Colorado has consistently had one of the highest rates of suicide in the United States, and El Paso County has the highest number of suicide and firearm-related suicide deaths within the state. Community-based solutions like those of the Suicide Prevention Collaborative of El Paso County may be more effective in preventing suicide as they are specific to local issues, sensitive to local culture, and informed by local data, community members, and stakeholders.

Tort claims have been studied for various reasons. Several studies have found that most tort claims are not related to negligent adverse events and most negligent adverse events do not result in tort claims. Several studies have examined the disposition of tort claims to understand the likelihood of payment once a claim has been made. Still others have proposed that tort-claims trend analysis may help administrators target their quality-improvement efforts and identify problems with quality that would not otherwise be captured.In (...) this article, we conduct a tort-claims analysis to explore areas for quality improvement, specifically for patient safety, in the Veterans Health Administration. Patient safety is an increasingly highlighted aspect of health-care delivery. Failure to assure patient safety can result in bad clinical outcomes, additional costs of care, and a negative organizational image. Filing a tort claim is one way for an individual to express concern about an organization. For our analysis, we draw from resolved tort claims in the Veterans Health Administration from fiscal years 1989 to 2000. (shrink)

Tort claims have been studied for various reasons. Several studies have found that most tort claims are not related to negligent adverse events and most negligent adverse events do not result in tort claims. Several studies have examined the disposition of tort claims to understand the likelihood of payment once a claim has been made. Still others have proposed that tort-claims trend analysis may help administrators target their quality-improvement efforts and identify problems with quality that would not otherwise be captured.In (...) this article, we conduct a tort-claims analysis to explore areas for quality improvement, specifically for patient safety, in the Veterans Health Administration. Patient safety is an increasingly highlighted aspect of health-care delivery. Failure to assure patient safety can result in bad clinical outcomes, additional costs of care, and a negative organizational image. Filing a tort claim is one way for an individual to express concern about an organization. For our analysis, we draw from resolved tort claims in the Veterans Health Administration from fiscal years 1989 to 2000. (shrink)

The “new natural lawyers” (NNLs) are a prolific group of philosophers, theologians, and political theorists that includes John Finnis, Robert George, Patrick Lee, Gerard Bradley, and Germain Grisez, among others. These thinkers have devoted themselves to developing and defending a traditional sexual ethic according to which homosexual sexual acts are immoral per se and marriage ought to remain an exclusively heterosexual institution. The sterility objection holds that the NNLs are guilty of making an arbitrary and irrational distinction between same-sex couples (...) and sterile heterosexual couples. The NNLs believe that it is a necessary condition for two people’s being morally and legally entitled to get married that they be able to perform sexual acts that are “suited to procreating.” But sterile heterosexual couples are incapable of performing such acts. Therefore, it should follow from the NNLs’ own premises that sterile heterosexual couples are not entitled to marry. But the NNLs do not draw this conclusion. Instead, they maintain that sterile heterosexuals can marry while denying that the same is true of same-sex couples. The sterility objection claims the NNLs are being inconsistent in treating the two kinds of couples differently. Although the sterility objection has been endorsed by recent critics, I don’t think it has yet been adequately defended. The NNLs have responded by arguing that there is a sense in which the sex acts of sterile heterosexual couples are as suited to reproduction as those of fertile heterosexuals. Thus they maintain that the distinction they draw between the two kinds of couple has a rational basis. A successful defense of the sterility objection must show that this response on the part of the NNLs fails. Such is the task I undertake in this paper. I argue that the NNLs’ response fails because acts of penile-vaginal intercourse between sterile heterosexuals lack the actual causal power to produce conception that sexual acts need to be considered truly reproductive, and because their assumption that penile-vaginal intercourse always functions reproductively is bad biology. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Feminists are divided on whether consent should be employed in legal definitions of rape. Catharine MacKinnon has criticized the usefulness of consent in enabling legal systems to recognize and prosecute instances of rape (MacKinnon 1989, 2005, 2016). In a recent article in this journal, Lisa H. Schwartzman defends the use of affirmative consent in rape law against MacKinnon’s critique (Schwartzman 2019). In contrast to MacKinnon, Schwartzman claims our understanding of rape must include both force and consent components. In this paper, (...) I will argue in agreement with Schwartzman and against MacKinnon that the legal definition of rape should include an affirmative consent component. I will take Schwartzman’s discussion as my point of departure and consider whether she has responded adequately to MacKinnon’s criticisms of consent. I will argue that her responses are not fully adequate. In particular, she has not successfully rebutted the argument that an appeal to consent is unnecessary once we have accepted an expanded definition of coercion. I will then provide a more affirmative defense of affirmative consent in response to MacKinnon’s most challenging criticism. (shrink)

