Acceptance of elderly or marginal health individuals as kidney donors is debated, with practices varying between centres. Transplant recipients, live kidney donors and health-care professionals caring for patients with renal failure were surveyed regarding their views on live donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) of marginal health (diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, obesity, etc.) and elderly donors. Participants were recruited within a tertiary renal and transplant centre and invited to participate in focus groups and structured interviews. They also completed an anonymous questionnaire. Of 464 (...) participants who completed the questionnaire (36% health-care professionals and 64% patients), 49% and 64%, respectively, stated that marginal and elderly donors should be accepted for LDKT. In the structured interviews, emphasis was given to presenting to donor, recipient and their respective families a calculated risk regarding the effect that either a nephrectomy or transplant has on long-term quality of life. Participants stated that an independent third party in addition to the transplant team should discuss involved risks. Issues of ‘how desperate’ the recipient's situation is should also be considered. Health-care professionals stated that regardless of the strength of will of an individual to donate a kidney (despite age, health problems or personal risk), they should always have the right to say ‘no’ if performing a specific LDKT was against their professional and ethical values. About half of those surveyed considered that marginal health and elderly donors were acceptable for LDKT. Emphasis was given to the explanation to donors and recipients of the risks involved in such transplantation. (shrink)

In The Crane's Walk, Jeremy Barris seeks to show that we can conceive and live with a pluralism of standpoints with conflicting standards for truth--with the truth of each being entirely unaffected by the truth of the others. He argues that Plato's work expresses this kind of pluralism, and that this pluralism is important in its own right, whether or not we agree about what Plato's standpoint is.The longest tradition of Plato scholarship identifies crucial faults in Plato's theory (...) of Ideas. Barris argues that Plato deliberately displayed those faults, because he wanted to demonstrate that basic kinds of error or illogic have dimensions that are crucial to the establishing of truth. These dimensions legitimate a paradoxical coordination of logically incompatible conceptions of truth. Connecting this idea with emerging currents of Plato scholarship, he emphasizes, in addition to the dialogues' arguments, the importance of their nonargumentative features, including drama, myths, fictions, anecdotes, and humor. These unanalyzed nonargumentative features function rigorously, as a lever with which to examine the enterprise of rational argument itself, without presupposing its standards or illegitimately assimilating any position to the standards of another.Today, communities are torn apart by conflicts within and between a host of different pluralist and absolutist commitments. The possibility developed in this book-a coordination of absolute and relative truth that allows an understanding of some relativist and some absolutist positions as being fully legitimate and as capable of existing in a relation to their opposites-may contribute to perspectives for resolving these conflicts. (shrink)

In his recent book on Darwinism, Daniel Dennett has offered up a species of a priori selectionism that he calls algorithmic. He used this view to challenge a number of positions advocated by Stephen J. Gould. I examine his algorithmic conception, review his unqualified enthusiasm for the a priori selectionist position, challenge Dennett's main metaphors (cranes vs. skyhooks and a design space), examine ways in which his position has lead him to misunderstand or misrepresent Gould (spandrels, exaptation, punctuated equilibrium, contingency (...) and disparity), and discuss recent results in developmental biology that suggest that an a priori position does not fill the demands of an evolutionary biology. I conclude by insisting that evolutionary biology is many leveled, complicated, and is carried on an ever shifting and expanding empirical base that when disregarded results in caricature. (shrink)

From popular introductions to biographies and television programmes, philosophy is everywhere. Many people even want to _be_ philosophers, usually in the café or the pub. But what do real philosophers do? What are the big philosophical issues of today? Why do they matter? How did some our best philosophers get into philosophy in the first place? Read _New British Philosophy_ and find out for the first time. Clear, engaging and designed for a general audience, sixteen fascinating interviews with some of (...) the top philosophers from the new generation of the subject's leaders range from music to the mind and feminism to the future of philosophy. Each interview is introduced and conducted by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom of _The Philosophers Magazine_. This is a unique snapshot of philosophy in Great Britain today and includes interviews with: Ray Monk - Biography; Nigel Warburton - the Public; Aaron Ridley - Music; Jonathan Wolff - Politics; Roger Crisp - Ethics; Rae Langton - Pornography; Miranda Fricker - Knowledge; M.G.F.Martin - Perception; Timothy Williamson - Vagueness; Tim Crane - Mind; Robin Le Poidevin - Metaphysics; Christina Howells - Sartre; Simon Critchley - Phenomenology; Simon Glendinning - Continental; Stephen Mulhall - the Future; Keith Ansell Pearson - the Human. (shrink)

