Bioethics as politics -- Bioethics and the politics of expectations -- Engendering consent : bioethics and biobanks -- Missing the big picture : bioethics and stem cell research -- Testing times : bioethics and "do-it-yourself" genetics -- Governing uncertainty : the politics of nanoethics -- Beyond bioethics.

This set reprints a wide range of key articles originally published in both philosophy and business journals and includes some of the essential work in the field. The cross-section of materials includes: * what is business ethics and how has it developed * are ethics compatible with the free market? * international business ethics * case studies.

The truthmaker objection to presentism (the view that only what exists now exists simpliciter) is that it lacks sufficient metaphysical resources to ground truths about the past. In this paper I identify five constraints that an adequate presentist response must satisfy. In light of these constraints, I examine and reject responses by Bigelow, Keller, Crisp, and Bourne. Consideration of how these responses fail, however, points toward a proposal that works; one that posits God’s memories as truthmakers for truths about the (...) past. I conclude that presentists have, in the truthmaker objection, considerable incentive to endorse theism. (shrink)

In 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature' Richard Rorty presented his provocation and influential vision of the post-philosophical culture, calling upon professional philosophers to accept that epistemology is dead, that the analytic method is a myth, and that philosophy and science are merely forms of literature.

Alan R. Perreiah - Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.2 319-321 Ann Moss. Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. 306. Cloth, $74.00. Ann Moss offers an exciting and informative history of humanism from Johannes Balbus through Melanchthon, who completed the "turn" from scholastic to humanistic Latin. She marshals considerable evidence from lexicography and letters that scholastics (...) and humanists cultivated two idioms of Latin that created "two different mind-sets" , two "orders of truth-values" , and "two Latin speech communities that talked past one another" . While her main thesis that the "two linguistic universes" were "incommensurable" is questionable, it is a useful heuristic device to highlight differences between the two traditions. Moss illustrates many of her claims by controversies surrounding the legend of St. Ann, mother of Mary. Whether she is misled by the rhetoric of those heated debates on religious folklore, or whether they support her claim of "incommensurability" must be.. (shrink)

Discussions of the evidential argument from evil generally pay little attention to how different models of divine providence constrain the theist's options for response. After describing four models of providence and general theistic strategies for engaging the evidential argument, I articulate and defend a definition of 'gratuitous evil' that renders the theological premise of the argument uncontroversial for theists. This forces theists to focus their fire on the evidential premise, enabling us to compare models of providence with respect to how (...) plausibly they can resist it. I then assess the four models, concluding that theists are better off vis-à-vis the evidential argument if they reject meticulous providence. (shrink)

The authors focus on the ways in which various models of the distribution of power in society treat interest groups and evaluate their significance.

Compares and contrasts Open Theism with Theological Determinism, Molinism, and Process Theism.

The goal of this paper is to facilitate ongoing dialogue between open and non-open theists. First, I try to make precise what open theism is by distinguishing the core commitments of the position from other secondary and optional commitments. The result is a characterization of ‘generic open theism’, the minimal set of commitments that any open theist, qua open theist, must affirm. Second, within the framework of generic open theism, I distinguish three important variants and discuss challenges distinctive to each. (...) The significance of this approach is that it helps avoid conflating arguments bearing on specific versions of open theism with arguments pertaining to open theism simpliciter. (shrink)

Mr. T. H. Mcpherson has given, in a recent article in PHILOSOPHY , various reasons for supposing that there was a development in Butler's ethics from the Sermons to the Analogy . He argues that Butler was in the Sermons a “rational egoist” or “Ethical Eudaemonist,” and in the Analogy an Intuitionist. By “Ethical Eudaemonism” he seems1 to mean that “the ground or criterion of rightness is conduciveness to the agent's interest” or that “it is the happiness-producing character of acts (...) that makes them right” . I shall use the phrase “McPherson's view” to denote the theory that this was Butler's view in the Sermons. (shrink)

This manuscript reviews the background of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as well as the ethical foundations of individual privacy. This includes a historical perspective on personal privacy, a review of the United States Constitutional privacy interpretations, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, European Union Regulations, as well as the positions of industry and advocacy groups. A brief review of the information technology ethics literature is also included. The RFID privacy concerns are three-fold: pre-sales activities, sales transaction activities, and post-sales (...) uses. A proposal to address these privacy concerns is detailed, generally based on past philosophical frameworks and specifically on the Fair Information Practices that the Federal Trade Commission has outlined for the electronic marketplace (e-commerce). It is proposed that by application of these Fair Information Practices, the major privacy issues of RFID can be addressed. (shrink)

