Substantially revised to include a wealth of new material, the second edition of this highly acclaimed work provides a concise, coherent introduction that brings structure to an increasingly fragmented and amorphous discipline. Paul R. McHugh and Phillip R. Slavney offer an approach that emphasizes psychiatry's unifying concepts while accommodating its diversity. Recognizing that there may never be a single, all-encompassing theory, the book distills psychiatric practice into four explanatory methods: diseases, dimensions of personality, goal-directed behaviors, and life stories. These (...) perspectives, argue the authors, underlie the principles and practice of all psychiatry. With an understanding of these fundamental methods, readers will be equipped to organize and evaluate psychiatric information and to develop a confident approach to practice and research. Praise for the original edition: "This brilliant book illuminates psychiatry more clearly than any other work I know.... This is the best (and the shortest) single volume on psychiatry that anyone could read."-- New England Journal of Medicine "Every psychiatry department, regardless of ideology, should build a course around this... work. Open-mindedness might become fashionable."-- Journal of Clinical Psychiatry "An elegantly reasoned and eloquently written book that enriches our understanding of clinical events.... [It provides] an opportunity to open our eyes to new possibilities."-- Hospital and Community Psychiatry. (shrink)

A drink called surā is the alcoholic drink mentioned in our oldest Indian text, the Ṛg Veda, and people continued to make a drink called surā for millennia. This article uses the methodology of the comparative study of fermentation methods in order to make sense of the earliest descriptions of surā brewing processes. Surā was brewed in a semi-solid state, using malts for saccharification, perhaps also with a complex microbial ferment starter as one sees elsewhere in Asia today. Surā was (...) not distilled. Understanding this has philological value: if surā was brewed with this process, we can better understand certain words associated with surā in Vedic texts, e.g., the drink called parisrut, certain material objects, and certain processes. Although brewing instructions are varied and may reflect several modes of brewing, and although the process in surviving descriptions may have been ritually inflected to highlight resemblances with soma pressing, I argue we can still get a sense of the basic method of brewing. These are some of the earliest detailed descriptions of brewing a grain drink that, con- sidered in the long term, has similarities with both Mesopotamian brewing and East Asian methods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mild Cognitive Impairment:What's in a Name?Steven R. Sabat (bio)Keywordslabeling, mild cognitive impairment, recall memory, selfhood, stereotype threatCorner and Bond (2006) raise a number of important conceptual issues related to the problems involved in defining mild cognitive impairment (MCI), differentiating it from normal aging, the definition of normal aging itself, and ethical issues surrounding the possible adverse effects of a diagnosis of MCI on the individuals thus described. It would (...) seem that portentous ramifications are involved and that clarifying the conceptual issues would be of great value, not only to researchers but also to the ever-growing population of elderly people. In what follows, I address some of these issues further.Problems of Definition and MeasurementOne of the problems that the authors discuss at the outset of their article concerns what methods are appropriate for detecting those with MCI: "Neuropsychological tests alone do not discriminate between normal aged-related memory loss and MCI or dementia and clinical judgment remains central to diagnosis" (Corner and Bond 2006, 5). Of course, to be able to discriminate between normal aged-related memory problems and MCI, we must first be able to define the former. What exactly is normal? As the authors correctly point out, the term has different meanings, one being normative (usual), another being nonpathologic. Is it normal (usual) for some sort of breakdown to occur in brain systems as a function of increased age? If so, is there a threshold age below which the very same physiologic breakdown is unusual? Would such a threshold age, if one existed, be the same for everyone, regardless of genotype and the cumulative interactive effects of nutrition, health, and stress-related factors over a period of decades? In effect, is some sort of memory impairment part of the natural (usual) process of aging for some people at particular ages rather than for others? And exactly what does it mean to be mildly impaired in the cognitive domain?Hogan and McKeith (2001) presented a working group's definition characterizing MCI such that people who complain about memory problems and who also provide objective evidence of such problems, yet who simultaneously display "normal general cognitive function and intact activities of daily living" (Hogan and McKeith 2001, 1131), should be identified and followed. Here again, however, we confront the problem of defining "normal general cognitive function" as well as "normal activities of daily living." Can one have normal general cognitive function without normal memory function? If so, what exactly constitutes [End Page 13] general cognitive function and on what conceptual or theoretical basis is such a definition valid? Furthermore, what sort of memory function are we talking about? Memory can be said to involve a number of stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Retrieval can be of the explicit type (conscious recall or recognition of specific information) with which people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) often reveal deficits or of the implicit type (a change in behavior as a result of previous experience of which the person may have no conscious recollection) as demonstrated in people with AD (Knopman and Nissen 1987). That is, people with AD can display deficits in explicit memory functions without similar deficits simultaneously in implicit memory functions.A partial answer to the question about memory loss in MCI may be found in the use of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein, Folstein, and McHugh 1975), originally intended to be used as a screening device, but employed more and more frequently as an outcome measure to assess cognitive decline as well as the efficacy of drug treatments. Although the examination purports to test orientation, registration, attention, calculation, recall, language (naming, repeating, reading, writing, three-stage command), and construction, a task analysis reveals that the test is not quite as "global" in the cognitive domain as it is purported to be. For example, ten of the maximum thirty points on the examination are earned for "orientation" in time and place. Yet, all of the questions in this section of the test require intact recall of the relevant information. For example, if a person is asked, "What day of the week is this?" and replies "I don't know," the... (shrink)

