Biology, we are frequently told, is the science of the twenty-first century. Authority informs us that moving genes from one organism to another will provide new drugs, extend both the quantity and quality of life, and feed and fuel the world while reducing water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Authority also informs that novel genes will escape from genetically modified crops, thereby leading to herbicide-resistant weeds; that genetically modified crops are an evil privatization of the gene pool that will with (...) certainty lead to the economic ruin of small farmers around the world; and that economic growth derived from biological technologies will cause more harm than good. In other words, we are told .. (shrink)

In this paper, we put forward two novel arguments against the counterfactual comparative account (CCA) of harm and benefit. In both arguments, the central theme is that CCA conflicts with plausible judgements about benefit and prudence.

Religion and faith dominated much of Newton's life and work. His papers, never made available to the public, were filled with biblical speculation and timelines along with passages that excoriated the early Church fathers. Indeed, his radical theological leanings rendered him a heretic, according to the doctrines of the Anglican Church.

Creativity: Theory, History, Practice offers important new perspectives on creativity in the light of contemporary critical theory and cultural history. Innovative in approach as well as argument, the book crosses disciplinary boundaries and builds new bridges between the critical and the creative. It is organized in four parts: · Why creativity now? offers much-needed alternatives to both the Romantic stereotype of the creator as individual genius and the tendency of the modern creative industries to treat everything as a commodity. · (...) Defining creativity, creating definitions traces the changing meaning of "create" from religious ideas of divine creation from nothing to advertising notions of concept creation. It also examines the complex history and extraordinary versatility of terms such as imagination, invention, inspiration and originality. · Creation as myth, story, metaphor begins with modern re-telling of early African, American and Australian creation myths and -picking up Biblical and evolutionary accounts along the way - works round to scientific visions of the Big Bang, bubble universes and cosmic soup. · Creative practices, cultural processes is a critical anthology of materials, chosen to promote fresh thinking about everything from changing constructions of "literature" and "design" to artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. Rob Pope takes significant steps forward in the process of rethinking a vexed yet vital concept, all the while encouraging and equipping readers to continue the process in their own creative or "re-creative" ways. Creativity: Theory, History, Practice is invaluable for anyone with a live interest in exploring what creativity has been, is currently, and yet may be. (shrink)

When we love a place: world's end with Cormac McCarthy -- Mourning places and time in Augustine -- The conversion of time to the time of conversion: Augustine with Marion -- The time of his syllables: dying together with Derrida and Augustine -- Thinking love and mortality with Heidegger -- World loss or heart failure: pedagogies of estrangement in Harrison and Nancy -- Ages of learning . . . the secular today with Emerson and Nietzsche.

We have argued that the counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) violates the plausible adequacy condition that an act that would harm an agent cannot leave her much better off than an alternative act that would benefit her. In a recent paper in this journal, however, Neil Feit objects that our argument presupposes questionable counterfactual backtracking. He also argues that CCA proponents can justifiably reject the condition by invoking so-called plural harm and benefit. In this reply, we argue (...) that Feit’s lines of criticism are both unsuccessful. (shrink)

Emotions, morals, practices -- Sympathy for a devil's chaplain -- Common compassion and the mad scientist -- Sympathy as callousness? physiology and vivisection -- Sympathy, liberty, and compulsion: vaccination -- Sympathetic selection: eugenics -- Scientism and practice.

Shared Musical Lives makes the case for the epistemological and ethical significance of musical experience. Music can be a source of self-knowledge and self-expression, and hence reveal important dimensions of the self to others. This knowledge - of both self and of others - has a moral force as well. Shared musical experience can transform and establish new modes of being with others, cultivate virtues, and expand the moral imagination. The term sonification (which means translating data into non-verbal audible tones) (...) provides an organizing principle for the arguments in the book.Transposing the concept into a philosophical key, this book explores two forms of sonification: first, the process by which musical experience reveals dimensions of the self and relationships with others; and second, philosophical sonification, or the critical examination of philosophical concepts,arguments, and theories in view of what musical experience reveals. These two kinds of sonification are discussed specifically in the context of disability. In this book, author Licia Carlson brings the musical lives of people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities into the foreground in order to challenge and broaden existing conceptions of disability and music and provide new ways of thinking about the philosophies of music and disability. (shrink)

Reinhardt 's strong mechanistic thesis, a formalization of “I know I am a Turing machine”, is shown to be consistent with Epistemic Arithmetic.

This book develops the interplay between phenomenology as a historical movement and as a descriptive method within Continental philosophy and the arts.

Illness -- Loneliness -- Violation -- Love.

