BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

This research on the ethics of meaningful work examined how types of job-related harm and their magnitude of consequences influenced components of ethical decision-making. The research also investigated the moderating effects of individual differences on the relation between the MOC and the ethical decision-making elements for each type of harm. Using a sample of 185 Chinese professionals, a between-subjects, fully crossed experimental scenario design revealed that physical and economic job-related harm were recognized as moral issues to a greater extent than (...) cognitive or emotional harm. Second, physical job-related harm stimulated a higher level of moral evaluations than economic and cognitive harm. Third, individuals intended to act ethically when MOC was high versus low. Finally, experience with layoffs and IMO helped explain the relations between MOC and moral evaluations for economic and cognitive job-related harm, respectively. Implications for research and management are discussed. (shrink)

While many authors have theorized about the ability of the humanities to enhance business ethics education, scant empirical work exists to support this speculation. We therefore conduct a study to measure the impact of a live theatre performance on ethical reasoning. We asked students to analyze an ethically-laden historical disaster scenario both before and after attending a performance featuring related narrative themes. Our hypothesis is that attending a live performance would cause students to take a more ethical view of an (...) industrial disaster case study. Results show support for the notion that live theatre may impact individuals’ ethical decision-making as applied to a representative business case. Specifically, we found a significant difference in what parties students hold responsible, what actions students think should have been taken, and how cultural norms affect students’ perceptions of ethical obligations. We therefore suggest that live theatre may be a novel pedagogical tool in business ethics education. (shrink)

The spread of English is so much an integral part of globalization that it has become an essential global literacy skill. In Asia, this poses immense challenges to governments and English language teaching and teacher education professions as they attempt to meet this demand from students for a high level of English proficiency. This volume examines English language education policies across ten Asian jurisdictions, the corresponding teacher education policies, and how these policies affect teachers and teacher educators. Each chapter covers (...) a different jurisdiction, and is written by a scholar engaged in the implementation of government policies on English language and teacher education, providing the reader with insiders' perspectives. It gives a fascinating glimpse into the remarkable similarities in the challenges posed to these countries and the critical issues that have emerged from the local responses despite their markedly different socioeconomic, political, cultural and historical backgrounds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia (1728) and the Tradition of CommonplacesRichard YeoIn the fifth volume (1755) of the Encyclopédie in his entry on “En-cyclopædia,” Denis Diderot forecast a time in which the sheer number of books would require a division of intellectual labor. Some people, he said, will not do much rea ding but rather “devote themselves to investigation which will be new, or which they will believe to be new.” (...) The majority, unable to produce anything of their own, “will be busy night and day leafing through these books, taking out of them the fragments they consider worthy of being collected and preserved.” 1 Although Diderot set this prospect in the future, he believed the signs were already visible and offered his encyclo-pædia as a response. Part of this image, however—the selection of passages from a range of authors—was already a familiar one. Re commended by the Ancients, it was widely practised during the Renaissance by the educated elite who kept commonplace books for recording quotations on various themes from Classical authors. Even the epigram from Horace on the title page of the Encyclop édie suggests this lineage: “What grace may be added to commonplace matters by the power of order and connection.” 2In the classical period, the Latin term, locus communis, referred to a general argument capable of being used in different situations. In his Institutiones Oratoriae Quintilian discussed the notion of copia verborum in connection with the ability of a good orator to produce copious illustrations [End Page 157] and embellishments from particular ideas. Renaissance writers thought this facility was enhanced by a record of similar ideas in the same place in a notebook. This practice had been followed in the medieval period, but it became more systematically taugh t as part of rhetoric from the sixteenth century. Commenting on this, R. R. Bolgar wrote:The whole purpose of the Humanists in transmogrifying Greek and Latin literature into a series of notes was to produce a body of material which could be easily retained and repeated. They made titanic efforts to remember the contents of the note-books the y compiled. 3Quintilian’s work, and more immediately, that of the German humanist, Rudolph Agricola, influenced Erasmus in his De Copia, first published in 1512 as De Duplici Copia Verborum ac Rerum Commentarii Duo. This offered advice on how to collect words and passages under various topoi or loci (places) as a means of storing extracts from books that could later be brought together and embellished in either writing or conversation. The set of ideas or themes grouped under one “Head” wer e known as “common-places,” and the notebooks kept for this purpose were commonplace books. 4 These were also called “copie” books in the sense of collections enabling copia, or free flow of material for oratory. Versions of this practice continued into the nineteenth century: figures such as John Milton, George Berkeley, Robert Southey, R obert Burns, and David Thoreau kept commonplace books, some of which were subsequently published. Some of these included less than elevated content: Kenneth Lockridge has uncovered a string of misogynist remarks and anecdotes in the commonplace book of Th omas Jefferson. 5In the only major study of the commonplace tradition, Sister Joan Marie Lechner analyzed its status in Renaissance rhetorical training from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth century, identifying some confusion and [End Page 158] tensions, partly as result of dissatisfaction with the “doctrine of places” taught by classical writers, and also because “commonplace” had come to refer both to a “locus or seat of arguments” and a “speech-within-a-speech.” 6 Her work shows that commonplace books were kept as aids to recall reading and as storehouses (thesauri) of topics and phrases suitable for speeches and conversation, as recommended by Erasmus and other writers. However, Lechner noted a new need pa rtly satisfied by the commonplace collections, which was that they accommodated Renaissance passions for “accumulating universal knowledge.” Thus, in her words:The commonplace book with its encyclopaedic array of topics or places was thought of as a compend of knowledge displayed in a systematic pattern... (shrink)