Nicholas Wolterstorff and Christopher J. Eberle have defended the view that the ethics of liberal citizenship allows citizens to publicly support the passage of coercive laws based solely on their religious convictions. They also develop positive conceptions of virtuous citizenship that place moral limits on how citizens may appeal to their religion. The question I address in this essay is whether the limits they impose on citizens’ appeals to their religion are adequate. Since Eberle’s “ideal of conscientious engagement” provides us (...) with the most extensive statement of these limits, it is the primary focus of my attention here. My conclusion is that in its current form, Eberle’s ideal is not constraining enough. In the first section, I argue that Eberle’s ideal does not require citizens to be self-critical enough about their religious and political commitments. In the second section, I highlight a conflict between Eberle’s ideal and the need for citizens to respect the religious freedom of their fellow citizens. I argue that the way to resolve this conflict is to adopt a more fine-grained conception of religious reasons and to hold that citizens should not rely on religious reasons of certain kinds. In the final section, I argue that laws punishing or discouraging homosexual conduct (which Eberle’s ideal would apparently allow) violate what Wolterstorff calls “the Idea of liberal democracy” and so are not the kind of proposal that virtuous citizens can defend. (shrink)

This book is a phenomenological investigation of the zoo visit experience. Why Do We Go to the Zoo? is rooted in Husserlian phenomenology and focuses on the communicative interactions between humans and animals in the zoo setting.

In this study of an economic field and its relationships to a cultural field, we apply Pierre Bourdieu’s central concepts of economic capital, cultural capital, symbolic capital and field, and thus follow in a tradition that at the outset was considered to be post-structuralism, but which by Bourdieu later has been brought into the realm of realism. We have mapped relationships between the actors and thus the field structures that these relationships entail. The fields in which a segment of an (...) art world is operating is represented in multi-dimensional figures which illustrate relationships and bonds between the different categories of organizations. Some of the business actors we have studied are engaging in cultural activities with a great deal of autonomy, others are connected to the cultural field in less active ways. In participating in the cultural field they are in different ways and to different extents accumulating symbolic capital including prestige and honor. The method we have applied is multiple correspondence analysis which was frequently used by Bourdieu. (shrink)

Two experiments examined false recall for lists of semantically and phonologically associated words as a function of presentation duration. Veridical recall increased with long exposure durations for all lists. For semantically associated lists, false recall increased from 20–250 ms, then decreased. There was a high level of false recall with 20 ms durations for phonologically associated lists , which declined as duration increased. In Experiment 2, for lists presented at 20 and 50 ms rates, false recall given zero correct recall (...) was observed frequently, suggesting that conscious recollection of studied words was not necessary for phonological false memory. Differences between phonologically and semantically associated lists were consistent with a feature integration model based on automatic initial processing of phonetic features of words. (shrink)

_Empirical Logic and Public Debate_ supplies a large number of previously unpublished papers that together make up a survey of recent developments in the field of empirical logic. It contains theoretical contributions, some of a more formal and some of an informal nature, as well as numerous contemporary and historical case studies. The book will therefore be attractive both to those who wish to focus upon the theory and practice of discussion, debate, arguing, and argument, as well as to those (...) readers who are primarily interested in applications to a particular field, such as ethics, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, or the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The Modeling of Nature provides an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of natural philosophy, psychology, logic, and epistemology.

I propose that reasons advanced in support of theism serve just as well, or can be modified to serve just as well, as reasons for believing that there exists a wholly evil supreme being. Accordingly, I suggest that attempts to justify theism are futile, since all would-be success is neutralized by the corresponding support that is thereby provided for antitheism.

