Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was an Italian Jesuit and one of the first Christian missionaries to China in the modern era. He was a genuine polymath—a translator, cartographer, mathematician, astronomer, and musician. Above all, Ricci was a missionary for the gospel. As we briefly examine his 1603 seminal work, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, our hope is that we, as evangelical educators, will perceive some of the deeper principles necessary for our own missionary work among unreached people.

Intelligent humanoid robots (IHRs) are becoming likely to be integrated into nursing practice. However, a proper integration of IHRs requires a detailed description and explanation of their essential capabilities, particularly regarding their competencies in replicating and portraying emotive functions such as empathy. Existing humanoid robots can exhibit rudimentary forms of empathy; as these machines slowly become commonplace in healthcare settings, they will be expected to express empathy as a natural function, rather than merely to portray artificial empathy as a replication (...) of human empathy. This article works with a twofold purpose: firstly, to consider the impact of artificial empathy in nursing and, secondly, to describe the influence of Affective Developmental Robotics (ADR) in anticipation of the empathic behaviour presented by artificial humanoid robots. The ADR has demonstrated that it can be one means by which humanoid nurse robots can achieve expressions of more relatable artificial empathy. This will be one of the vital models for intelligent humanoid robots currently in nurse robot development for the healthcare industry. A discussion of IHRs demonstrating artificial empathy is critical to nursing practice today, particularly in healthcare settings dense with technology. (shrink)

This book provides a collection of essays representing the state of the art in the research into argumentation in classical antiquity. It contains essays from leading and up and coming scholars on figures as diverse as Parmenides, Gorgias, Seneca, and Classical Chinese "wandering persuaders." The book includes contributions from specialists in the history of philosophy as well as specialists in contemporary argumentation theory, and stimulates the dialogue between scholars studying issues relating to argumentation theory in ancient philosophy and contemporary argumentation (...) theorists. Furthermore, the book sets the direction for research into argumentation in antiquity by encouraging an engagement with a broader range of historical figures, and closer collaboration between contemporary concerns and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

As human beings age, they become weak, fragile, and feeble. It is a slowly progressing yet complex syndrome in which old age or some disabilities are not prerequisites; neither does loss of human parts lead to frailty among the physically fit older persons. This paper aims to describe the influences of transhumanist perspectives on human‐technology enhancements and replacements in the transcendence of human frailties, including those of older persons, in which technology is projected to deliver solutions toward transcending these frailties. (...) Through technologies including genetic screening and other technological manipulations, intelligent machines and augmented humans improve, maintain, and remedy human‐linked susceptibilities. Furthermore, other technologies replace parts fabricated through inorganic‐mechanical processes such as 3D‐printing. Advancing technologies are reaching the summit of technological sophistication contributing to the transhumanist views of being human in a technological world. Technologies enhance the transcendence of human frailties as essential expressions of the symbiosis between human beings and technology in a transcendental world. (shrink)

Out of a reassertion of old ways, this book presents a new blueprint for future professional conduct.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Living Organ DonationLaura Altobelli, Sherri Bauman, Janice Flynn, Andy Heath, Joseph Jacobs, Tim Joos, Amy K. Lewensten, Donna L. Luebke, Sarah A. McDaniel, Donald Olenick, Laurie E Post, Vicky Young, Blake Adams, Anonymous One, Michael Sauls, Christine Wright, Shannon D. Wyatt, and Cara Yesawich• An Altruistic Living Donor’s Story• Surgery for the Soul• Kidney Donation Story• The Essence of Giving—A Transplant Story• Love—the Risk Worth Taking• My (...) Donation Journey• A Life For A Life: My Gift To My Dad• Lessons Learned: The Realities of Living Organ Donation• Sarah’s List Exchange Experience• Accelerated Living Donation• Liver Donor Nightmare• Adrift After Donation• Getting Our Child Off Dialysis• A Living Donor’s Journey• The Spare Kidney• Living Donors are People Too• The Gift of Life—Walking by Faith• Journey of an Altruistic, Non–designated Living DonorCopyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

While philosophers have been interested in animals since ancient times, in the last few decades the subject of animal minds has emerged as a major topic in philosophy. _The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds_ is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising nearly fifty chapters by a team of international contributors, the _Handbook_ is divided into eight parts: Mental representation Reasoning and (...) metacognition Consciousness Mindreading Communication Social cognition and culture Association, simplicity, and modeling Ethics. Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: whether and how animals represent and reason about the world; how animal cognition differs from human cognition; whether animals are conscious; whether animals represent their own mental states or those of others; how animals communicate; the extent to which animals have cultures; how to choose among competing models and explanations of animal behavior; and whether animals are moral agents and/or moral patients; The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, ethics and related disciplines such as ethology, biology, psychology, linguistics and anthropology. (shrink)