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

Arguments that ordinary inanimate objects such as tables and chairs, sticks and stones, simply do not exist have become increasingly common and increasingly prominent. Some are based on demands for parsimony or for a non-arbitrary answer to the special composition question; others arise from prohibitions against causal redundancy, ontological vagueness, or co-location; and others still come from worries that a common sense ontology would be a rival to a scientific one. Until now, little has been done to address these arguments (...) in a unified and systematic way. Ordinary Objects is designed to fill this gap, demonstrating that the mistakes behind all of these superficially diverse eliminativist arguments may be traced to a common source. It aims to develop an ontology of ordinary objects subject to no such problems, providing perhaps the first sustained defense of a common sense ontology in two generations. The work done along the way addresses a number of major issues in philosophy of language and metaphysics, contributing to debates about analyticity, identity conditions, co-location and the grounding problem, vagueness, overdetermination, parsimony, and ontological commitment. In the end, the most important result of addressing these eliminativist arguments is not merely avoiding their conclusions; examining their failings also gives us reason to suspect that many apparent disputes in ontology are pseudo-debates. For it brings into question widely-held assumptions about which uses of metaphysical principles are appropriate, which metaphysical demands are answerable, and how we should go about addressing such fundamental questions as "What exists?". As a result, the work of Ordinary Objects promises to provide not only the route to a reflective understanding of our unreflective common-sense view, but also a better understanding of the proper methods and limits of metaphysics. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical exploration of disorientation and its significance for action. Disorientations are human experiences of losing one's bearings, such that life is disrupted and it is not clear how to go on. In the face of life experiences like trauma, grief, illness, migration, education, queer identification, and consciousness raising, individuals can be deeply disoriented. These and other disorientations are not rare. Although disorientations can be common and powerful parts of individuals' lives, they remain uncharacterized by Western philosophers, (...) and overlooked by ethicists.Disorientations can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents, and moral philosophy and motivational psychology have important insights to offer into why this is. More perplexing are the ways disorientations may prompt improved moral action.Ami Harbin draws on first person accounts, philosophical texts, and qualitative and quantitative research to show that in some cases of disorientation, individuals gain new forms of awareness of political complexity and social norms, and new habits of relating to others and an unpredictable moral landscape. She then argues for the moral and political promise of these gains. A major contention of the book is that disorientations have 'non-resolutionary effects': they can help us act without first helping us resolve what to do. In exploring these possibilities, Disorientation and Moral Life contributes to philosophy of emotions, moral philosophy, and political thought from a distinctly feminist perspective. It makes the case for seeing disorientations as having the power to motivate profound and long-term shifts in moral and political action. A feminist re-envisioning of moral psychology provides the framework for understanding how they do so. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teaching the Trinity:Scripture and Performance of the Psychological Analogy in Aquinas's Summa TheologiaeZane E. ChuTeaching the Trinity, for St. Thomas Aquinas, takes its point of departure from Sacred Scripture. He makes this explicit at the outset of the Trinitarian treatise in the Summa theologiae, citing Christ's words at John 8:42, "from God I proceeded," and affirming, "divine Scripture in the things of divinity, uses words that pertain to procession."1 (...) The order of teaching then continues through speculative effort to give an account of the scriptural witness to the distinction of persons in God, in order to return to the same Scripture with a deeper grasp of its meaning.2Aquinas is a master of the sacred page, and his basic pedagogy for theology involves the "exercises of Sacred Scripture" of reading, disputing, and preaching.3 Recent scholarship draws attention to his reading of Scripture [End Page 1149] expressed in biblical commentaries as foundational for his teaching and as an interpretive context for his summative works.4 My purpose is to illustrate this basic pedagogy in the Trinitarian treatise of the Summa theologiae, taking the Lectura super Ioannem as an interpretive context for the analogies of word and love—the psychological analogy—for the Trinity. Most scholarly discussion of the psychological analogy elaborates on its theoretical aspects, with some attention to its scriptural foundation.5 I wish to show the priority of Scripture in Aquinas's employment of this analogy in three respects, namely, its foundation in exegesis, performative aspects, and orientation toward preaching.My investigation focuses on question 27 of the prima pars alongside pertinent sections of the Super Ioannem. I argue that citations from the Gospel of John (8:42, 15:26, and 14:16) in the sed contras of articles 1 and 3 function to ground the psychological analogy in scriptural exegesis and to prompt its performance. Turning to the corresponding commentary shows Aquinas leading the student to knowledge of Christ as divine Word and to love of him from the Holy Spirit that both leads to and follows upon such knowledge. This provokes an affective experience of loving Christ in knowing his divinity that is an actual performance of the psychological analogy. The magisterial responses then use this affective experience as a basis to facilitate a grasp of the analogy, the articulation of which is a further guided performance that reflects on this experience. Aquinas teaches the Trinity by exercising the student both affectively and intellectually in its scriptural foundation for a deeper grasp that prepares for preaching. I develop my argument in three [End Page 1150] main steps. First, I specify the place of Scripture in Aquinas's teaching and review the composition of the Trinitarian treatise. Then, I examine the first four articles of question 27 and corresponding sections of the Super Ioannem, in the order of the analogies of word and of love. Lastly, I consider Aquinas's treatment of the Holy Spirit's proper name of Love and subsequent preaching to illustrate Scripture as a point of arrival through performance of the psychological analogy.The Place of Scripture in Aquinas's TeachingFor Aquinas, Scripture is placed within his broader practice of sacra doctrina or holy teaching, attention to which assists in demonstrating how the Johannine citations ground the psychological analogy in Scripture and prompt its performance. Sacra doctrina has a primarily pastoral orientation, namely, to form Dominicans for preaching and hearing confessions.6 Though more speculative than practical, sacra doctrina as speculation or contemplation of the truth of Christian faith contained in Scripture is to be handed on to others.7 This requires training in the scriptural exercises of reading and disputing as preparation for preaching. These may be taken as "spiritual exercises" that engage not only thought, but also affectivity in service of personal transformation for the preacher's way of life.8 Aquinas's practice of sacra doctrina begins with reading Scripture as expressed in biblical commentaries, and develops in the Summa theologiae, which accesses Scripture through citations to offer a summative grasp of the truth contained therein. Here, I review the formal aspects of Aquinas's teaching from Scripture in these texts... (shrink)

