Contents: Ethical principals for environmental protection / Robert Goodin -- Political representation for future generations / Gregory S. Kavka and Virginia L. Warren -- On the survival of humanity / Jan Narveson -- On deep versus shallow theories of environmental pollution / C.A. Hooker -- Preservation of wilderness and the good life / Janna L. Thompson -- The rights of the nonhuman world / Mary Anne Warren -- Are values in nature subjective or objective? / Holmes Rolston (...) III - Duties concerning islands / Mary Midgley -- Gaia and the forms of life / Stephen R.L. Clark -- Western traditions and environmental ethics / Robin Attfield -- Traditional American Indian and traditional western European attitudes toward nature / J. Baird Callicott -- Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action / Richard Routley. [Book Synopsis]. (shrink)

In this target article by Morain and Largent (2023), the authors focus on an investigator’s duty to patient-subjects specifically regarding incidental or collateral findings within the context of e...

Schrödinger's original quantization procedure is extended to include observables with classical counterparts described in generalized coordinates and momenta. The procedure satisfies the superposition principle, the correspondence principle, Hermiticity requirements, and gauge invariance. Examples are given to demonstrate the derivation of operators in generalized coordinates or momenta. It is shown that separation of variables can be achieved before quantization.

From a developmental and comparative perspective, folk biology is a core “meme.” The universality and resistance to change in such core “memes” may be a function of the developmental timing of cognitive domains during childhood. Evidence from cognitive development in humans, monkeys, and apes is discussed. Suggestions for a developmental research program are offered.

1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course.

How do questions concerning consciousness and phenomenal experience relate to, or interface with, questions concerning plans, knowledge and intentions? At least in the case of visual experience the relation, we shall argue, is tight. Visual perceptual experience, we shall argue, is fixed by an agent’s direct unmediated knowledge concerning her poise (or apparent poise) over a currently enabled action space. An action space, in this specific sense, is to be understood not as a fine-grained matrix of possibilities for bodily movement, (...) but as a matrix of possibilities for pursuing and accomplishing one’s intentional actions, goals and projects. If this is correct, the links between planning, intention and perceptual experience are tight, while (contrary to some recent accounts invoking the notion of ‘sensorimotor expectations’) the links between embodied activity and perceptual experience, though real, are indirect. What matters is not bodily activity itself, but our practical knowledge (which need not be verbalized or in any way explicit) of our own possibilities for action. Such knowledge, selected, shaped and filtered by the grid of plans, goals, and intentions, plays, we argue, a constitutive role in explaining the content and character of visual perceptual experience. (shrink)

Heyes correctly points out some problems in primate theory of mind, but lacks a critical approach to children's theory of mind, and at times implies meta-awareness when discussing theory of mind. Also, in selecting pure experimental designs, she ignores its limitations, as well as the merits, and at times the necessity, of other methodologies.

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy is often characterised in terms of competitive individuals debating orally with one another in public arenas. But it also developed over its long history a sense in which philosophers might acknowledge some other particular philosopher or group of philosophers as an authority and offer to that authority explicit intellectual allegiance. This is most obvious in the development after the classical period of the philosophical 'schools' with agreed founders and, most importantly, canonical founding texts. There also (...) developed a tradition of commentary, interpretation, and discussion of texts which itself became a mode of philosophical debate. As time went on, the weight of a growing tradition of reading and appealing to a certain corpus of foundational texts began to shape how later antiquity viewed its philosophical past and also how philosophical debate and inquiry was conducted. In this book leading scholars explore aspects of these important developments. (shrink)

Abstract:Calvin Warren talks about Heidegger's influence on Afropessimism, and about the philosophical significance of the Harlem Renaissance.

