During a pandemic, where there is widespread human infection, various and varying measures are taken that are targeted at public health objectives. During the early stages of a pandemic, these objectives may focus on containing the disease and minimizing its spread, but they may switch to mitigation as the emergent infectious disease takes hold in a population. There has been considerable debate and elucidation of the ethical principles and framework for the various responses including the need to fast track research (...) and vaccine development. However, the measures imposed during a pandemic would have unintended and untoward effect on ongoing clinical research. For example, precautionary measures, such as social distancing, may hamper ongoing clinical research, because recruitment and participation of patients and healthy volunteers is a potential source of virus spread. In this paper, we argue that a framework is needed to ensure the continuity of such research. Such a framework that considers the pertinent issues would need the ‘buy in’ of the key stakeholders (policy makers, funding agencies, institutional authorities, researchers and subjects) to ensure that the issues that are ethically relevant to pandemic planning would not be neglected or overlooked. (shrink)

Originally published in 1987, Colin Campbell’s classic treatise on the sociology of consumption has become one of the most widely cited texts in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and the history of ideas. In the thirty years since its publication, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism has lost none of its impact. If anything, the growing commodification of society, the increased attention to consumer studies and marketing, and the ever-proliferating range of purchasable goods and services have (...) made Campbell’s rereading of Weber more urgent still. As Campbell uncovers how and why a consumer-oriented society emerged from a Europe that once embodied Weber’s Protestant ethic, he delivers a rich theorization of the modern logics and values structuring consumer behavior. This new edition, featuring an extended Introduction from the author and an Afterword from researcher Karin M. Ekström, makes clear how this foundational work aligns with contemporary theory in cultural sociology, while also serving as major influence on consumer studies. (shrink)

Recent work in philosophical logic has taken interesting and unexpected turns. It has seen not only a proliferation of logical systems, but new applications of a wide range of different formal theories to philosophical questions. As a result, philosophers have been forced to revisit the nature and foundation of core logical concepts, chief amongst which is the concept of logical consequence. This essay sets the contributions of the volume in context and identifies how they advance important debates within the philosophy (...) of logic. (shrink)

Logical consequence is the relation that obtains between premises and conclusion(s) in a valid argument. Orthodoxy has it that valid arguments are necessarily truth-preserving, but this platitude only raises a number of further questions, such as: how does the truth of premises guarantee the truth of a conclusion, and what constraints does validity impose on rational belief? This volume presents thirteen essays by some of the most important scholars in the field of philosophical logic. The essays offer ground-breaking new insights (...) into the nature of logical consequence; the relation between logic and inference; how the semantics and pragmatics of natural language bear on logic; the relativity of logic; and the structural properties of the consequence relation. (shrink)

Empirical evidence of self-deception's propositional duality is not sought; philosophically relevant links between propositions proper and mind are explored instead. Speech in unison ably indicates the social grounding of such attitudinal structures. An extra-theoretical eye – with regard to cognitivism – is cast on a case of “illusory communication.” The reinforcing of lexical analysis shows Mele's approach to be in need of non-ego concepts, wherefore it lacks soundness with respect to reference.

Production methods for food from U.K. livestock industries (milk, dairy products, meat, eggs, fibre) are undergoing substantial change as a result of the need to respond to environmental and animal welfare awareness of purchasing customers, and to espouse the principles of environmental protection. There appears to be a strong will on the part of livestock farmers to satisfy the environmental imperative, led by the need to maintain market share and by existing and impending legislation. There has been support forthcoming in (...) the form of Government-sponsored scientific research and technological development to provide the necessary framework for new environmentally sensitive practices. The agricultural community has itself made substantial responses to market demand through the inception of Farm Assured Quality Assurance Schemes. These appear to have a more sustainable future than the extremes of organic farming and free-range practices. Pollution of agricultural land with nitrate and phosphate by intensive livestock industries is a greater problem in some parts of continental Europe than it is in the U.K. The distribution of livestock out of intensive units and into mixed farming systems, would require substantial restructuring of the industry. Many of the animal welfare requirements which have been forwarded as a part of the environmental agenda for agriculture have been voluntarily accepted by livestock producers. However, some major aspects, such as alternative housing systems for pigs and poultry, remain unresolved. Analysis of the science and technology support for the environmental imperative, especially from Government sources, would suggest that, although dramatically increased in recent years, environmentally orientated research remains a relatively small proportion of the whole. Whilst a movement away from governmental funding of volume production appears to be justifiable, there has not been an equivalent balancing of effort toward funding for product quality, sustainability, environmental protection and animal welfare. Nevertheless, the university education system is producing a generation of more environmentally aware agricultural science graduates who are opting to pursue Government-sponsored environmentally orientated postgraduate research programs. (shrink)

Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies (...) of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

The concept of agency, although central to many sociological debates, has remained frustratingly elusive to pin down. This article is an attempt to open up what has been called the "black box" of personal agency by distinguishing clearly between two contrasting conceptions of the phenomenon. These two conceptions are very apparent in the manner in which the concept is defined in sociological reference works, resembling as it does a similar contrast in the treatment of the concept of power. The two (...) are referred to as type 1 and type 2 or the power of agency as compared with agentic power, the essential contrast being that the first refers to an actor's ability to initiate and maintain a program of action while the second refers to an actor's ability to act independently of the constraining power of social structure. The nature of these two forms of personal agency is then illustrated by referring to material taken from Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, this essay itself being understood as an argument that focuses on the crucial role played by an increase in the power of agency in ushering in the modern world. Finally, it is argued that these two conceptions of agency possess no given logical relationship with each other, it being perfectly possible for individuals to be possessed of considerable power of agency while lacking agentic power, and vice versa. It is therefore concluded that it is important, in all discussions of human agency, to distinguish clearly between these two forms. (shrink)

Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption, although widely known and commonly invoked, has rarely been examined critically; the associated "theory" has never been tested. It is suggested that the reason for this lies in the difficulty of determining the criterion that defines the phenomenon, a difficulty that derives from Veblen's failure to integrate two contrasting conceptual formulations. These are, first, an interpretive or subjective version that conceives of conspicuous consumption as action marked by the presence of certain intentions, purposes, or motives, (...) and second, a functionalist formulation in which conspicuous consumption is viewed as a form of behavior characterized by particular end results or outcomes. Consideration of each of these strands reveals major difficulties that prevent the construction of an operational definition of conspicuous consumption and hence the extraction of a workable theory from Veblen's discussion. (shrink)

If philosophers of science advise government on science policy, it will have to be from a descriptive theory of scientific validity taken as hypothetically normative, as in naturalized epistemology. While logical positivism denied any normative import for the practice of science, in the area of "operational definitions" it had an unfortunate influence in psychology and sociology, and one that persists in the accountability movement. Not all philosophy of science issues have implications for the justificatory practice of scientists. For example, both (...) anti-realists and realists condone scientific quarreling about unobserved particles. Many young philosophers of science are now contributing to a sociology of scientific validity which, taken in a hypothetically normative manner, will produce recommendations on science policy. (shrink)

The raison d’être of this article is that many a spry-eyed analyst of the works in intelligent computing and robotics fail to see the essential concerning applications development, that of expressing their ultimate goal. Alternatively, they fail to state it suitably for the lesser-informed public eye. The author does not claim to be able to remedy this. Instead, the visionary investigation offered couples learning and computing with other related fields as part of a larger spectre to fully simulate people in (...) their embodied image. For the first time, the social roles attributed to the technical objects produced are questioned, and so with a humorous illustration. (shrink)

The tendency to denigrate consumerism derives from the widespread acceptance of sociological theories that represent consumers as prompted by such reprehensible motives as greed, pride, or envy. These theories are largely unsubstantiated and fail to address the distinctive features of modern consumption, such as the apparent insatiability of wants and the preference for the novel over the familiar. A more plausible view of consumerism regards it as an aspect of hedonism, and links consumption to the widespread practice of daydreaming. Seen (...) in this light, one can discern an idealistic dimension to modern consumption. (shrink)

El consumo contemporáneo es frecuentemente objeto de críticas por parte de intelectuales, académicos, líderes religiosos y comentaristas diversos. En este trabajo se analizan y examinan cinco de las críticas más comunes, como son: la crítica de la necesidad, la crítica sobre su materialismo, la crítica de la adicción, la crítica del egoísmo, y la crítica sobre su irracionalidad. Se muestra a continuación que todas ellas están desencaminadas o carecen de apoyo empírico. Finalmente, se pone de manifiesto que varias de estas (...) críticas son incompatibles entre sí. (shrink)

T. D. Campbell; IV*—Equality of Opportunity, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 51–68, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

Cultural evolution, producing group‐level adaptations, is more problematic than the cultural evolution of individually confirmable skills, but it probably has occurred. The “conformist transmission,” described by Boyd and Richerson (1985), leads local social units to become homogeneous in anadaptive, as well as adaptive, beliefs. The resulting intragroup homogeneity and inter‐group heterogeneity makes possible a cultural selection of adaptive group ideologies.All archaic urban, division‐of‐labor social organizations had to overcome aspects of human nature produced by biological evolution, due to the predicament of (...) genetic competition among the cooperators. The universal norms found in archaic moral systems are seen as curbs to this human nature, reinforced by beliefs in invisible sanction systems and rewarding and punishing afterlives (as in heaven or reincarnation). Perhaps the ubiquity of lavishly wasteful royal funerals is to be explained as contributing to this function. (shrink)

Introductory Abstract Philosophers of science, in the course of making a sharp distinction between the tasks of the philosopher and those of the scientist, have pointed to the possibility of an empirical science of induction. A comparative psychology of knowledge processes is offered as one aspect of this potential enterprise. From fragments of such a psychology, methodological suggestions are drawn relevant to several chronic problems in the social sciences, including the publication of negative results from novel explorations, the operational diagnosis (...) of dispositions, the status of aggregates of persons as social entities, and the validation of psychological tests. (shrink)

With recent advancements in systems engineering and artificial intelligence, autonomous agents are increasingly being called upon to execute tasks that have normative relevance. These are tasks that directly—and potentially adversely—affect human well-being and demand of the agent a degree of normative-sensitivity and -compliance. Such norms and normative principles are typically of a social, legal, ethical, empathetic, or cultural nature. Whereas norms of this type are often framed in the abstract, or as high-level principles, addressing normative concerns in concrete applications of (...) autonomous agents requires the refinement of normative principles into explicitly formulated practical rules. This paper develops a process for deriving specification rules from a set of high-level norms, thereby bridging the gap between normative principles and operational practice. This enables autonomous agents to select and execute the most normatively favourable action in the intended context premised on a range of underlying relevant normative principles. In the translation and reduction of normative principles to SLEEC rules, we present an iterative process that uncovers normative principles, addresses SLEEC concerns, identifies and resolves SLEEC conflicts, and generates both preliminary and complex normatively-relevant rules, thereby guiding the development of autonomous agents and better positioning them as normatively SLEEC-sensitive or SLEEC-compliant. (shrink)