From popular introductions to biographies and television programmes, philosophy is everywhere. Many people even want to be philosophers, usually in the café or the pub. But what do real philosophers do? What are the big philosophical issues of today? Why do they matter? How did some our best philosophers get into philosophy in the first place? Read New British Philosophy and find out for the first time. Clear, engaging and designed for a general audience, sixteen fascinating interviews with some of (...) the top philosophers from the new generation of the subject's leaders range from music to the mind and feminism to the future of philosophy. Each interview is introduced and conducted by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom of The Philosophers Magazine . This is a unique snapshot of philosophy in Great Britain today and includes interviews with: Ray Monk - Biography; Nigel Warburton - the Public; Aaron Ridley - Music; Jonathan Wolff - Politics; Roger Crisp - Ethics; Rae Langton - Pornography; Miranda Fricker - Knowledge; M.G.F.Martin - Perception; Timothy Williamson - Vagueness; Tim Crane - Mind; Robin Le Poidevin - Metaphysics; Christina Howells - Sartre; Simon Critchley - Phenomenology; Simon Glendinning - Continental; Stephen Mulhall - the Future; Keith Ansell Pearson - the Human. (shrink)

Volume 18, Issue 1, April 2019, Page 69-71.

In 2022, the Camden Coalition Medical-Legal Partnership began providing civil and criminal legal services to substance use disorder patients at Cooper University Health Care’s Center for Healing. This paper discusses early findings from the program’s first year on the efficacy of the provision of criminal-legal representation, which is uncommon among MLPs and critical for this patient population. The paper concludes with takeaways for other programs providing legal services in an addiction medicine setting.

Abstract:This paper investigates whether, in theoretical terms, corporations can be citizens. The argument is based on the observation that the debate on “corporate citizenship” (CC) has only paid limited attention to the actual notion of citizenship. Where it has been discussed, authors have either largely left the concept of CC unquestioned, or applied rather unidimensional and decontextualized notions of citizenship to the corporate sphere. The paper opens with a critical discussion of a major contribution to the CC literature, the work (...) of Logsdon and Wood (Wood and Logsdon 2001; Logsdon and Wood 2002). It continues with a consideration of the nature and role of metaphors for business and of the contestable nature of the political concept of citizenship. It evaluates corporations as citizens through a four-dimensional framework of democratic citizenship offered by Stokes (2002). The analysis suggests that corporations do not easily fit the “liberal minimalist” model of citizenship. It finds, however some possibilities for fit with the three more participatory models. The paper concludes by cautioning against basing corporate citizenship on legal and administrative status or identity, and mapping out specific criteria by which we might determine whether corporations could be considered as citizens by virtue of their participation in processes of governance. (shrink)

This paper reviews and analyses the implications of citizenship thinking for building ethical institutional arrangements for business. The paper looks at various stakeholder groups whose relation with the company changes quite significantly when one starts to conceptualize it in terms of citizenship. Rather than being simply stakeholders, we could see those groups either as citizens, or as other constituencies participating in the administration of citizenship for others, or in societal governance more broadly. This raises crucial questions about accountability and democracy (...) in stakeholder relations with the corporation. We sketch out the main currents informing and emerging from the citizenship perspective on firm-stakeholder relations; analyze specific stakeholder groups and their particular relevance in the context of a citizenship perspective; and conclude with a discussion of the broader implications in terms of building ethical institutions. (shrink)

Antibodies that are specific for DNA provide an excellent system for studying the protein‐nucleic acid interactions that allow proteins to recognize specific DNA structures or sequences.