Two major questions have dominated work on the metaphysics of social groups: first, Are there any? And second, What are they? I will begin by arguing that the answer to the ontological question is an easy and obvious ‘yes’. We do better to turn our efforts elsewhere, addressing the question: “What are social groups?” One might worry, however, about this question on grounds that the general term ‘social group’ seems like a term of art—not a well-used concept we can analyze, (...) or can presuppose corresponds to a real kind we can investigate. But while the general notion of ‘social group’ may be a term of art, our terms for clubs and courts, races and genders, are not. It is worth stepping back to ask what function these social group concepts serve. I will argue that individual social group concepts function to give normative structure to our lives together. Paying attention to the role of norms in social groups, I will argue, can enable us to provide a unified understanding of the importance of core social groups, while still respecting the great differences among social groups of different kinds. (shrink)

While the clinical promise of much stem cell research remains largely theoretical, patients are nonetheless pursuing unproven stem cell therapies in jurisdictions around the world—a phenomenon referred to as “stem cell tourism.” These treatments are generally advertised on a direct-to-consumer basis via the Internet. Research shows portrayals of stem cell medicine on such websites are overly optimistic and the claims made are unsubstantiated by published evidence. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that parents are pursing these “treatments” for their children, despite potential (...) physical and financial risk. Physicians are in a unique position as they can be expected to be involved in, or privy to, such decisions. In this paper, we consider what duties physicians may have toward minor patients whose parents/guardians wish to engage in stem cell tourism on their behalf. We use the Canadian perspective to address the broadly relevant issues raised by this trend. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of paternalism in child-rearing. Since the parent–child relationship seems to be the linguistic source of the concept, one may be tempted to assume that raising a child represents a particularly appropriate sphere for paternalism. The parent–child relationship is generally understood as a relationship that is supposed to promote the development and autonomy-formation of the child, so that the apparent source of the concept is a form of autonomy-oriented paternalism. Far from taking paternalism to be overtly (...) unproblematic in such paradigmatic, pedagogical settings, this article analyzes how an effort should be made to understand a child’s capacities and which standards parents should be held to when deciding whether interference truly serves the child’s interests. (shrink)

Recent studies of the rubber hand illusion (RHI) have shown that the sense of body ownership is constrained by several factors and yet is still very flexible. However, exactly how flexible is our sense of body ownership? In this study, we address this issue by investigating the following question: is it possible that one may have the illusory experience of owning four hands? Under visual manipulation, the participant adopted the experimenter’s first-person perspective (1PP) as if it was his/her own. Sitting (...) face to face, the participant saw four hands—the experimenter’s two hands from the adopted 1PP together with the subject’s own two hands from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP). We found that: (1) the four-hand illusion did not occur in the passive four-hand condition. (2) In the active four-hand condition, the participants tapped their index fingers, imitated by the experimenter. When tactile stimulations were not provided, the key illusion was not induced, either. (3) Strikingly, once all four hands began to act with the same pattern and received synchronous tactile stimulations at the same time, many participants felt as if they had two more hands. These results show that the sense of body ownership is much more flexible than most researchers have suggested. (shrink)

Talk of the functions of language or concepts plays a central role in developing an appealing pragmatic approach to conceptual engineering. But some have expressed skepticism that we can make any good sense of the idea of function as applied to concepts or language, or argued that the most we can say is that the function of ‘F’ is to refer to the Fs. In this paper, however, I argue that identifying linguistic functions is not hopeless, and that we can (...) make progress by working at the level of system functions, and drawing on work in systemic functional linguistics. For that enables us to develop a better framework for thinking about the functions that language serves, and the ways its subsystems contribute to those functions. This approach to understanding linguistic functions enables us to develop a pragmatic approach to conceptual engineering that provides standards for conceptual engineering without metaphysical mysteries. It also enables us to make progress in figuring out what functions certain philosophically interesting parts of language serve, and how they are introduced into language, in ways that may disentangle us from a range of old philosophical problems. (shrink)