In everyday life we often act adequately, yet without deliberation. For instance, we immediately obtain and maintain an appropriate distance from others in an elevator. The notion of normativity implied here is a very basic one, namely distinguishing adequate from inadequate, correct from incorrect, or better from worse in the context of a particular situation. In the first part of this paper I investigate such ‘situated normativity’ by focusing on unreflective expert action. More particularly, I use Wittgenstein’s examples of craftsmen (...) (tailors and architects) absorbed in action to introduce situated normativity. Situated normativity can be understood as the normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective skillful action. I develop Wittgenstein’s insight that a peculiar type of affective behaviour, ‘directed discontent’, is essential for getting things right without reflection. Directed discontent is a reaction of appreciation in action and is introduced as a paradigmatic expression of situated normativity. In the second part I discuss Wittgenstein’s ideas on the normativity of what he calls ‘blind’ rule-following and the ‘bedrock’ of immediate action. What matters for understanding the normativity of (even ‘blind’) rule-following, is not that one has the capacity for linguistic articulation or reflection but that one is reliably participating in a communal custom. In the third part I further investigate the complex relationships between unreflective skillful action, perception, emotion, and normativity. Part of this entails an account of the link between normativity at the level of the expert’s socio-cultural practice and the individual’s situated and lived normativity. (shrink)

Written by cardiac surgeons, cardiologists, and pediatric intensive care physicans and nurses, this text offers a multidisciplinary approach to the care of children with critical heart disease. Throughout, Dr. Nichols and colleagues provide practice-oriented guidance on: * scientific principles * diagnostic and therapeutic techniques * specialized equipment * managing congenital and acquired special conditions * anesthesia, CPR, and respiratory care...... all with more than 400 illustrations to help you visualize anatomy and techniques, numerous charts and tables to summarize critical data, (...) and much more. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge both the contemporary secular view that religious faith is not a virtue, and also the contemporary theistic view that religious faith is a virtue that is unavailable to nonbelievers. Although these views appear reasonable from the respective sides when faith is interpreted as belief, if faith is understood to be the entrusting of one’s ultimate concerns to whatever powers are in control (as I suggest), then such faith, with its accompanying ‘freedom from bondage’ (Spinoza), not (...) only appears to be a virtue in itself, but it also appears to be one that can be achieved by nonbelievers as well as by theists.This is not to claim, however, that theists should hold the nonbeliever’s faith to be as viable as their own (or vice versa); rather, it is to claim that there is no more reason for theists to hold that nonbelievers must be without faith than there is for them to hold that nonbelievers must be without hope or love.Still, of course, it may be that God does exist and that the belief that he exists is part of the formula for the realization of some ultimate religious concern, such as eternal life. (For example, it could have been that there was a person conducting a rescue mission for the mountain climbers, but who refused to bring those who did not believe so to final safety, even though they has boarded the platform.) So, if God does exist and if the formula for eternal life, for example, does include the requirement that creatures believe that he exists, then atheists and agnostics will certainly have erred by not embracing theism. But their error then (assuming their doubts not to be the products of such vices as pride or dishonesty) will have been an error in calculative judgment, rather than a failure in virtue: they will have erred by not having engaged a hypnotist—at least in last resort— to equip them with a precautionary theism. (shrink)

Context: Practice-based design research is becoming more widely recognized in academia, including at doctoral level, yet there are arguably limited options for dissemination beyond the traditional conference format of paper-based proceedings, possibly with an exhibition or “demonstrator” component that is often non-archival. Further, the opportunities afforded by the traditional-format paper presentations is at times at odds with practice-based methodologies being presented. Purpose: We provide a first-hand descriptive account of developing and running a new international conference with an experimental format that (...) aims to support more analogously the dissemination of practice-based design research. Method: Our approach herein is broadly interpretative, phenomenological and critically reflective in orientation, to analyze our own experiential insights from the conference conception, through to the event itself and post-conference reflections, alongside the reflections fed back by conference delegates. Results: We have found the roundtable format continues to function well for creating a discursive interactional context. However issues arose around the crucial nature of the session chair’s role in enabling rich and multi-voiced discussion and how presenters’, organizers’ and delegates’ voices were captured and documented, with implications for further developing the conference design. Looking forward, there are also questions raised about: balancing the stringency of a rigorous review process with provision of an encouraging platform for early-career researchers; and balancing the need for clear criteria and formatting standards with the “openness” of the submission template and formatting guidelines and/or writing. This includes designers who are new to research cultures. It should also appeal to those working in interdisciplinary research in collaboration with design practitioners (but who may not be practitioners themselves. The conference aims to foster and support a burgeoning “research through design” academic community and to provide a fitting dissemination platform for this community. We hope that the conference will encourage academic communities to give proper consideration to the concept of design as a knowledge-generating activity. Constructivist content: Knowledge about design research is generated from meaningful interaction between people and artifacts as part of the unfolding conference experience. The organizational features of the conference aim to support knowledge dissemination through dialogical relations between people and things in particular contexts of interaction. (shrink)