There is currently no consensus from the relevant stakeholders regarding the operational and construct definitions of child assent for research. As such, the requirements for assent are often construed in different ways, institutionally disparate, and often conflated with those of parental consent. Development of a standardized operational definition of assent would thus be important to ensure that investigators, institutional review boards, and policy makers consider the assent process in the same way. To this end, we describe a Delphi study that (...) provided consensus from a panel of expert stakeholders regarding the definitions of child assent for research. Based on current guidelines, a preliminary definition of assent was generated and sent out for review to a Delphi panel including pediatric bioethicists and researchers, Institutional Review Board members, parents, and individuals with regulatory/legal expertise. For each subsequent review, the process of summarizing and revising responses was repeated until consensus was achieved. Panelists were also required to rank order elements of assent that they believed were most important in defining the underlying constructs of the assent process. In providing these rankings, panelists were asked to frame their responses in the contexts of younger and adolescents/older children in non-therapeutic and therapeutic trials. Summary rankings of the most important identified elements were then used to generate written construct definitions which were sent out for iterative reviews by the expert panel. Consensus regarding the operational definition was reached by 14/18 of the panel members. Seventeen panelists agreed with the definitions of capacity for assent, elements of disclosure for younger children, and the requirements for meaningful assent, respectively. Fifteen members agreed with the elements of disclosure for adolescents/older children. It is hoped that this study will positively inform and effect change in the way investigators, regulators, and IRBs operationalize the assent process, respect children’s developing autonomy, and in concert with parental permission, ensure the protection of children who participate in research. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is notorious for contending that the traditional, foundation-building and truth-seeking ambitions of systematic philosophy should be set aside in favour of a more pragmatic, conversational, hermeneutically guided project. This challenge has not only struck at the heart of philosophy but has ricocheted across other disciplines, both contesting their received self-images and opening up new avenues of inquiry in the process. Alan Malachowski provides an authoritative overview of Rorty's considerable body of work and a general assessment of his (...) impact both within philosophy and in the humanities more broadly. He begins by explaining the genesis of Rorty's central ideas, tracking their development from suggestions in his early papers through their crystallization in his groundbreaking book, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature". Malachowski evaluates some of the common criticisms of Rorty's position and his ensuing pragmatism. The book examines the subsequent evolution of his ideas, focusing particularly on the main themes of his second major work, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. The political and cultural impact of Rorty's writings on such diverse fields as feminism, cultural and literary theory, and international relations are also considered, and the author explores why Rorty's work has generally found its warmest reception in these areas rather than among mainstream philosophers. (shrink)

'The New Pragmatism' explains what it is about Pragmatism that makes it such an attractive prospect to so many thinkers, even in previously hostile traditions. This work sets out the guiding thoughts behind the Pragmatist approach to philosophy & shows how these thoughts have faired in the hands of those responsible for the revival.

This essay examines and compares two paradigms of technology, nature, and social life, and their associated environmental impacts. I explore moving from technocratic paradigms to the emerging ecological paradigms of planetary person ecosophies. The dominant technocratic philosophy's guiding policy and technological power is mechanistic. It conceptualizes nature as a resource to be controlled for human ends. Its global practices are drastically altering the integrity of the planet's ecosystems. In contrast, the organic, planetary person approaches respect the intrinsic values of all (...) beings. Deep ecology movement principles give priority to community and ecosystem integrity. These deep ecology movement principles guide the design and applications of technology by principles following from ecological understanding. I describe this shift in philosophical paradigms and how it affects our perceptions, values, and actions. (shrink)

Parents can benefit their offspring by conserving resources that the offspring stand to inherit. Thus, inheritance of resources should promote the evolution of propensities to conserve. But inheritance also has another, less obvious effect: it can reduce the fertility of the conserver’s grandchildren, thus reducing the expected number of great-grandchildren. Consequently, inheritance of resources promotes the evolution of conservation less than might be supposed.

Critiques John Martin Fischer's bootstrapping model of divine foreknowledge. Invited contribution to a special journal issue on John Martin Fischer's _Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will_ (Oxford, 2016).

Alexander Pruss’s recent argument against the open future view (OF) is unsound. Contra Pruss, there is no conflict between OF, which holds that there are no true future contingent propositions (FCPs), and the high credence we place in some FCPs. When due attention is paid to the semantics of FCPs, to the relation of epistemic to objective probabilities, and to the distinction between truth simpliciter and truth at a time, it becomes clear that what we have good reason for believing (...) is not that some FCPs are true, but rather that some FCPs have a good chance of becoming true. (shrink)

Abstract:The Wilderness Act characterizes wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man…" How crucial to the idea of wilderness is its location on our home planet? If an extraterrestrial community of life were discovered, it would certainly be untrammeled by man. Does it make sense to extend the idea of wilderness to encompass other planets and their potential ecosystems? Many values are associated with wilderness, supporting arguments for the need to preserve or (...) protect it. Some arguments seem readily applicable to extraterrestrial habitats, while others may be specific to Earth. I offer an overview of values attributed to wilderness, and consider the extent to which these values may or may not apply beyond the Earth. Following Rolston's claim that nature is not only of value, but a source of values, extraterrestrial wildernesses can be esteemed as instances of a cosmic evolutionary process. (shrink)

I believe that Moore's appeal to common sense has been misunder-stood both by his defenders and his critics. Besides the mistakes of the latter, there is one enormous howler which, in my opinion, the former have committed. This is to confuse or coalesce two quite distinct appeals which he made, namely the appeal to common sense and the appeal to ordinary language.

I argue that Richard Fumerton’s controversial “Principle of Inferential Justification” (PIJ) can be satisfactorily defended against several charges that have been leveled against it, namely, that it leads to skepticism, that it confuses different levels of justification, and that it involves a fallacy of “misconditionalization.”The basis of my defense of PIJ is a distinction between two theories of the nature of inference—an internalist conception (IC), according to which inferring requires that the reasoner have a conscious perspective on the evidential relation (...) between premises and conclusion, and an externalist conception (EC), which does not require any such perspective. Given IC, the above charges against PIJ fail, and PIJ emerges as a plausible thesis. Given EC, however, the above charges stick, and PIJ is untenable. An internalist position on inferential justification is tenable, therefore, if and only if it is held in conjunction with an internalist conception of inference. (shrink)