Modality presents notorious philosophical problems, including the epistemic problem of how we could come to know modal facts and metaphysical problems about how to place modal facts in the natural world. These problems arise from thinking of modal claims as attempts to describe modal features of this world that explain what makes them true. Here I propose a different view of modal discourse in which talk about what is “metaphysically necessary” does not aim to describe modal features of the world, (...) but, rather, provides a particularly useful way of expressing constitutive semantic and conceptual rules in the object language. The result is a “modal normativist” view that enables us to avoid the epistemic problems of modality and mitigate the metaphysical worries, while also leaving open the possibility of a unified account of the function of modal language. Finally, I address a serious challenge: we have the norms we do in order to track the modal facts of the world, so that the order of explanation must go in the opposite direction. I close by showing how the normativist may answer that challenge. (shrink)

This short paper is based on a presentation delivered by four young people from Sunderland Children Services—Amy, Claire, Jordan and Glen (supported by Grace Roddam, Young People's Training and Development Mentor, and Dave Laverick, Workforce Development Consultant)—at the ‘Learning Professional Wisdom: Courage and Compassion’ Ethics and Social Welfare conference, which took place on 15 May 2009 at St Mary's College, Durham University, UK. The conference was organized by the newly formed Ethics and Social Welfare network, with support from the Social (...) Work and Policy Subject Centre (SWAP), Durham University and Ethics & Social Welfare journal. The conference focused on the contested nature of ‘moral character’ in professional education, whether this can be learnt and developed and how it links with judgements about ‘suitability for practice’. The four young people, drawing on their specific experiences of the looked after system, provided a valuable contribution which will assist understanding of what is meant by the term ‘ethical practitioner’ and the values and attributes they believe practitioners should have in order to fulfil their ethical obligations. (shrink)

David Lewis has argued that “having an experience is the best way or perhaps the only way, of coming to know what that experience is like”; when an experience is of a sufficiently new sort, mere science lessons are not enough. Developing this Lewisian line, L.A. Paul has suggested that some experiences are epistemically transformative. Until an individual has such an experience it remains epistemically inaccessible to her. No amount of stories and theories and testimony from others can teach her (...) what it is like to have it, nor is she able to achieve this knowledge by way of imaginative projection. It’s this last claim that is the focus of this paper. In particular, I explore the case for the claim that some experiences are in principle imaginatively inaccessible to someone who has not undergone the experience itself or one relevantly similar. As I will suggest, this case is not as strong as is often thought. Close attention to the mechanisms of imagination, and in particular, to cases of skilled imaginers, suggests how techniques of imaginative scaffolding can sometimes be used to give us epistemic access to experiences we have not had, even ones that are radically different from any that we have had before. As a result, considerably fewer experiences remain imaginatively out of reach than proponents of transformative experience would have us believe. Experience may well be the best teacher, but this paper aims to show that imagination comes in a close second. (shrink)

To what extent are countability distinctions subject to systematic semantic variation? Could there be a language with no countability distinctions—in particular, one where all nouns are count? I argue that the answer is no: even in a language where all NPs have the core morphosyntactic properties of English count NPs, such as combining with numerals directly and showing singular/plural contrasts, countability distinctions still emerge on close inspection. I divide these distinctions into those related to sums and those related to parts. (...) In the Sahaptian language Nez Perce, evidence can be found for both types of distinction, in spite of the absence of anything like a traditional mass–count division in noun morphosyntax. I propose an extension of the Nez Perce analysis to Yudja, analyzed by Lima as lacking any countability distinctions. More generally, I suggest that at least one countability distinction may be universal and that languages without any countability distinctions may be unlearnable. (shrink)

Fictionalism has long presented an attractive alternative to both heavy-duty realist and simple eliminativist views about entities such as properties, propositions, numbers, and possible worlds. More recently, a different alternative to these traditional views has been gaining popularity: a form of deflationism that holds that trivial arguments may lead us from uncontroversial premisses to conclude that the relevant entities exist — but where commitment to the entities is a trivial consequence of other claims we accept, not a posit to explain (...) what makes the relevant claims true. The deflationist’s trivial arguments, however, have been attacked by fictionalists, who suggest that the ontological conclusions we get from these arguments should not be taken as serious ontological assertions at all, but rather as implicitly in the context of a fiction or simulation. This paper examines the fictionalist’s criticisms of ‘easy’ arguments for numbers, properties, and other entities, and concludes that they beg the question against the deflationist and so do not undermine the deflationist’s position. Close attention to the argument also reveals a crucial disanalogy between overtly fictional discourse and discourse about numbers, properties, and so on, which undermines the case for fictionalism. Finally, I argue that the motivations for fictionalism (particularly those based in its ability to offer a good account of the discourse) are served as well or better by deflationism. Overall, this gives us reason to think that deflationism may provide a preferable approach for those looking for an alternative to both traditional realism and traditional eliminativism. (shrink)