While working with a long-distance running event organizer, the authors of this study observed considerable differences between event participants’ official finish time and their self-reported finish time in the post-event survey. Drawing on the notion of self-serving bias, we aim to explore the source of this disparity and how such psychological bias influences participants’ event experience at long-distance running events. Using evidence of 1,320 marathon runners, we demonstrated how people are more likely to be subject to a biased self-assessment contingent (...) upon achieving their best finish time at the event. The study samples were split into record-high-achieved and record-high-missed groups, and the self-serving biases of each group were explored. Results from the t-test comparing record-high-achieved and -missed groups showed that runners in the record-high-missed group were significantly more likely to report a positively biased finish time than runners in the record-high-achieved group. Additionally, results from logistic regression showed that as runners missed their best finish time by a wider margin, the probability of reporting a positively biased incorrect finish time increased. Lastly, we conducted an additional t-test and revealed that runners who are subject to self-serving bias showed a lower level of overall event satisfaction. The current study suggests one way to bypass the adverse effects of participant sport event participants’ worse-than-expected athletic performance. We specifically suggest that the event organizers target runners who had worse-than-expected performance and make extra efforts on non-race service attributes because these runners are more likely to be unsatisfied with the event. (shrink)

This paper, based on our forthcoming book (Crane, Matten, & Moon, 2007), examines the effects of globalization on reconfiguring notions of citizenship and the role of corporations in influencing, and being influenced by, this process. Based on an analysis of the literature on global citizenship, we explore the current and potential role for corporations in contributing to global governance systems and processes, both independent of, and in conjunction with, governmental and non-governmental organizations.

People tend to perceive ongoing continuous activity as series of discrete events. This partitioning of continuous activity may occur, in part, because events correspond to dynamic patterns that have recurred across different contexts. Recurring patterns may lead to reliable sequential dependencies in observers' experiences, which then can be used to guide perception. The current set of simulations investigated whether this statistical structure within events can be used 1) to develop stable internal representations that facilitate perception and 2) to learn when (...) to update such representations in a self-organizing manner. These simulations demonstrate that experience with recurring patterns enables a system to accurately predict upcoming stimuli within an event, to identify boundaries between such events based on transient increases in prediction error, and to use such boundaries to improve prediction about subsequent activities. (shrink)

Many psychological studies of categorization and reasoning use undergraduates to make claims about human conceptualization. Generalizability of findings to other populations is often assumed but rarely tested. Even when comparative studies are conducted, it may be challenging to interpret differences. As a partial remedy, in the present studies we adopt a 'triangulation strategy' to evaluate the ways expertise and culturally different belief systems can lead to different ways of conceptualizing the biological world. We use three groups (US bird experts, US (...) undergraduates, and ordinary Itza' Maya) and two sets of birds (North American and Central American). Categorization tasks show considerable similarity among the three groups' taxonomic sorts, but also systematic differences. Notably, US expert categorization is more similar to Itza' than to US novice categorization. The differences are magnified on inductive reasoning tasks where only undergraduates show patterns of judgment that are largely consistent with current models of category-based taxonomic inference. The Maya commonly employ causal and ecological reasoning rather than taxonomic reasoning. Experts use a mixture of strategies (including causal and ecological reasoning), only some of which current models explain. US and Itza' informants differed markedly when reasoning about passerines (songbirds), reflecting the somewhat different role that songbirds play in the two cultures. The results call into question the importance of similarity-based notions of typicality and central tendency in natural categorization and reasoning. These findings also show that relative expertise leads to a convergence of thought that transcends cultural boundaries and shared experiences. (shrink)

Proponents of the rule of law argue about whether that ideal should be conceived formalistically or in terms of substantive values. Formalistically, the rule of law is associated with principles like generality, clarity, prospectivity, consistency, etc. Substantively, it is associated with market values, with constitutional rights, and with freedom and human dignity. In this paper, I argue for a third layer of complexity: the procedural aspect of the rule of law; the aspects of rule-of-law requirements that have to do with (...) "natural Justice" or "procedural due process." These I believe have been neglected in the jurisprudential literature devoted specifically to the idea of the rule of law and they deserve much greater emphasis. Moreover procedural values go beyond elementary principles like the guarantee of an unbiased tribunal or the opportunity to present and confront evidence. They include the right to argue in a court about what the law is and what its bearing should be on one's situation. The provision that law makes for argument is necessarily unsettling, and so this emphasis on the procedural aspect highlights the point predictability should not be regarded as the be-all and end-all of the rule of law. (shrink)