The Moral Nexus develops and defends a new interpretation of morality—namely, as a set of requirements that connect agents normatively to other persons in a nexus of moral relations. According to this relational interpretation, moral demands are directed to other individuals, who have claims that the agent comply with these demands. Interpersonal morality, so conceived, is the domain of what we owe to each other, insofar as we are each persons with equal moral standing. The book offers an interpretative argument (...) for the relational approach. Specifically, it highlights neglected advantages of this way of understanding the moral domain; explores important theoretical and practical presuppositions of relational moral duties; and considers the normative implications of understanding morality in relational terms. The book features a novel defense of the relational approach to morality, which emphasizes the special significance that moral requirements have, both for agents who are deliberating about what to do and for those who stand to be affected by their actions. The book argues that relational moral requirements can be understood to link us to all individuals whose interests render them vulnerable to our agency, regardless of whether they stand in any prior relationship to us. It also offers fresh accounts of some of the moral phenomena that have seemed to resist treatment in relational terms, showing that the relational interpretation is a viable framework for understanding our specific moral obligations to other people. (shrink)

According to the fitting-attitudes account of value, for X to be good is for it to be fitting to value X. But what is it for an attitude to be fitting? A popular recent view is that it is for there to be sufficient reason for the attitude. In this paper we argue that proponents of the fitting-attitudes account should reject this view and instead take fittingness as basic. In this way they avoid the notorious ‘wrong kind of reason’ problem, (...) and can offer attractive accounts of reasons and good reasoning in terms of fittingness. (shrink)

Numerous questions remain unanswered concerning the functional determinants of symbolic behavior and perspective-taking, particularly regarding the capabilities of children with autism. An alternative approach that considers these behaviors to be forms of derived relational responding allows for the design of functional intervention programs to establish such repertoires in individuals for whom they are absent.

Putnam’s style is rarely discussed in the secondary literature. In this paper I provide one approach to the kind of writing that philosophy becomes in Putnam’s hands. I focus on Putnam’s argumentative pluralism and, more specifically, the practical form that pluralism takes in Putnam’s commitment to the essay form. I argue that Putnam’s use of the essay form is a crucial expression of his pluralism. Looking at some ancestors of the Putnam essay, I pay attention to the specific hybrid qualities (...) of the philosophical paper. I make a connection between the live tensions at work within the essay form and Putnam’s vigorous resistance to dichotomies in philosophy. I suggest that Putnam’s philosophical resistance to such dichotomies can be understood as the practice of a certain kind of irony. My primary example is Putnam’s work on the fact/value dichotomy. I suggest that Putnam’s irony might present an alternative to the dominant conception of irony in contemporary American philosophy: that of Richard Rorty. (shrink)

Engages and extends the feminist philosopher Lorraine Code's groundbreaking work on epistemology and ethics.