I characterize the main approaches to the moral consideration of children developed in the light of the argument from 'marginal' cases, and develop a more adequate strategy that provides guidance about the moral responsibilities adults have towards children. The first approach discounts the significance of children's potential and makes obligations to all children indirect, dependent upon interests others may have in children being treated well. The next approaches agree that the potential of children is morally considerable, but disagree as to (...) whether and why children with intellectual disabilities are morally considerable. These approaches explore the moral significance of intellectual capacities, species membership, the capacity for welfare, and the interests of others. I argue that relationships characterized by reciprocity of care are morally valuable, that both the potential to be in such relationships and the actuality of being in them are morally valuable, and that many children with significant intellectual disabilities have this potential. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that ontological questions (properly understood) are easy—too easy, in fact, to be subjects of substantive and distinctively philosophical debates. They are easy, roughly, in the sense that they may be resolved straightforwardly—generally by a combination of conceptual and empirical enquiries. After briefly outlining the view and some of its virtues, I turn to examine two central lines of objection. The first is that this ‘easy’ approach is itself committed to substantive ontological views, including an implausibly (...) permissive ontology. The second is that it, like neo-Fregean views, relies on transformation rules that are questionable on both logical and ontological grounds. Ultimately, I will argue, the easy view is not easily assailed by either of these routes, and so remains (thus far) a tenable and attractive approach. (shrink)

In this essay I will explore an understanding of the potential moral agency of robots; arguing that the key characteristics of physical embodiment; adaptive learning; empathy in action; and a teleology toward the good are the primary necessary components for a machine to become a moral agent. In this context; other possible options will be rejected as necessary for moral agency; including simplistic notions of intelligence; computational power; and rule-following; complete freedom; a sense of God; and an immaterial soul. I (...) argue that it is likely that such moral machines may be able to be built; and that this does not diminish humanity or human personhood. (shrink)

This article incorporates two emotion-based psychology theories into the study of whistleblowing. Particularly, it studies how one's predicted regret may differ when one is cued in to possible regret effects associated with either blowing the whistle or staying silent. Ethical scenarios with two moral intensity levels and two wrongdoing types were manipulated. Analysis of variance results based on subjects' predicted regret scores as well as subjects' descriptions of what the regret would be related to indicate several significant interactions. Findings suggest (...) that individuals think about regret differently in a whistleblowing context as opposed to a silent observer context. (shrink)

On September 15, 2003, the US. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that agreements between pharmaceutical and generic companies not to compete are not per se unlawful if these agreements do not expand the existing exclusionary right of a patent. The Valley DrugCo.v.Geneva Pharmaceuticals decision emphasizes that the nature of a patent gives the patent holder exclusive rights, and if an agreement merely confirms that exclusivity, then it is not per se unlawful. With this holding, the appeals court (...) reversed the decision of the trial court, which held that agreements under which competitors are paid to stay out of the market are per se violations of the antitrust laws. An examination of the Valley Drugtrial and appeals court decisions sheds light on the two sides of an emerging legal debate concerning the validity of pay-not-to-compete agreements, and more broadly, on the appropriate balance between the seemingly competing interests of patent and antitrust laws. (shrink)

Crawford Elder’s Real Natures and Familiar Objects promises to give naturalistically inclined metaphysicians reason to accept an ontology that includes many common sense objects, including persons, organisms, and at least many artifacts, behaviors, customs, and so on. This is a brave book, running against the current of trends towards austerity in ontology, tackling centuries old problems about how modal facts may be empirically discovered, and defending a commonsense ontology from a strictly naturalistic approach rather than via traditional appeals to ordinary (...) language or common sense. (shrink)

Those working in experimental philosophy have raised a number of arguments against the use of conceptual analysis in philosophical inquiries. But they have typically focused on a model that pursues conceptual analysis by taking intuitions as a kind of (defeasible) evidence for philosophical hypotheses. Little attention has been given to the constitutivist alternative, which sees metaphysical modal facts as reflections of constitutive semantic rules. I begin with a brief overview of the constitutivist approach and argue that we can defend a (...) role for conceptual analysis, so understood, in ontological disputes against both the general skepticism about the relevance of intuitions, and against the specific worries raised by experimental results. Finally, I argue that even if the constitutivist view is adopted, experimental philosophy may still have quite a useful role to play, though purely empirical inquiries cannot in principle do the ontological work alone. (shrink)

How are we to understand the phenomenology of imagining? Attempts to answer this question often invoke descriptors concerning the “vivacity” or “vividness” of our imaginative states. Not only are particular imaginings often phenomenologically compared and contrasted with other imaginings on grounds of how vivid they are, but such imaginings are also often compared and contrasted with perceptions and memories on similar grounds. Yet however natural it may be to use “vividness” and cognate terms in discussions of imagination, it does not (...) take much reflection to see that these terms are ill understood. In this paper, I review both some relevant empirical literature as well as the philosophical literature attempt to get a handle on what it could mean, in an imaginative context, to talk of vividness. As I suggest, this notion ultimately proves to be so problematic as to be philosophically untenable. (shrink)