Upshot: We focus on the following issues: our intentions behind establishing the new Research Through Design conference series; epistemological concerns around “research through design”; and how we might find a balance between openness and specificity for the conference series going forward.

Bioethicists frequently call for empirical researchers to engage participants and community members in their research, but don't themselves typically engage community members in their normative research. In this article, we describe an effort to include members of the public in normative discussions about the risks, potential benefits, and ethical responsibilities of social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research. We reflect on what might—and might not— be gained from engaging the public in normative scholarship and on lessons learned about public perspectives on (...) the risks and potential benefits of SBG research and the responsible conduct and communication of such research. We also provide procedural lessons for others in bioethics who are interested in engaging members of the public in their research. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that personalization technologies used by Google for the purpose of tailoring search results for individual users create filter bubbles, which reinforce users’ political views. Surprisingly, empirical evidence for a personalization-induced filter bubble has not been forthcoming. Here, we investigate whether filter bubbles may result instead from a searcher’s choice of search queries. In the first experiment, participants rated the left-right leaning of 48 queries (search strings), 6 for each of 8 topics (abortion, benefits, climate change, sex (...) equality, immigration, nuclear family, Islam, and taxation). An independent sample of participants were then asked to select one of these queries for each of the 8 topics. With the exception of the topic of Islam, participants were significantly more likely to select a query corresponding to their own political leaning, compared to other queries, explaining between 12% and 39% of the variance. A second experiment investigated the effect of the political leaning of the same queries on the overall political leaning of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) in Google Search. The top six results of each SERP were rated collectively by a third group of participants, explaining 36.3% of the variance across all 48 search terms (p < .00001). That is, (1) participants in our experiments tended to select own-side search queries, and (2) using those queries tended to yield own-side search results when using the Google search engine. Our results are consistent with the notion of a self-imposed filter bubble in which query selection plays a salient role. (shrink)

What is called ``orthodox'' quantum mechanics, as presented in standard foundational discussions, relies on two substantive assumptions --- the projection postulate and the eigenvalue-eigenvector link --- that do not in fact play any part in practical applications of quantum mechanics. I argue for this conclusion on a number of grounds, but primarily on the grounds that the projection postulate fails correctly to account for repeated, continuous and unsharp measurements and that the eigenvalue-eigenvector link implies that virtually all interesting properties are (...) maximally indefinite pretty much always. I present an alternative way of conceptualising quantum mechanics that does a better job of representing quantum mechanics as it is actually used, and in particular that eliminates use of either the projection postulate or the eigenvalue-eigenvector link, and I reformulate the measurement problem within this new presentation of orthodoxy. (shrink)

Some claim that Composition as Identity (CI) entails Mereological Essentialism (ME). If this is right, then we have an effective modus tollens against CI: ME is clearly false, so CI is, too. Rather than deny the conditional, I will argue that a CI theorist should embrace ME. I endorse a theory of modal parts such that ordinary objects are spatially, temporally, and modally extended. Accepting modal parts is certainly beneficial to CI theorists, but it also provides elegant solutions to the (...) traditional puzzles of constitution, making it a competitive move in its own right. (shrink)

A lump theorist claims that ordinary objects are spread out across possible worlds, much like many of us think that tables are spread out across space. We are not wholly located in any one particular world, the lump theorist claims, just as we are not wholly spatially located where one’s hand is. We are modally spread out, a trans-world mereological sum of world-bound parts. We are lump sums of modal parts. And so are all other ordinary objects. In this paper, (...) I explore lump theory and investigate five arguments against it. These arguments may be the primary reasons why lump theory has not been widely accepted––or extensively explored––until now. I maintain that these arguments can be answered, and moreover, that accepting lump theory has distinct advantages, making it a competitive view in its own right. (shrink)