A principal aim of the branch of ethics called ‘population theory’ or ‘population ethics’ is to find a plausible welfarist axiology, capable of comparing total outcomes with respect to value. This has proved an exceedingly difficult task. In this paper I shall state and discuss two ‘trilemmas’, or choices between three unappealing alternatives, which the population ethicist must face. The first trilemma is not new. It originates with Derek Parfit's well-known ‘Mere Addition Paradox’, and was first explicitly stated by Yew-Kwang (...) Ng. I shall argue that one horn of this trilemma is less unattractive than Parfit and others have claimed. The second trilemma, which is a kind of mirror image of the first, appears hitherto to have gone unnoticed. Apart from attempting to resolve the two trilemmas, I shall suggest certain features which I believe a plausible welfarist axiology should possess. The details of this projected axiology will, however, be left open. (shrink)

Struggles over journalism are often struggles over boundaries. These symbolic contests for control over definition also mark a material struggle over resources. In short: boundaries have consequences. Yet there is a lack of conceptual cohesiveness in what scholars mean by the term "boundaries" or in how we should think about specific boundaries of journalism. This book addresses boundaries head-on by bringing together a global array of authors asking similar questions about boundaries and journalism from a diverse range of perspectives, methodologies, (...) and theoretical backgrounds. (shrink)

We will study patterns which occur when considering how Σ 1 -elementary substructures arise within hierarchies of structures. The order in which such patterns evolve will be seen to be independent of the hierarchy of structures provided the hierarchy satisfies some mild conditions. These patterns form the lowest level of what we call patterns of resemblance . They were originally used by the author to verify a conjecture of W. Reinhardt concerning epistemic theories 449–460; Ann. Pure Appl. Logic, to appear), (...) but their relationship to axioms of infinity and usefulness for ordinal analysis were manifest from the beginning. This paper is the first part of a series which provides an introduction to an extensive program including the ordinal analysis of set theories. Future papers will conclude the introduction and establish, among other things, that notations we will derive from the patterns considered here represent the proof-theoretic ordinal of the theory KPℓ 0 or, equivalently, Π 1 1 −CA 0. (shrink)

This book explores the concept of punishment: its meaning and significance, not least to those subject to it; its social, political and emotional contexts; its role in the criminal justice system; and the difficulties of bringing punishment to an end. It explores how levels of criminal punishment could and should be reduced, without compromising moral standards, public safety or the rights of victims of crime. Core contents include: Why punishment matters, the salience of emotions in its various discourses and the (...) role of culture. The politicisation of punishment and legitimacy. The penal system, the prominence of the prison in research on punishment and the role of community sanctions. The aims of punishment, its limits and the role of power. The ethics of punishment and human rights. Punishment and social order. This book is essential reading for all criminologists, as well as students taking courses on punishment, penology, prisons and the criminal justice system. (shrink)

This chapter talks about to my other self reflection and existentialism in dungeons dragons. The 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide II sourcebook discusses player motivations such as these, recognizing that, for many, they are one of the main reasons to play DD. The actor plays a character that someone else has envisioned and written: a figment of someone else's imagination. The author's task looks at the other side of this coin: an author conceives of a world and characters, and then sees (...) how those characters will react to their circumstances. The very chapter owes its existence to one from whom the author learned that he had the capacity for courage and faith, to Lady Yui – to my other self. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Fact of Pluralism Common Schools and the Normative Significance of Pluralism Educational Choice and the Normative Significance of Pluralism Reconciling Common Schooling with Educational Choice Acknowledgments References.

In the first work of investigative journalism in decades to give a comprehensive view into contemporary psychiatric incarceration and forced interventions, Your Consent Is Not Required exposes how rising numbers of people from many walks of life are being subjected against their will to surveillance, indefinite detention, and powerful tranquilizing drugs, restraints, seclusion, and electroshock.

This article examines how the availability of Big Data, coupled with new data analytics, challenges established epistemologies across the sciences, social sciences and humanities, and assesses the extent to which they are engendering paradigm shifts across multiple disciplines. In particular, it critically explores new forms of empiricism that declare ‘the end of theory’, the creation of data-driven rather than knowledge-driven science, and the development of digital humanities and computational social sciences that propose radically different ways to make sense of culture, (...) history, economy and society. It is argued that: Big Data and new data analytics are disruptive innovations which are reconfiguring in many instances how research is conducted; and there is an urgent need for wider critical reflection within the academy on the epistemological implications of the unfolding data revolution, a task that has barely begun to be tackled despite the rapid changes in research practices presently taking place. After critically reviewing emerging epistemological positions, it is contended that a potentially fruitful approach would be the development of a situated, reflexive and contextually nuanced epistemology. (shrink)