Several influential organisations have attempted to quantify the costs and benefits of expanding access to interventions-like contraceptives-that are expected to decrease the number of pregnancies. Such health economic evaluations can be invaluable to those making decisions about how to allocate scarce resources for health. Yet how the benefits should be measured depends on controversial value judgments. One such value judgment is found in recent analyses from the Disease Control Priority Network (DCPN) and the Study Group for the Global Investment Framework (...) for Women's and Children's Health. Noting the decrease in the number of pregnancies expected to result from providing access to family planning, DCPN and the Study Group claim that a substantial benefit of such interventions is averting the stillbirths and child deaths that would have resulted from those pregnancies. We argue that health economic analyses should not count such averted deaths as benefits in the same way as saved lives. First, by counting averted stillbirths and child deaths as a benefit but not counting as a cost the lives of babies who survive, DCPN and the Study Group implicitly commit themselves to antinatalism. Second, this method for calculating the benefits of family planning interventions implies that infertility treatments are harmful. Determining how potential people should be treated in health economic analyses will require grappling with population ethics. (shrink)

In the early months of 2020, the deadly Covid-19 disease spread rapidly around the world. In response, national and regional governments implemented a range of emergency lockdown measures, curtailing citizens’ movements and greatly limiting economic activity. More recently, as restrictions begin to be loosened or lifted entirely, the use of so-called contact tracing apps has figured prominently in many jurisdictions’ plans to reopen society. Critics have questioned the utility of such technologies on a number of fronts, both practical and ethical. (...) However, little has been said about the ways in which the normative design choices of app developers, and the products that result therefrom, might contribute to ethical reflection and wider political debate. Drawing from scholarship in critical design and human–computer interaction, this paper examines the development of a QR code-based tracking app called Zwaai (‘Wave’ in Dutch), where its designers explicitly positioned the app as an alternative to the predominant Bluetooth and GPS-based approaches. Through analyzing these designers’ choices, this paper argues that QR code infrastructures can work to surface a set ofethical–political seams, two of which are discussed here—responsibilizationandnetworked (im)permanence—that more ‘seamless’ protocols like Bluetooth actively aim to bypass, and which may go otherwise unnoticed by existing ethical frameworks. (shrink)

Several influential organisations have attempted to quantify the costs and benefits of expanding access to interventions—like contraceptives—that are expected to decrease the number of pregnancies. Such health economic evaluations can be invaluable to those making decisions about how to allocate scarce resources for health. Yet how the benefits should be measured depends on controversial value judgments. One such value judgment is found in recent analyses from the Disease Control Priority Network (DCPN) and the Study Group for the Global Investment Framework (...) for Women’s and Children’s Health. Noting the decrease in the number of pregnancies expected to result from providing access to family planning, DCPN and the Study Group claim that a substantial benefit of such interventions is averting the stillbirths and child deaths that would have resulted from those pregnancies. We argue that health economic analyses should not count such averted deaths as benefits in the same way as saved lives. First, by counting averted stillbirths and child deaths as a benefit but not counting as a cost the lives of babies who survive, DCPN and the Study Group implicitly commit themselves to antinatalism. Second, this method for calculating the benefits of family planning interventions implies that infertility treatments are harmful. Determining how potential people should be treated in health economic analyses will require grappling with population ethics. (shrink)

We describe the results of an experiment testing for the presence of strong altruism among Christians in New Zealand. The study examined anonymous participant generosity to cohort. We found that in modified dictator games, anonymous Christians in New Zealand gave significantly more to Canadian Christians than anonymous New Zealand citizens gave to their fellow citizens. The gifting opportunities occurred after anonymous benefactors observed recipients willingly undertake costly acts of group commitment. We found that mean gifting after witnessing a fellow group (...) member metaphorically "fall on a hand grenade" to punish a member of an out-group was almost four times greater in the Christian group than it was in the New Zealand control. Our data support the hypothesis that religious altruism exists and is especially strong among Christians in New Zealand. The data also weakly support a multi-level selection hypothesis for the evolution of religious altruism. (shrink)

The close proximity and topical confluence of two early fourteenth-century quodlibetal disputations, those of John Duns Scotus and Jacques de Thérines, has drawn the attention of several scholars. Antonie Vos argues that Thérines’s quodlibet exhibits the influence of Scotus’s, yet no solid evidence has yet been provided for the chronology of their delivery or publication. Most scholars agree that they likely delivered their quodlibets in the same year: 1306. The following article gives a full exposition of corresponding topics in the (...) two texts, closely analyzing them for clues as to which influenced the other. (shrink)