An account of the source of first-person knowledge is essential not just for phenomenology, but for anyone who takes seriously the apparent evidence that we each have a distinctive access to knowing what we experience. One standard way to account for the source of first-person knowledge is by appeal to a kind of inner observation of the passing contents of one’s own mind, and phenomenology is often thought to rely on introspection. I argue, however, that Husserl’s method of phenomenological reduction (...) was designed precisely to find a route to knowledge of the structures of consciousness that was independent of any appeal to observation of one’s own mental states. The goals of this essay are to explicate Husserl’s method of phenomenological reduction in contemporary terms that (1) show its distance from all inner-observation accounts, (2) exhibit its kinship to and historical influence on outer-observation accounts of selfknowledge popularized by Sellars, and (3) demonstrate that a contemporary ‘cognitive transformation’ view based on Husserl’s method may provide a viable contribution to contemporary debates about the source of self-knowledge. (shrink)

This paper examines what’s at stake in which form of metaontological deflationism we adopt. Stephen Yablo has argued for a ‘quizzicalist’ approach, holding that many ontological questions are ‘moot’ in the sense that there is simply nothing to settle them. Defenders of the ‘easy approach’ to ontology, by contrast, think not that these questions are unsettled, but that they are very easily settled by trivial inferences from uncontroversial premises—so obviously and easily settled that there is no point debating them. The (...) views may differ in terms of how far the deflation extends—while easy ontology deflates debates about ordinary objects, Yablo doesn’t think his view does. But the crucial underlying difference lies in whether we think there are ontological presuppositions for introducing terminology. (shrink)

This article explores the contemporary scientific practice of human genome science in light of Michel Foucault’s articulation of the problem of population. Rather than transcending the politics of social categories and identities, human genome research mobilizes many different kinds of populations. How then might we aim to avoid overgeneralized readings of the refiguring of human difference in the life sciences and grapple with the multiple and contradictory logics of population classification? In exploring the study of human variation through the case (...) of the ‘Quebec founder population’ at a private genome research laboratory in Canada, the article argues that the power to define and shape meanings of human variation and to organize vitality is not held by any one institution or form of scientific practice. While molecular genomics may be transforming conceptions of human difference, the laboratory is only one of many places where human genomic variation accrues value, meaning and relevance. Molecular configurations of human difference gain meaning through a traffic in populations that extends beyond the laboratory. In the case explored here this traffic in populations is constituted within a nexus of empire, national census practices and contemporary articulations of multicultural policies. (shrink)

SUMMARYAmong the elements of the modern scientific ethos, as identified by R.K. Merton and others, is the commitment of individual effort to a long-term inquiry that may not bring substantial results in a lifetime. The challenge this presents was encapsulated in the aphorism of the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates of Kos: vita brevis, ars longa. This article explores how this complaint was answered in the early modern period by Francis Bacon’s call for the inauguration of the sciences over several generations, (...) thereby imagining a succession of lives added together over time. However, Bacon also explored another response to Hippocrates: the devotion of a ‘whole life’, whether brief or long, to science. The endorsement of long-term inquiry in combination with intensive lifetime involvement was embraced by some leading Fellows of the Royal Society, such as Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. The problem for individuals, however, was to find satisfaction in science despite concerns, in some fields, that current observations and experiments would not yield material able to be extended by future investigations. (shrink)

One of David Estlund’s key claims in Utopophobia is that theories of justice should not bend to human motivational limitations. Yet he does not extend this view to our cognitive limitations. This creates a dilemma. Theories of justice may ignore cognitive as well as motivational limitations—but this makes them so unrealistic as to be unrecognizable as theories of justice. Theories may bend to both cognitive and motivational limitations—but Estlund wants to reject this view. The other alternative is to find some (...) non-ad hoc way to distinguish cognitive from motivational limitations. I argue that this strategy will not work. Just as a person’s cognitive limitations may block her motives no matter how much she perseveres, so too motivational limitations may be genuine inabilities. Even ideal theories of justice must bend to even ordinary motivational limitations when they truly cause us to be unable to comply with requirements. (shrink)

Unregulated patient treatments and approved clinical trials have been conducted with haematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells for children with autism spectrum disorder. While the former direct-to-consumer practice is usually considered rogue and should be legally constrained, regulated clinical trials could also be ethically questionable. Here, we outline principal objections against these trials as they are currently conducted. Notably, these often lack a clear rationale for how transplanted cells may confer a therapeutic benefit in ASD, and thus, have ill-defined (...) therapeutic outcomes. We posit that ambiguous and unsubstantiated descriptions of outcome from such clinical trials may nonetheless appeal to the lay public as being based on authentic scientific findings. These may further fuel caregivers of patients with ASD to pursue unregulated direct-to-consumer treatments, thus exposing them to unnecessary risks. There is, therefore, a moral obligation on the part of those regulating and conducting clinical trials of stem cell-based therapeutic for ASD minors to incorporate clear therapeutic targets, scientific rigour and reporting accuracy in their work. Any further stem cell-based trials for ASD unsupported by significant preclinical advances and particularly sound scientific hypothesis and aims would be ethically indefensible. (shrink)