The success of Discourse Ethics is premised on the discovery and use of shared values. If this is true what type of negotiation style, especially when used in an intercultural setting, is best suited to make use of shared values. Research focusing on moral arguments between Germans and Americans uncovered an array of shared values. But the existence of shared values, by itself, was not an adequate predictor of a negotiation's success. What did prove to be a predictor of success (...) was the use of a Constructivist style of negotiation by both parties. (shrink)

Engineered microbes are of great potential utility in biotechnology and basic research. In principle, a cell can be built from scratch by assembling small molecule sets with auto‐catalytic properties. Alternatively, DNA can be isolated or directly synthesized and molded into a synthetic genome using existing genomic blueprints and molecular biology tools. Activating such a synthetic genome will yield a synthetic cell. Here we examine obstacles associated with this latter approach using a model system whereby a donor genome from H. influenzae (...) is fragmented, and the pieces are then modified and reassembled stepwise in an E. coli host cell. There are obstacles associated with this strategy related to DNA transfer, DNA replication, cross‐talk in gene regulation and compatibility of gene products between donor and host. Encouragingly, analysis of gene expression indicates widespread transcription of H. influenzae genes in E. coli, and analysis of gap locations in H. influenzae and other microbial genome assemblies reveals few genes routinely incompatible with E. coli. In conclusion, rebuilding and booting a genome remains a feasible and pragmatic approach to creating a synthetic microbial cell. BioEssays 29:580–590, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The Internet has drastically changed how people interact, communicate, conduct business, seek jobs, find partners, and shop. Millions of people are using social networking sites to connect with others, and employers are using these sites as a source of background information on job applicants. Employers report making decisions not to hire people based on the information posted on social networking sites. Few employers have policies in place to govern when and how these online character checks should be used and how (...) to ensure that the information viewed is accurate. In this article, we explore how these inexpensive, informal online character checks are harmful to society. Guidance is provided to employers on when and how to use these sites in a socially responsible manner. (shrink)

This article assesses the state of empirical legal research and chronicles the field's history focusing on bankruptcy. This article begins with a discussion of what might have attracted bankruptcy scholars to extract an empirical vein in their scholarly work. It offers a short chronicle of the development of empirical bankruptcy scholarship from Justice Douglas to the current generation. Because of the relative paucity of such scholarship outside the U.S., this chronicle inevitably focuses on that country. It is divided into separate (...) discussions of individual and corporate bankruptcy. It elaborates the substantial amount of empirical scholarship in bankruptcy as compared with other fields, the grounds on which academic debates play out offer significant explanatory factors. This article concludes with some discussion regarding empirical questions on which bankruptcy scholars might probably focus future attention. (shrink)

Moral rationalism, the belief that acting contra a moral requirement is always irrational, is a strong claim; if true, seems to greatly reduce in scope the number of plausible moral theories due to what has been called the demandingness objection. One response to this consequence of moral rationalism has been to adopt moral anti-rationalism. Dale Dorsey thinks one can escape the demandingess objection with a weak form of anti-rationalism that still grants morality pride of place among normative systems. In this (...) paper I’ll argue that the demandingness objection is a formidable challenge to moral rationalism, and that Dorsey is correct in arguing that his weak anti-rationalism neatly offers a way to evade the objection. I’ll maintain, however, that weak anti-rationalism opens theories up to another powerful objection, the permissiveness objection, which ought to lead someone comfortable abandoning moral rationalism to abandon weak anti-rationalism as well, accepting moral anti-rationalism. (shrink)

Modularity has been the subject of intense debate in the cognitive sciences for more than 2 decades. In some cases, misunderstandings have impeded conceptual progress. Here the authors identify arguments about modularity that either have been abandoned or were never held by proponents of modular views of the mind. The authors review arguments that purport to undermine modularity, with particular attention on cognitive architecture, development, genetics, and evolution. The authors propose that modularity, cleanly defined, provides a useful framework for directing (...) research and resolving debates about individual cognitive systems and the nature of human evolved cognition. Modularity is a fundamental property of living things at every level of organization; it might prove indispensable for understanding the structure of the mind as well. (shrink)

Currently, the common theoretical models of "preferred" decision-making relationships do not correspond well with clinical experience. This interview study of congestive heart failure (CHF) patients documents the variety of patient preferences for decision-making, and the necessity for attention to family involvement. In addition, these findings illustrate the confusion as to the designation of surrogate decision-makers and physicians in charge. We conclude that no single model of physician-patient decision-making should be preferred, and that physicians should first ask patients how they want (...) medical information and decision-making to be handled. (shrink)