Reasoning is a certain kind of attitude-revision. What kind? The aim of this paper is to introduce and defend a new answer to this question, based on the idea that reasoning is a goodness-fixing kind. Our central claim is that reasoning is a functional kind: it has a constitutive point or aim that fixes the standards for good reasoning. We claim, further, that this aim is to get fitting attitudes. We start by considering recent accounts of reasoning due to Ralph (...) Wedgwood and John Broome, and argue that, while these accounts contain important insights, they are not satisfactory: Wedgwood’s rules out too much, and Broome’s too little. We then introduce and defend our alternative account, discuss some of its implications and attractions, and, finally, consider objections. (shrink)

What makes the difference between good and bad reasoning? In this paper we defend a novel account of good reasoning—both theoretical and practical—according to which it preserves fittingness or correctness: good reasoning is reasoning which is such as to take you from fitting attitudes to further fitting attitudes, other things equal. This account, we argue, is preferable to two others that feature in the recent literature. The first, which has been made prominent by John Broome, holds that the standards of (...) good reasoning derive from rational requirements. The second holds that these standards derive from reasons. We argue that these accounts face serious difficulties in correctly distinguishing good from bad reasoning, and in explaining what's worthwhile about good reasoning. We then propose our alternative account and argue that it performs better on these counts. In the final section, we develop certain elements of the account in response to some possible objections. (shrink)

This book provides a collection of sources, many of them fragmentary and previously scattered and hard to access, for the development of Peripatetic philosophy in the later Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. It also supplies the background against which the first commentator on Aristotle from whom extensive material survives, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. AD 200), developed his interpretations which continue to be influential even today. Many of the passages are here translated into English for the first time, (...) including the whole of the summary of Peripatetic ethics attributed to 'Arius Didymus'. (shrink)

In an effort to build interest in the two-year old service learning center and to fulfill its mission to integrate academic life with service in thoughtful and relevant ways, a competition was held to award developmental grants to faculty to create innovative courses incorporating service learning. The winning proposal from the business school used a business ethics course as the vehicle for formally introducing service into the business curriculum. This paper will tell the story of the intended and unintended consequences (...) of building collaboration on several levels: between generations, between college and community, between faculty and college resources, between student teams, and between theory and practice. (shrink)

This is a survey of recent debates concerning the normativity of belief. We explain what the thesis that belief is normative involves, consider arguments for and against that thesis, and explore its bearing on debates in metaethics.

According to Paul Boghossian and others, inference is subject to the taking condition: it necessarily involves the thinker taking his premises to support his conclusion, and drawing the conclusion because of that fact. Boghossian argues that this condition vindicates the idea that inference is an expression of agency, and that it has several other important implications too. However, we argue in this paper that the taking condition should be rejected. The condition gives rise to several serious prima facie problems and (...) the reasons which have been offered in favour of it fail to convince. (shrink)

I argue that, if belief is subject to a norm of truth, then that norm is evaluative rather than prescriptive in character. No prescriptive norm of truth is both plausible as a norm that we are subject to, and also capable of explaining what the truth norm of belief is supposed to explain. Candidate prescriptive norms also have implausible consequences for the normative status of withholding belief. An evaluative norm fares better in all of these respects. I propose an evaluative (...) account according to which the goodness of true belief is, in Geach's sense, attributive rather than predicative. (shrink)

Beliefs are held to norms in a way that seems to require control over what we believe. Yet we don’t control our beliefs at will, in the way we control our actions. I argue that this problem can be solved by recognising a different form of control, which we exercise when we revise our beliefs directly for reasons. We enjoy this form of attitudinal control not only over our beliefs, but also over other attitudes, including intentions—that is, over the will (...) itself. Closely tied to our capacity for reasoning, attitudinal control is in important respects more fundamental than the voluntary control that we exercise over our actions. In the course of developing this account I respond to two objections recently raised against an earlier version of it by Booth. (shrink)

Professional Ethics is a textbook designed for budding engineers to understand important ethical concepts that will enable them to effectively resolve the moral issues they will face in real professional situations. It also provides an understanding of the interface between social, technological and natural environments.

