reasons given for research participation were access to health assessment , access to treatment when ill , desire to participate in research and remuneration . 7 subjects complained that the remuneration was inadequate.Conclusions: The main incentive to participation in research bronchoscopy was access to healthcare. Informed consent and procedure technique were adequate but subjects would value more feedback about individual and project results. (shrink)

Robust stakeholder engagement in health research requires broad communicative integration, not only of patients but also other stakeholders such as health system leaders, clinicians, and researcher...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 143 sensual reason is supposed to develop the powers of observation and reasoning to the highest degree but not the spiritual intuition into the essence of things. Steiner proposed a theory of reincarnation; he also created a special kind of Christology which is based on the assumption that there were two Jesus-boys, one of whom incarnated the spirit of Zarathustra. As for Christ he descended into the (...) second Jesus from extraterrestrial spheres where he pre-existed. This is the "mystery of Golgatha," a decisive event in the history of mankind. Steiner has also a special concept of Karma as world spirit. His beliefs are strongly influenced by the German "Naturphilosophie" of the Romantic epoch and by Fichte whom he admires. The main theme of his life-work is the struggle against "materialism," against the concept of "homo oeconomieus," although Steiner was connected in the beginning with the leaders of the Austrian social democracy, such as his friends, Engelbert Pernerstorfer, and Viktor Adler. There is also the influence of German mystics, such as Jakob Boehme, on his thinking. This collection of lectures shows also that in the crucial period of German nationalism-during World War I--Steiner was not a chauvinist. He criticized, for instance, in these lectures the chauvinistic aberrations of Thomas Mann. He predicts (p. 100), in the course of the mechanization of human thinking, the construction of machines which would replace thinking itself. Instead of thinking, there would be mere "switching" (man schiebt). He predicts furthermore (p. 98) that this radical mechanization of man will come from America. The greater part of mankind will be influenced by America from the West.... It will not take too much time: around the year 2000 there will be issued in America not a formal but still a sort of prohibition of thinking; there will be a law that will have the purpose of repressing all individual thinking. On one side there is already the beginning of this development in purely materialistic medicine where the soul is not permitted to act but man is dealt with on the basis of external experiments as a pure machine. MAx RINSER New York City The Later Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood. By Alan Donagan. (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press~ 1962. Pp. xi + 332. $6.00.) The influence of Collingwood has been evident in many disciplines, and, judging from the number of books, articles, and dissertations being prepared with him and his interests in mind, it is a safe guess that he will remain an ubiquitous influence for some time. Yet because Collingwood 's interests were so wide and his attraction so general, few, if any, of his readers and critics have attempted to "place" him. This is not to say that the critical works prepared by T. M. Knox (the "Editor's Preface" to The Idea of History, 1946) and E. W. F. Tomlin (R. G. Collingwood, 195~) were unconcerned with such an issue. Indeed, their respective studies appear to have it in mind; nevertheless, it was not the impetus for the specific work, and as a result their researches tend to be prolegomena. With the publication of Donagan's book, however, there is presented a study which must be considered a landmark, if not a turning point, in the tradition of Collingwood criticism: for Donagan not only "places" Collingwood, he also attempts to justify his conclusion. And for the critic it is the subtlety of Donagan's arguments, ~lbeit their venturesome quality, which leads one to suggest that this book will make its "contributions " both to the tradition in particular and to the avid interest in general. In the Preface, Donagan acknowledges the fact that in order to "place" Collingwood his readers must be persuaded "to abandon the injurious preconception with which Collingwood's later books are often read" (p. vii). Although he does not designate what these "preconceptions " are, it may be surmised that they have something to do with the traditional tendency among the critics to read too lightly The New Leviathan (1942). Donagan believes that Colling~ wood's "later" masterpieces, "The Idea of History (1936-39?), The Principles of Art (1938), and the first three parts of The... (shrink)

Some of the most significant essays of Georg Simmel, an influential nineteenth century German philosopher and sociologist, are collected here. An informative introduction by Michael Landman points out his contribution to the thought of Hartmann, Jaspers, Heidegger, and Cassirer.--R. E.

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.

Author list: H. Frey; A. Willwoll; Georg Wunderle; E. Raitz V. Frentz; Q. Wihstutz; G. Wihstutz; R. Walter; A. Bolley; E. Steinwand; R.H. Thouleß; B. Vasady; A. Bolley.

The authors of this article are previous or current members of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs (CECA) Committee, a standing committee of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). The committee is composed of seasoned healthcare ethics consultants (HCECs), and it is charged with developing and disseminating education materials for HCECs and ethics committees. The purpose of this article is to describe the educational research and development processes behind our teaching materials, which culminated in a case studies book called (...) A Case-Based Study Guide for Addressing Patient-Centered Ethical Issues in Health Care (hereafter, the Study Guide). In this article, we also enumerate how the Study Guide could be used in teaching and learning, and we identify areas that are ripe for future work. (shrink)

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that (...) has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility. (shrink)