It is commonly taken for granted that Thomas Aquinas employed Aristotelian principles in his philosophical system to promote a “program” of Christianizing the Stagyrite. However, the question of why Thomas used Aristotle on a particular point can help uncover the goals of his scholastic project. The case of divine illumination theory is especially enlightening in this regard. From the zenith of Augustinian illumination epistemology as expressed in Bonaventure to its disappearance in Scotus, the influence of Aristotle’s notion of active intellect (...) can be clearly traced throughout the thirteenth century. Thomas is especially important in this chronology, because he “internalizes” Bonaventure’s illumination theory and encapsulates it in man’s innate power of abstraction. In determining his motivation for doing so, this study explores the connection between epistemology and volition in both Bonaventure and Thomas, and postulates that Thomas adopted Aristotelian principles to safeguard a doctrine of free will in his volition theory. (shrink)

Although discriminative deep neural networks are currently dominant in cognitive modeling, we suggest that capacity-limited, generative models are a promising avenue for future work. Generative models tend to learn both local and global features of stimuli and, when properly constrained, can learn componential representations and response biases found in people's behaviors.

_341_ _Objectives: _In patients with multivessel disease both the detection of the culprit lesion and the exact allocation are important preconditions for sufficient treatment and improved outcome. In a vessel based approach the combination of quantitative coronary angiography and fractional flow reserve measured by a pressure wire should be advantageous compared to myocardial SPECT, as morphological and functional information is delivered simultaneously. Therefore our aim was to evaluate MS in the detection and allocation of hemodynamically significant stenoses obtained by the (...) combined gold standard QCA plus FFR in patients with multivessel disease. _Methods: _FFR and QCA of 95 vessels in 80 patients have been evaluated. Hemodynamically significant target lesions were defined as intermediate stenoses between 50 and 75% with an FFR. (shrink)

This comprehensive volume contains much of the important work in political and social philosophy from ancient times until the end of the nineteenth century. The anthology offers both depth and breadth in its selection of material by central figures, while also representing other currents of political thought. Thucydides, Seneca, and Cicero are included along with Plato and Aristotle; Al-Farabi, Marsilius of Padua, and de Pizan take their place alongside Augustine and Aquinas; Astell and Constant are presented in the company of (...) Locke, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft. -/- The editors have made every effort to include translations that are both readable and reliable. Every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contribution within the tradition. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the anthology's development (a number of whom have contributed introductory material as well as advice). The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits, and one that truly breaks new ground. -/- . (shrink)

This volume features a careful selection of major works in political and social philosophy from ancient times through to the present. Every reading has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contribution to the tradition. The anthology offers both depth and breadth in its selection of material by central figures, while also representing other currents of political thought. Thirty-two authors are represented, including fourteen from the 20th century. The editors have made (...) every effort to include translations that are both readable and reliable. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the volume’s development . The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits; The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought sets the new standard for social and political philosophy instruction. (shrink)

The second volume of this comprehensive anthology covers the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The anthology is broad ranging both in its selection of material by figures traditionally acknowledged as being of central importance, and in the material it presents by a range of other figures. The material in this volume is presented in three sections. The first, “Power and the State,” includes selections by such figures as Goldman, Lenin, Weber, Schmitt, and Hayek. Among those included in the “Race, Gender, (...) and Colonialism” section are de Beauvoir, Gandhi, Fanon, and Young. The third and by far the longest section, “Rights-Based Liberalism and its Critics,” focuses on the many interrelated directions that social and political philosophy has taken since the publication of John Rawls’s ground-breaking _A Theory of Justice_ in 1971. In order to better meet the needs of today’s students, the editors have made every effort to include accurate and accessible translations of the readings. Additionally, every selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting her or his major contributions within the tradition. For figures of central importance, the editors have included extended introductions that place the figure in the context of intellectual history as well as of political thought. In order to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and accessibility, the editors have consulted dozens of leading academics during the course of the volume’s development. The result is an anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits; _The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought_ sets the new standard for social and political philosophy instruction. (shrink)

This volume contains many of the most important texts in western political and social thought from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth century. A number of key works, including Machiavelli’s _The Prince_, Locke’s _Second Treatise_, and Rousseau’s _The Social Contract_, are included in their entirety. Alongside these central readings are a diverse range of texts from authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth, and Henry David Thoreau. The editors have made every effort to include translations that are both (...) readable and reliable. Each selection has been painstakingly annotated, and each figure is given a substantial introduction highlighting his or her major contributions within the tradition. The result is a ground-breaking anthology with unparalleled pedagogical benefits. (shrink)