Using the classroom as the unit of analyses, the current article discusses the methodological issues surrounding the literature with regard to the study of academic misconduct. Arguing for a shift in research, the present empirical investigation assesses the relationship between students' perceptions of classroom environment and academic misconduct by utilizing valid and reliable multidimensional measures with established constructs. By utilizing the classroom as the unit of analysis, a better understanding of the unique variance in academic dishonesty across classes may be (...) established in relation to variation in students' perceptions of teaching practices. One hundred twenty-eight classes participated in the current study, with 3,151 students completing the Students' Perceptions of Teacher Effectiveness survey and Academic Misconduct Survey. Although students' overall perceptions of teacher effectiveness were not related to the rate of academic misconduct across classes, results do suggest that the lower the difficulty and workload of the course is perceived as being, the more likely students report cheating on exams, taking credit for others' work, using false personal excuses, and creatively padding their work. Reasons for these relationships are explicated, and suggestions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) — collaborative endeavors between health care clinicians and lawyers to more effectively address issues impacting health care — have proliferated over the past decade. The goal of this interdisciplinary approach is to improve the health outcomes and quality of life of patients and families, recognizing the many non-medical influences on health care and thus the value of an interdisciplinary team to enhance health. This article examines the unique, interrelated ethical issues that confront the clinical and legal partners (...) involved in MLPs. We contend that the ethical precepts of the clinical and legal professions should be seen as opportunities, not barriers, to further the interdisciplinary nature of MLPs. The commonalities in ethical approaches represent a potential bridge between legal and health care advocacy for patient/client well-being. Bioethics has a role to play in building and analyzing this bridge: bioethics may serve as a discourse and method to enhance collaboration by highlighting common ethical foundations and refocusing legal and clinical partners on their similar goals of service for patients/clients. This article explores this bridging role of bioethics, through a series of case studies. It concludes with recommendations to strengthen the collaborations. (shrink)

The presence of fetal cells has been associated with both positive and negative effects on maternal health. These paradoxical effects may be due to the fact that maternal and offspring fitness interests are aligned in certain domains and conflicting in others, which may have led to the evolution of fetal microchimeric phenotypes that can manipulate maternal tissues. We use cooperation and conflict theory to generate testable predictions about domains in which fetal microchimerism may enhance maternal health and those in which (...) it may be detrimental. This framework suggests that fetal cells may function both to contribute to maternal somatic maintenance (e.g. wound healing) and to manipulate maternal physiology to enhance resource transmission to offspring (e.g. enhancing milk production). In this review, we use an evolutionary framework to make testable predictions about the role of fetal microchimerism in lactation, thyroid function, autoimmune disease, cancer and maternal emotional, and psychological health.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

Professional philosophy in the United States has recently enjoyed a revival of discussion regarding the inclusion of Asian philosophies in the discipline, a revival that includes popular press articles, journal articles, books, and blog discussions.1 Such discussions can prompt hope that change is afoot and the discipline may, at long last, become more genuinely inclusive. However, for those of us who have been in the profession long enough, it is likewise difficult to resist a certain cynicism. After all, episodic bursts (...) of attention to Asian philosophy come around sufficiently often that new discussion can register as but rehearsals of familiar laments, laments that include, for example: the small numbers of... (shrink)

While Roman Ingarden is well known for his work in aesthetics and studies in ontology, one of his most important and lasting contributions has been largely overlooked: his approach to a general ontology of social and cultural objects. Ingarden himself discusses cultural objects other than works of art directly in the first section of “The Architectural Work”1, where he develops a particularly penetrating view of the ontology of buildings, flags, and churches. This text provides the core insight into how his (...) more lengthy studies of the ontology of works of art in The Literary Work of Art and the rest of The Ontology of the Work of Art, combined with the ontological distinctions of Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, may be used to understand social and cultural objects. The view that results, I will argue, is based in foreseeing problems with the reductivist and projectivist views that remain popular, and is capable of resolving central problems still thought to plague those who would offer a theory of cultural objects. (shrink)

Much of the most substantive and in‐depth experience with formal cost‐benefit analysis in the public policy realm has occurred in the context of federal environmental regulation in the United States. This experience has many important lessons to teach in the realm of synthetic biology. Indeed, many of the dangers and pitfalls that arise when decision‐makers use formal CBA to evaluate environmental regulation seem likely to arise in the synthetic biology context as well, sometimes in particularly troubling forms. Unfortunately, while in (...) many instances these concerns may well point toward a rejection of formal CBA for synthetic biology, the experience from environmental regulation turns out to be far less helpful in identifying alternative decision‐making tools. Because the decisions that arise in the synthetic biology context have a fundamentally different structure from decisions about environmental regulation, the most useful alternatives from that context do not map easily onto this new context.It may well be generally true that in the search for decision‐making tools, we should not be looking for a single silver bullet that will work in all public policy realms. Perhaps, instead, different kinds of decision‐making call for different tools. This may be true even within the realm of synthetic biology. I am not entirely sure what the “right” tool is for synthetic biology applications, or even whether a “right” tool exists. But at the end of this essay, I offer a few tentative thoughts about why scenario analysis—a strategic planning tool first developed in the context of military planning following World War II—might be one alternative worth considering. (shrink)