As rational agents, we are governed by reasons. The fact that there’s beer at the pub might be a reason to go there and a reason to believe you’ll enjoy it. As this example illustrates, there are reasons for both action and for belief. There are also many other responses for which there seem to be reasons – for example, desire, regret, admiration, and blame. This diversity raises questions about how reasons for different responses relate to each other. Might certain (...) such reasons be more fundamental than others? Should certain reasons and not others be treated as paradigmatic? At least implicitly, many philosophers treat reasons for action as the fundamental or paradigmatic case. In contrast, this paper articulates and defends an alternative approach, on which reasons for attitudes are fundamental, and reasons for action are both derivative and, in certain ways, idiosyncratic. After outlining this approach, we focus on defending its most contentious thesis, that reasons for action are fundamentally reasons for intention. We offer two arguments for this thesis, which turn on central roles of reasons: that reasons can be responded to, and that reasons can feature as premises of good reasoning. We then examine objections to the thesis and argue that none succeed. We conclude by sketching some ways in which our approach is significant for theorising about reasons. (shrink)

Beliefs can be correct or incorrect, and this standard of correctness is widely thought to be fundamental to epistemic normativity. But how should this standard be understood, and in what way is it so fundamental? I argue that we should resist understanding correctness for belief as either a prescriptive or an evaluative norm. Rather, we should understand it as an instance of the distinct normative category of fittingness for attitudes. This yields an attractive account of epistemic reasons.

This paper defends the possibility of doxastic freedom, arguing that doxastic freedom should be modelled not on freedom of action but on freedom of intention. Freedom of action is exercised by agents like us, I argue, through voluntary control. This involves two conditions, intentions-reactivity and reasons-reactivity, that are not met in the case of doxastic states. Freedom of intention is central to our agency and to our moral responsibility, but is not exercised through voluntary control. I develop and defend an (...) account of freedom of intention, arguing that constitutive features of intention ensure that freedom of intention cannot require voluntary control. Then I show that an analogous argument can be applied to doxastic states. I argue that if we had voluntary control of intentions or of doxastic states, this would actually undermine our freedom. (shrink)

This book has two main aims. First, it develops and defends a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises of good reasoning. This account says, roughly, that to be a normative reason for a response (such as a belief or intention) is to be premise of good reasoning, from fitting responses, to that response. Second, building on the account of reasons, it develops and defends a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative domain. This account says that there is (...) a single normative property, fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other normative properties depend. On this view, reasons, oughts, value, and other normative phenomena all ultimately depend on fittingness. The account of normative reasons is a part of this general view of the normative domain. The book begins, in chapter 1, by motivating the account of reasons as premises of good reasoning. Chapter 2 argues that good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning that preserves fittingness. Chapter 3 addresses the question of what fittingness is. Chapter 4 defends constitutive accounts of evaluative properties, like goodness, in terms of fitting attitudes. Chapters 5 and 6 shows how the view provides an attractive account of how reasons determine the deontic status of a response – whether you ought or may so respond. Chapter 7 addresses some challenges concerning certain reasons for belief, the relationship between reasons for action and reasons for intention, and reasons for emotion. (shrink)

It is widely held that when you are deliberating about whether to believe some proposition p, only considerations relevant to the truth of p can be taken into account as reasons bearing on whether to believe p and motivate you accordingly. This thesis of exclusivity has significance for debates about the nature of belief, about control of belief, and about certain forms of evidentialism. In this paper I distinguish a strong and a weak version of exclusivity. I provide reason to (...) think that strong exclusivity is an illusion and that weak exclusivity may also be an illusion. I describe a number of cases in which exclusivity seems not to hold, and I show how an illusion of exclusivity may be generated by a rather different feature of doxastic deliberation, which I call demandingness. (shrink)