In his profound and deeply personal new book, New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell explores the endless dynamic questions and connections that have shaped his life to provide powerful insight into understanding your purpose and place in the world. Our home is a universe of endless dynamic connections that never stop inviting us to participate in the great mysterious love at the heart of it all. Everything is Spiritual is a brief history of how these ideas about creation, love, (...) and connection shaped the author--and can shape every one of us. In this book, Rob Bell explores the concept that what people really want, more than anything, is to understand their purpose here--so much so that it gives them an abiding sense of awe and wonder. And when you embrace where and who you come from and your wounds and pains and regrets, you will discover that there's an invitation lurking there in the mess of life: an invitation to expand just like the universe has been doing for 13 billions years. There is a space beyond all the parts and divisions and differences and polarization where you see that it's all one connected whole and it's all rigged in favor of your growth, expansion, and joy. (shrink)

The book provides a detailed yet clear introduction to the sociology of Basil Bernstein that will be accessible to those not already familiar with it, but also of interest to those who are. It locates his thinking within the history of the field of British sociology in his life-time, explores the classical sources in Durkheim and Marx, and shows how a world-wide network of scholars continues to apply and further develop his ideas. His later ideas about knowledge structures are applied (...) to Bernstein himself in terms of a historical analysis of the fields of British sociology and the sociology of education and his position within them. The book is, in this way, about British sociology and education as well as about Bernstein and intends to provide a provocative and challenging account of both. The book is organised in four main sections that deal with: theory, research, control and pedagogy. It explores the major areas of his work and shows their inter-relatedness and their development over time. Although Bernstein had a special interest in education, he did not see himself a sociologist of education alone. His was a broad and wide-ranging programme in the social sciences and it is in these terms that his work is presented in this book. (shrink)

Now -- Hum -- Open -- Both -- With -- For -- Ahead -- So -- Epilogue.

In Section 1, I rehearse some arguments for the claim that morality should be ``action-guiding'', and try to state the conditions under which a moral theory is in fact action-guiding. I conclude that only agents who are cognitively and conatively ``ideal'' are in general able to use a moral theory as a guide to action. In Sections 2 and 3, I discuss whether moral ``actualism'' implies that morality cannot be action-guiding even for ideal agents. If actualism is true, an ideal (...) agent will know about her own future actions. Since such foreknowledge is often thought to be incompatible with deliberation, and since action-guidance presupposes the possibility of deliberation, there is an apparent difficulty in combining actualism with the requirement of action-guidance. In opposition to an argument by Jan Österberg, I try to show that actualism and action-guidance are in fact compatible. (shrink)

Some conspicuous characteristics of argumentation as we all know this phenomenon from our shared everyday experiences are in my view vital to its theoretical treatment because they should have methodological consequences for the way in which argumentation research is conducted. To start with, argumentation is in the first place a communicative act complex, which is realized by making functional verbal communicative moves.

This article examines whether the involvement of stakeholders in the design of corporate codes of conduct leads to a higher implementation likelihood of the code. The empirical focus is on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). The article compares the inclusion of OSH issues in the codes of conduct of 30 companies involved in International Framework Agreements (IFAs), agreed upon by trade unions and multinational enterprises, with those of a benchmark sample of 38 leading Multinational Enterprises in comparable industries. It is (...) found that codes of the IFA group have a higher implementation likelihood in OSH than the codes of the benchmark group. Further, European firms, culturally more used to stakeholder involvement, score higher than their US and Japanese competitors, and hence are more capable of addressing the safety and health issues in international supply chains. The implementation likelihood of codes seems closely related to the type of corporate CSR approach. (shrink)

In My Princesses Learn to Share, Princess Grace and Princess Hope want to wear the same pink dress when they play dress-up. They end up ripping the dress, but Mom has a story to help them learn to share. She tells them the story of Jesus and the young boy who shared his lunch. The girls get the picture, Mom mends the dress, and they learn to share.

Dr Goffee reviews empirical evidence on the labour market position and work experience of women managers, assesses the kind of work situations which are likely to be perceived by women managers ‐ and, in some cases, their partners and colleagues ‐ as involving an “ethical” dimension, and suggests possible sources of differentiation in the experiences of European women managers which are worthy of further comparative research. The author is Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School.

