The authors present a case study involving truth telling responsibilities in the setting of nonepileptic seizures. Specifically, over the course of several suspected nonepileptic seizures, a patient’s seizures stopped after he received a saline flush meant to precede the administration of anti-seizure medication. The patient and his surrogate believed he had received the medication each time, and the team wondered whether they should disclose the truth. Some worried that disclosure would reinforce the suspected psychogenic behavior, exacerbating the patient’s condition. In (...) this way, the case study presents a twist on the traditional truth telling archetype. While most truth telling cases center on navigating cultural differences or worries about emotional harm, this case presented concerns about medical harm in the form of exacerbating the patient’s condition. The authors describe the complex patient-family-team dynamic that preceded this ethical dilemma, describe the case, analyze the ethical issue, and describe the outcome. (shrink)

Background Policy decisions about childhood vaccination require consideration of multiple, sometimes conflicting, public health and ethical imperatives. Examples of these decisions are whether vaccination should be mandatory and, if so, whether to allow for non-medical exemptions. In this article we argue that these policy decisions go beyond typical public health mandates and therefore require democratic input.Methods We report on the design, implementation, and results of a deliberative public forum convened over four days in Ontario, Canada, on the topic of childhood (...) vaccination.Results 25 participants completed all four days of deliberation and collectively developed 20 policy recommendations on issues relating to mandatory vaccinations and exemptions, communication about vaccines and vaccination, and AEFI (adverse events following immunization) compensation and reporting. Notable recommendations include unanimous support for mandatory childhood vaccination in Ontario, the need for broad educational communication about vaccination, and the development of a no-fault compensation scheme for AEFIs. There was persistent disagreement among deliberants about the form of exemptions from vaccination (conscience, religious beliefs) that should be permissible, as well as appropriate consequences if parents do not vaccinate their children.Conclusions We conclude that conducting deliberative democratic processes on topics that are polarizing and controversial is viable and should be further developed and implemented to support democratically legitimate and trustworthy policy about childhood vaccination. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. The Supreme Court, Bronx County, declined to grant habeas corpus relief and order Happy’s transfer to an elephant sanctuary, relying, in part, on previous decisions that denied habeas relief for the NhRP’s chimpanzee clients, Kiko and Tommy. Those decisions use incompatible conceptions of ‘person’ which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequate or, in fact, compatible with Happy’s personhood.

In this paper the authors argue that the exploration of the nature of needs and rights should begin with the actually existing organization of care and of justice in society. The authors raise two key concerns with this organization: 1) the invisibility of care to some, and 2) the inaccessibility of rights to others. Recent work by care scholars has called attention to the ways the current organization of care work perpetuates the myth of self-sufficiency for some, while reducing others (...) to mere dependents. Law and Society scholars have demonstrated the problems of uneven access to legal remedies within the current organization of the legal system. Addressing these concerns simultaneously reveals both the problems of the current organization of needs and rights as well as illuminating alternative possibilities. The authors argue, first, that a justice perspective, based on rights is inadequate because its presumed universality is belied by the reality of the inaccessibility of rights to many. Second, the authors argue that a care perspective, currently formulated upon the assumption that only some people have needs, is also flawed because its presumed particularity distorts the human experience and subsequent policies. Instead, the authors need to conceive of care in a public way that permits both rights and needs to be understood as applicable to all. The authors propose some initial thoughts about how to create such a public concept of care. (shrink)

The nonvisual self-touch rubber hand paradigm elicits the compelling illusion that one is touching one’s own hand even though the two hands are not in contact. In four experiments, we investigated spatial limits of distance and alignment on the nonvisual self-touch illusion and the well-known visual rubber hand illusion. Common procedures and common assessment methods were used. Subjective experience of the illusion was assessed by agreement ratings for statements on a questionnaire and time of illusion onset. The nonvisual self-touch illusion (...) was diminished though never abolished by distance and alignment manipulations, whereas the visual rubber hand illusion was more robust against these manipulations. We assessed proprioceptive drift, and implications of a double dissociation between subjective experience of the illusion and proprioceptive drift are discussed. (shrink)

A new realislic local model of light propagation and detection is described. The authors propose a novel stochastic model of low-intensity photon detection in which background noise is added to a part of the photon prior to absorption. In this model, in agreement with Planck, there is no quantization of the propagating field. The model has some similarities to theories advanced by E. Santos and T. Marshall in the last decade, but also has substantial deviations from these. A mechanism, conserving (...) energy and momentum, is proposed by which a sudden collapse of the wave-packet is avoided. The experimental Bell inequality violation of Aspect. Grangier and Roger [Phys. Rev. Lett.47, 460 (1981)]is discussed. The authors have carried out a computer simulation of a radio frequency (RF) analogue of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment to illustrate how the manipulation of certain factors, especially signal to noise ratio, detector threshold and characteristics of the noise, enables the same Bell inequality to be either satisfied or violated by a realistic local model. Building on arguments by Santos. [Phys. Rev. A46. 3646 (1992)],the appropriateness of this Bell lest is discussed. Neither the authors' stochastic-optical model, nor their RF analogue, involves an enhancement assumption of the type defined by Clauser and Horne [Phys. Rev. D10, 526 (1974)]. (shrink)