We tend to prescribe and appraise doxastic states in terms that are broadly deontic. According to a simple argument, such prescriptions and appraisals are improper, because they wrongly presuppose that our doxastic states are voluntary. One strategy for resisting this argument, recently endorsed by a number of philosophers, is to claim that our doxastic states are in fact voluntary (This strategy has been pursued by Steup 2008 ; Weatherson 2008 ). In this paper I argue that this strategy is neither (...) successful nor necessary. Our doxastic states are not voluntary in any interesting sense. But once we see why our doxastic states are not voluntary, we can also see that there is no apparent reason to think that deontic prescriptions and appraisals—epistemic ones, at any rate—presuppose doxastic voluntarism. Indeed, there is good reason to deny that they do so. Finally, I diagnose the misleading attraction of the idea that what I call ‘epistemic deontology’ presupposes doxastic voluntarism. (shrink)

It is often said that belief aims at truth. I argue that if belief has an aim then that aim is knowledge rather than merely truth. My main argument appeals to the impossibility of forming a belief on the basis of evidence that only weakly favours a proposition. This phenomenon, I argue, is a problem for the truth-aim hypothesis. By contrast, it can be given a simple and satisfying explanation on the knowledge-aim hypothesis. Furthermore, the knowledge-aim hypothesis suggests a very (...) plausible account of what it takes for evidence to be sufficiently good to make belief possible. I offer several further considerations in favour of the knowledge-aim hypothesis, and deal with objections. Although the main point of the paper is not to defend the view that belief has an aim, but to adjudicate between accounts of what that aim is, my argument nevertheless requires some attention to the motivation for attributing an aim to belief in the first place. In particular, I will explain an important advantage that this view has over the view that belief is not aim-directed, but only subject to a constitutive norm. (shrink)

I argue that a version of the so-called KK principle is true for principled epistemic reasons; and that this does not entail access internalism, as is commonly supposed, but is consistent with a broad spectrum of epistemological views. The version of the principle I defend states that, given certain normal conditions, knowing p entails being in a position to know that you know p. My argument for the principle proceeds from reflection on what it would take to know that you (...) know something, rather than from reflection on the conditions for knowledge generally. Knowing that you know p, it emerges, is importantly similar to cases of psychological self-knowledge like knowing that you believe p: it does not require any grounds other than your grounds for believing p itself. In so arguing, I do not rely on any general account of knowledge, but only on certain plausible and widely accepted epistemological assumptions. (shrink)

Does belief have an aim? According to the claim of exclusivity, non-truth-directed considerations cannot motivate belief within doxastic deliberation. This claim has been used to argue that, far from aiming at truth, belief is not aim-directed at all, because the regulation of belief fails to exhibit a kind of interaction among aims that is characteristic of ordinary aim-directed behaviour. The most prominent reply to this objection has been offered by Steglich-Petersen (Philos Stud 145:395–405, 2009), who claims that exclusivity is in (...) fact compatible with belief’s genuinely having an aim. I argue, based on consideration of what is involved in pursuing an aim, that Steglich-Petersen’s reply fails. I suggest that the defender of the idea that belief has an aim should instead reject the claim of exclusivity, and I sketch how this can be done. (shrink)

Norm-attitude accounts of value say that for something to be valuable is for there to be norms that support valuing that thing. For example, according to fitting-attitude accounts, something is of value if it is fitting to value, and according to buck-passing accounts, something is of value if the reasons support valuing it. Norm-attitude accounts face the partiality problem: in cases of partiality, what it is fitting to value, and what the reasons support valuing, may not line up with what’s (...) valuable. Buck-passers have a solution to this problem and may claim that this gives them an advantage over fitting-attitude accounts. In this paper, we show how fitting-attitudes accounts can offer a broadly analogous, and equally attractive, solution to the problem. (shrink)