Regulating affective responses to acute stress has the potential to improve health, performance, and well-being outcomes. Using the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat as an organizing framework, we review how appraisals inform affective responses and highlight research that demonstrates how appraisals can be used as regulatory tools. Arousal reappraisal, specifically, instructs individuals on the adaptive benefits of stress arousal so that arousal is conceptualized as a coping resource. By reframing the meaning of signs of arousal that accompany stress, it (...) is possible to break the link between stressful situations, and malignant physiological responses and experiences of negative affect. Applications of arousal reappraisal for academic contexts and clinical science, and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

The biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat posits that resource and demand appraisals interact in situations of acute stress to determine affective responses, and concomitant physiological responses, motivation, and decisions/behaviors. Regulatory approaches that alter appraisals to regulate challenge and threat affective states have the potential to facilitate coping. This reply clarifies the conceptualization of one such regulatory approach, arousal reappraisal, and suggests avenues for future research. However, it is important to note that arousal reappraisal is not a “silver bullet” for (...) improving stress outcomes, nor should this strategy be expected to positively impact all individuals. More work is needed to better elucidate how psychological and biological stress processes interact to shape health. (shrink)

Koonin, in an article in this issue, claims that CRISPR–Cas systems are mechanisms for the inheritance of acquired adaptive characteristics, and that the operation of such systems comprises a “Lamarckian mode of evolution.” We argue that viewing the CRISPR–Cas mechanism as facilitating a form of “directed mutation” more accurately represents how the system behaves and the history of neoDarwinian thinking, and is to be preferred.

The primrose path and prisoner's dilemma paradigms may require cognitive (executive) control: The active maintenance of context representations in lateral prefrontal cortex to provide top-down support for specific behaviors in the face of short delays or stronger response tendencies. This perspective suggests further tests of whether altruism is a type of self-control, including brain imaging, induced affect, and dual-task studies.

In Alfonso de Cartagena's 'Memoriale virtutum' (1422) María Morrás and Jeremy Lawrance offer a new edition from the manuscripts of a compilation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics addressed by the major Castilian intellectual of the day, bishop Alfonso de Cartagena, to the heir to the throne of Portugal, crown prince Duarte. The work was a speculum principis, an education for the future king in the virtues suitable to a statesman; Cartagena's choice of Aristotle was thus a significant index of the (...) advent of new Renaissance ideas. This edition shows how the "memorial" throws light on the ideological transformation of society those ideas would bring, setting new ethical guidelines for the ruling class at the crossroads between medieval feudalism and Renaissance absolutism. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron is one of the world's leading legal and political philosophers. This collection brings together thirteen of his most recent essays which, in the course of working the book up for publication, the author has revisited and thoroughly revised. He addresses central issues within the liberal tradition, focusing on the law and its role in a pluralistic state which experiences deep disagreements about values and rights, and about the role of the state itself.

Brentano’s account of what he called intentionale Inexistenz — what we now call intentionality — is without question one of the most important parts of his philosophy, and one of the most influential ideas in late 19th-century philosophy. Here I will explain how this idea figures in Brentano’s central text, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Brentano 1995a). I will then briefly explain how Brentano’s ideas about intentionality evolved after the first publication of this work in 1874, and how they were (...) then misinterpreted by some influential analytic philosophers. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of corporate social responsibility in the seemingly oxymoronic context of Chinese “authoritarian capitalism.” Following an introduction to the emergence of authoritarian capitalism, the article considers the emergence of CSR in China using Matten and Moon’s framework of explaining CSR development in terms both of a business system’s historic institutions and of the impacts of new institutionalism on corporations arising from societal pressures in their global and national environments. We find two forms of CSR in China, (...) reflecting the “multiplexity” of its business system: one in the mainly family-owned small and medium-sized enterprise sector reflecting concern with local reputation, and another in the corporate, mainly state-owned enterprise sector, reflecting global and national societal expectations. We investigate the dynamics of CSR in China through the interplay of the global and national societal pressures and mediating and even leading roles played by the State and the Party. We consider the conceptual integrity and practical prospects for “state-led society-driven” CSR and future research opportunities, including those opened up by the three contributing articles to this special issue. (shrink)