The classical Confucian philosopher Xunzi proposed a naturalistic virtue ethics account of ritual: rituals are practices that channel human emotion and desire so that one develops virtues. In this paper I show that William of Auxerre’s Summa de Officiis Ecclesiasticis can be understood as presenting a similar account of ritual. William places great emphasis on the emotional power of the liturgy, which makes participants like the blessed in heaven by developing virtue. In other words, he has a virtue ethics of (...) ritual closely aligned with that of Xunzi. Xunzi’s writings on ritual illuminate and enrich one’s reading of the Summa de Officiis. But unlike Xunzi, William is not a naturalist with regard to ritual: although much of William’s language about the causal power of liturgy can be explained in Xunzian terms, Christian liturgy has an irreducible supernatural element. (shrink)

Debates about the genuine disease status of controversial diseases rely on intuitions about a range of factors. Adopting tools from experimental philosophy, this paper explores some of the factors that influence judgments about whether low sexual desire should be considered a disease and whether it should be medically treated. Drawing in part on some assumptions underpinning a divide in the literature between viewing low sexual desire as a genuine disease and seeing it as improperly medicalized, we investigate whether health and (...) disease judgments are affected by factors such as an individual’s gender, the cause of the low desire, whether the desire is high or low, and both personal and societal valuations of the condition. Our main findings indicate that (a) the cause of a condition influences whether it is judged a disorder, (b) how the individual values the condition influences whether the condition is seen as a proper target of medical intervention, and (c) perceived dysfunction influences judgments regarding health, disorder classification, medicalization, and medical intervention. Our findings help further illuminate the intricate interplay of factors that influence judgments about health and disease in controversial conditions. (shrink)

BackgroundHIV prevention research in resource-limited countries is associated with a variety of ethical dilemmas. Key amongst these is the question of what constitutes an appropriate standard of health care (SoC) for participants in HIV prevention trials. This paper describes a community-focused approach to develop a locally-appropriate SoC in the context of a phase III vaginal microbicide trial in Mwanza City, northwest Tanzania.MethodsA mobile community-based sexual and reproductive health service for women working as informal food vendors or in traditional and modern (...) bars, restaurants, hotels and guesthouses has been established in 10 city wards. Wards were divided into geographical clusters and community representatives elected at cluster and ward level. A city-level Community Advisory Committee (CAC) with representatives from each ward has been established. Workshops and community meetings at ward and city-level have explored project-related concerns using tools adapted from participatory learning and action techniques e.g. chapati diagrams, pair-wise ranking. Secondary stakeholders representing local public-sector and non-governmental health and social care providers have formed a trial Stakeholders' Advisory Group (SAG), which includes two CAC representatives.ResultsKey recommendations from participatory community workshops, CAC and SAG meetings conducted in the first year of the trial relate to the quality and range of clinic services provided at study clinics as well as broader standard of care issues. Recommendations have included streamlining clinic services to reduce waiting times, expanding services to include the children and spouses of participants and providing care for common local conditions such as malaria. Participants, community representatives and stakeholders felt there was an ethical obligation to ensure effective access to antiretroviral drugs and to provide supportive community-based care for women identified as HIV positive during the trial. This obligation includes ensuring sustainable, post-trial access to these services. Post-trial access to an effective vaginal microbicide was also felt to be a moral imperative.ConclusionParticipatory methodologies enabled effective partnerships between researchers, participant representatives and community stakeholders to be developed and facilitated local dialogue and consensus on what constitutes a locally-appropriate standard of care in the context of a vaginal microbicide trial in this setting.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN64716212. (shrink)

According to moral testimony pessimists, the testimony of moral experts does not provide non-experts with normative reasons for belief. Moral testimony optimists hold that it does. We first aim to show that moral testimony optimism is, to the extent such things may be shown, the more natural view about moral testimony. Speaking roughly, the supposed discontinuity between the norms of moral beliefs and the norms of non-moral beliefs, on careful reflection, lacks the intuitive advantage that it is sometimes supposed to (...) have. Our second aim is to highlight the difference in the nature of the pragmatic reasons for belief that support moral testimony optimism and moral testimony pessimism, setting out more clearly the nature and magnitude of the challenge for the pessimist. (shrink)

This study examines factors impacting ethical behavior of 103 hospital nurses. The level of emotional intelligence and ethical behavior of peers had a significant impact on ethical behavior of nurses. Independence climate had a significant impact on ethical behavior of nurses. Other ethical climate types such as professional, caring, rules, instrumental, and efficiency did not impact ethical behavior of respondents. Implications of this study for researchers and practitioners are discussed.