The rubber hand paradigm is used to create the illusion of self-touch, by having the participant administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner, with an identical stimulus , administers stimulation to the participant’s hand. With synchronous stimulation, participants experience the compelling illusion that they are touching their own hand. In the current study, the robustness of this illusion was assessed using incongruent stimuli. The participant used the index finger of the right hand to administer stimulation to a prosthetic (...) hand while the Examiner used a paintbrush to administer stimulation to the participant’s left hand. The results indicate that this violation of tactile expectations does not diminish the illusion of self-touch. Participants experienced the illusion despite the use of incongruent stimuli, both when vision was precluded and when visual feedback provided clear evidence of the tactile mismatch. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical commentary on Schopenhauer's "Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," dealing with each of Schopenhauer's principal ...

Health care is provided in many contexts—not just hospitals, clinics, and community health settings. Different institutional settings may significantly influence the design and delivery of health care and the ethical obligations and practices of health care practitioners working within them. This is particularly true in institutions that are established to constrain freedom, ensure security and authority, and restrict movement and choice. We describe the results of a qualitative study of the experiences of doctors and nurses working within two women’s prisons (...) in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Their accounts make clear how the provision and ethics of health care may be compromised by the physical design of the prison, the institutional policies and practices restricting movement of prisoners and practitioners, the focus on maintaining control and security, and the very purpose of the prison and prison system itself. The results of this study make clear the impact that context has on professional practice and illustrate the importance of sociology and anthropology to bioethics and to the development of a more nuanced account of professional ethics. (shrink)

Political corruption imposes substantial costs on shareholders in the U.S. Yet, we understand little about the basic factors that exacerbate or mitigate the value consequences of political corruption. Using federal corruption convictions data, we find that firm-level economic rents and monitoring mechanisms moderate the negative relation between corruption and firm value. The value consequences of political corruption are exacerbated for firms operating in low-rent product markets and mitigated for firms subject to external monitoring by state governments or monitoring induced by (...) disclosure transparency. Our results should inform managers and policymakers of the tradeoffs imposed on firms operating in politically corrupt districts. (shrink)

Towards the close of Book V of theRepublicPlato tells us that the true philosopher has knowledge and that the objects of knowledge are the Forms. By contrast, the ‘lovers of sights and sounds’, he tells us, have no more than belief, the objects of which are physical particulars. He then goes on to present us with some very radical-sounding assertions about the nature of these physical particulars. They are bearers of opposite properties, he says, in so thorough-going a manner that (...) we cannot say of them that they are nor that they are not: they lie somewhere between being and utter non-being.This passage of theRepublic still awaits an agreed interpretation and I want to suggest as a reason for this that it is usually interpreted in isolation. I will argue that it becomes easier to understand when seen against the background of Plato's developing thought. To be more precise, it makes sense when taken as a rejection by Plato of one of his earlier beliefs: namely, a doctrine of essentialism to be found in thePhaedo.The greater part of this paper then will be an attempt to show thatRepublicV is a rejection of thePhaedo'sdoctrine of essences. Its concluding part will try to explain why that doctrine was rejected. (shrink)

Youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits showed reduced amygdala responses to fearful expressions under low attentional load but no indications of increased recruitment of regions implicated in top- down attentional control. These findings suggest that the emotional deficit observed in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits is primary and not secondary to increased top- down attention to nonemotional stimulus features.

A simple experimental paradigm creates the powerful illusion that one is touching one’s own hand even when the two hands are separated by 15 cm. The participant uses her right hand to administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner provides identical stimulation to the participant’s receptive left hand. Change in felt position of the receptive hand toward the prosthetic hand has previously led to the interpretation that the participant experiences self-touch at the location of the prosthetic hand, and (...) experiences a sense of ownership of the prosthetic hand. Our results argue against this interpretation. We assessed change in felt position of the participant’s receptive hand but we also assessed change in felt position of the participant’s administering hand. Change in felt position of the administering hand was significantly greater than change in felt position of the receptive hand. Implications for theories of ownership are discussed. (shrink)

In Philosophy for April 1961 Mr J. R. Lucas argues that Gödel's theorem proves that Mechanism is false. I wish to dispute this view, not because I maintain that Mechanism is true, but because I do not believe that this issue is to be settled by what looks rather like a kind of logical conjuring-trick. In my discussion I take for granted Lucas's account of Gödel's procedure, which I am not competent to criticise.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Nature of Schopenhauer's Platonic Ideas and Their Relation to Individuals The Exclusion of Mathematical Ideas The Exclusion of Value Ideas Schopenhauer's Justification of His Restriction of Ideas to Ideas in Nature Schopenhauer's Theory of Art Considered in Itself Irresoluble Conflicts between Plato and Schopenhauer Notes References Further Reading.