Book Abstract -/- A Case for Necessitarianism Amy Karofsky orcid: 0000-0003-4397-4203 -/- The book provides a case for and explanation of necessitarianism—the view that absolutely nothing about the world could have been otherwise in any way whatsoever—and a refutation of contingentarianism—the view that at least some thing could have been different otherwise. Because it is the first defense of necessitarianism in over 300 years, it fills a significant gap in Western philosophical literature. -/- The book is aimed at upper-level undergraduate (...) and graduate students in philosophy and philosophers interested in the metaphysics of modality. As it is the only contemporary defense of necessitarianism, this will be the first time that such readers will be able to consider a comprehensive account and support of the necessitarian position and its merits. It may also affect a change in philosophical thought—one that would move philosophy towards a more realistic and scientific explanation of the universe and everything in it. -/- The book contains an Introduction that explains key terms and four chapters. Chapter 1 shows that there is inadequate justification for contingentarianism; Chapter 2 proves that no theory of contingentarianism can succeed; Chapter 3 provides support for necessitarianism; and Chapter 4 responds to objections. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the live music industry to an abrupt halt; subsequently, musicians are looking for ways to replicate the live concert experience virtually. The present study sought to investigate differences in aesthetic judgments of a live concert vs. a recorded concert, and whether these responses vary based on congruence between musical artist and piece. Participants made continuous ratings of their felt pleasure either during a live concert or while viewing an audiovisual recorded version of the same joint (...) concert given by a university band and a United States Army band. Each band played two pieces: a United States patriotic piece and a non-patriotic piece. Results indicate that, on average, participants reported more pleasure while listening to pieces that were congruent, which did not vary based on live vs. lab listening context: listeners preferred patriotic music when played by the army band and non-patriotic music when played by the university band. Overall, these results indicate that felt pleasure in response to music may vary based on listener expectations of the musical artist, such that listeners prefer musical pieces that “fit” with the particular artist. When considering implications for concerts during the COVID-19 pandemic, our results indicate that listeners may experience similar degrees of pleasure even while viewing a recorded concert, suggesting that virtual concerts are a reasonable way to elicit pleasure from audiences when live performances are not possible. (shrink)

Despite attempts to encourage whistleblowing, lingering reluctance to report questionable acts remains frustratingly apparent. Our objective is to examine the regret a professional anticipates when evaluating the action of reporting or not reporting, and whether the framing of the action influences regret. Responses from 263 professionals indicate that regret depends on the moral intensity of the situation and how the action is framed. Regret for whistleblowing is not comparable to regret for not remaining silent, despite the fact that these two (...) descriptions result in the same action. This important implication may inform the way we educate and encourage whistleblowing. (shrink)

Like other groups associated with social movements, rape crisis centers have been judged co-optive by some and progressive by others. This article argues that organizational theory yields fuller explanations of their dynamics and character. In a case study, two subcultures—dubbed the politicized and service perspectives—developed and epitomized fundamentally different approaches to sexual violence. These subcultures emerged for a number of reasons, including the organization's goals, the character of the fiminist movement, and organizational features such as permeability, a broad constituency, a (...) collective goods orientation, and an emphasis on open discourse. This article argues that similar organizational and environmental features in rape crisis centers and other social movement-related organizations are associated with organizational fluidity and conflict. While these groups may not be cohesive and stable actors for broad social change, they contribute incrementally to long-term shifts in gendered social structures. (shrink)

Summary Theatre offers an opportunity for communities to think with and through fiction. We come together to hear and tell stories because it is moving, both in the literal and the figurative sense: it changes us. Theories from cognitive science of embodied cognition make clear that making sense of theatre is a full-bodied affair. In this essay, I argue that we can see moments when theatre invited its audience to think in new ways by shifting theatrical conventions. I explore how (...) a contemporary production of Hamlet, Pan Pan’s production of “The Rehearsal: Playing the Dane”, brings its audience to question the stability of the self and text by altering the conventions around casting and representation. This is theatre that I may not understand in a traditional way, but this gives me a way to understand a new way of thinking about the world around me. It is theatre I can use. (shrink)

Endosteal stem cells are a subclass of bone marrow skeletal stem cell populations that are particularly important for rapid bone formation occurring in growth and regeneration. These stem cells are strategically located near the bone surface in a specialized microenvironment of the endosteal niche. These stem cells are abundant in young stages but eventually depleted and replaced by other stem cell types residing in a non‐endosteal perisinusoidal niche. Single‐cell molecular profiling and in vivo cell lineage analyses play key roles in (...) discovering endosteal stem cells. Importantly, endosteal stem cells can transform into bone tumor‐making cells when deleterious mutations occur in tumor suppressor genes. The emerging hypothesis is that osteoblast‐chondrocyte transitional identities confer a special subset of endosteal stromal cells with stem cell‐like properties, which may make them susceptible for tumorigenic transformation. Endosteal stem cells are likely to represent an important therapeutic target of bone diseases caused by aberrant bone formation. (shrink)

For those of us gathered expectantly in the frescoed 16th-century Clementine Hall in Vatican City on a brilliant spring morning in May 2019, it was a profound moment when Pope Francis spoke the words “perinatal hospice”. I wish all the medical professionals who have pioneered and developed this care over the last 25 years could have been in that majestic hall with us. Their cumulative work—along with the poignant stories of many families—is inspiring people around the globe and helping more (...) people than they may ever know. The hour-long private papal audience for conference attendees was the culmination of a three-day conference titled “Yes to Life! Caring for the Precious Gift of... (shrink)

Activist and political art works, particularly feminist ones, are frequently either dis-missed for their illegitimate combination of the aesthetic and the political, or embraced as chiefly political works. Flawed conceptions of politics and the imagination are responsible for that dismissal. An understanding of the imagination is developed that allows us to see how political work and political explorations may inform the artistic imagination.