This article is about a sidebar in James Gibson's last book, The ecological approach to visual perception. In this sidebar, Gibson, the founder of the ecological perspective of perception and action, argued that to perceive an affordance is not to classify an object. Although this sidebar has received scant attention, it is of great significance both historically and for recent discussions about specificity, direct perception, and the functions of the dorsal and ventral streams. It is argued that Gibson's acknowledgment of (...) Wittgenstein's ideas of classification suggests a limited scope of his theory of direct perception?it cannot account for the classification of objects. The implications for both the specification debate and theorizing about the brain's dorsal and ventral pathways are explored. Based on a recent ecological conception of information and direct perception, we ultimately argue that both affordance perception and classification are direct. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the consequentialist theory recently put forward by Fred Feldman. I argue that this theory violates two crucial requirements. Another theory, proposed by Peter Vallentyne, is similarly flawed. Feldman's basic ideas could, however, be developed into a more plausible theory. I suggest one possible way of doing this.

Some people (e.g., Drs. Paul and Susan Lim) and, with them, organizations (e.g., the National Embryo Donation Center) believe that, morally speaking, the death of a frozen human embryo is a very bad thing. With such people and organizations in mind, the question to be addressed here is as follows: if one believes that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, ought, morally speaking, one prevent the death of at least one frozen embryo via embryo adoption? (...) By way of a three‐premise argument, one of which is a moral principle first introduced by Peter Singer, my answer to this question is: at least some of those who believe this ought to. (Just who the “some” are is identified in the paper.) If this is correct, then, for said people, preventing the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is not a morally neutral matter; it is, instead, a morally laden one. Specifically, their intentional refusal to prevent the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is, at a minimum, morally criticizable and, arguably, morally forbidden. Either way, it is, to one extent or another, a moral failing. (shrink)

This study examines a moderated/mediated model of ethical leadership on follower job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. We proposed that managers have the potential to be agents of virtue or vice within organizations. Specifically, through ethical leadership behavior we argued that managers can virtuously influence perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn will positively impact organizational members’ flourishing as measured by job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization. We also hypothesized that perceptions of interactional justice would moderate the ethical (...) leadership-to-climate relationship. Our results indicate that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect influence on follower job satisfaction and affective commitment. The indirect effect of ethical leadership involves shaping perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn, engender greater job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, when interactional justice is perceived to be high, this strengthens the ethical leadership-to-climate relationship. (shrink)

Mothers use online resources frequently to obtain information on pregnancy, birth, and parenting. Yet, second-time mothers may have different concerns than first-time mothers given they have a newborn infant and another child at home. The current study conducted an on-line textual analysis of the posts of second-time mothers during pregnancy and the first months postpartum on the BabyCenter LLC website, one of the largest online parenting communities. Latent Dirichlet Allocation analysis on roughly 16,000 posts to BabyCenter birth clubs in 2017 (...) by approximately 4,000 users revealed second-time mothers relied on the online support of the BabyCenter community to share and discuss topics of pregnancy, birth, and child rearing. Second-time mothers also raised questions about preparing their firstborn children for a new baby sibling, how they would care for two children, whether they would love the second one as much as the first, and how the second child would change family dynamics. Future research needs to recognize that second-time mothers may have distinct concerns surrounding the birth of their second baby, and antenatal education and parenting classes may need to be modified to be more inclusive of these women’s needs and perspectives. Online parenting communities offer avenues to support women as they make the transition from one child to two and may provide targeted opportunities to disseminate evidence-based practices that can assist these women and their children. (shrink)

We show that three fundamental information-theoretic constraints -- the impossibility of superluminal information transfer between two physical systems by performing measurements on one of them, the impossibility of broadcasting the information contained in an unknown physical state, and the impossibility of unconditionally secure bit commitment -- suffice to entail that the observables and state space of a physical theory are quantum-mechanical. We demonstrate the converse derivation in part, and consider the implications of alternative answers to a remaining open question about (...) nonlocality and bit commitment. (shrink)

According to the theory of intrinsic value and moral standing called the ‘substance view,’ what makes it prima facie seriously wrong to kill adult human beings, human infants, and even human fetuses is the possession of the essential property of the basic capacity for rational moral agency – a capacity for rational moral agency in root form and thereby not remotely exercisable. In this critique, I cover three distinct reductio charges directed at the substance view's conclusion that human fetuses have (...) the same intrinsic value and moral standing as adult human beings. After giving consideration to defenders of the substance view's replies to these charges, I then critique each of them, ultimately concluding that none is successful. Of course, in order to understand all of these things – the reductio charges, defenders of the substance view's replies to them, and my criticisms of their replies – one must have a better understanding of the substance view as well as its defense. Accordingly, I address the substance view's understanding of rational moral agency as well as present its defense. (shrink)