The primary objective was to review pediatric ethics consultations at a large academic health center over a nine year period, assessing demographics, ethical issues, and consultant intervention. The secondary objective was to describe the evolution of PECs at our institution. This was a retrospective review of Consultation Summary Sheets compiled for PECs at our Academic Health Center between January 2008 and April 2017. There were 165 PECs reviewed during the study period. Most consult requests came from the inpatient setting, with (...) the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units being the highest utilizers. Consultation utilization increased over the study period. The most common patient age was less than one year. Physicians were most likely to request consultation. Patient Best Interest, Withholding/Withdrawing of Life Sustaining Therapy, and Provider Moral Distress were ethical issues most commonly identified by the consultants. Making recommendations was the most common consultant intervention. The ethics consultation process evolved over time from informal provider discussions, to a hospital infant care review committee, to a pediatric only consultation service, to a combined adult/pediatric consultation service, with variable levels of salary support for consultants. Ethics consultation requests are growing at our institution. Similarities in identified ethical issues exist between our findings and existing literature, however meaningful comparisons remains elusive secondary to variability in approaches to investigation and reporting. A combined paid/volunteer/trainee ethics consultation service model appears sustainable and real time ethics consultation is feasible using this approach. (shrink)

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President, and the conservative revolution emerged. Who provoked this revolution? Author Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question, as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a German Jewish emigre and scholar, who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement. Among his disciples are Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

As pressures on the service economy from globalisation increase, new techniques may be appropriate for designing service systems. This paper examines the tradition of service quality and argues that its unique characteristics, such as the joint production of offerings by operators and customers, could benefit from the techniques of human factors. The interaction between human factors and quality is reviewed and four issues are extracted that should be directly applicable to service encounters. These are interface design, the understanding of error (...) causation, a design for operator well-being and human/automation function allocation. A framework is proposed for considering technology explicitly in the design of service systems. (shrink)

In der Geschichte der Philosophie gibt es nur wenige Namen, mit denen sich so viel Ungewohnliches, aber auch Ungereimtes, ja Paradoxes verbindet wie mit dem Namen Wittgenstein. Fur den Mann auf der StraSSe meist ein ganzlich Unbekannter, ist Wittgenstein fur viele Fachleute der Philosoph schlechthin. ER zahlt zu den meistzitierten Denkern des 20. JAhrhunderts, obwohl er in seinem Leben nur einige Dutzend Seiten veroffentlicht hat: er wurde seit seinem Tode zum Star einer neuen philosophischen Tradition, wo gerade er uns doch (...) von der traditionellen Philosophie befreien wollte. EIne vollstandige Bibliographie der Wittgenstein-Literatur wurde mehrere tausend Titel umfassen, und standig werden neue Abhandlungen uber Wittgenstein und seine Philosophie veroffentlicht. (shrink)

Ogni tentativo di ripensare le nostre categorie politiche deve muovere dalla consapevolezza che della distinzione classica fra zoé e bios, tra vita naturale ed esistenza politica (o tra l'uomo come semplice vivente e l'uomo come soggetto politico), non ne sappiamo piú nulla. Nel diritto romano arcaico homo sacer era un uomo che chiunque poteva uccidere senza commettere omicidio e che non doveva però essere messo a morte nelle forme prescritte dal rito. È la vita uccidibile e insacrificabile dell' 'uomo sacro' (...) a fornire qui la chiave per una rilettura critica della nostra tradizione politica. Quando la vita diventa la posta in gioco della politica e questa si trasforma in biopolitica, tutte le categorie fondamentali della nostra riflessione, dai diritti dell'uomo alla democrazia alla cittadinanza, entrano in un processo di svuotamento e di dislocazione il cui risultato sta oggi davanti ai nostri occhi. Seguendo il filo del rapporto costitutivo fra nuda vita e potere sovrano, da Aristotele ad Auschwitz, dall'Habeas corpus alle Dichiarazioni dei diritti, il libro di Agamben cerca di decifrare gli enigmi - prima di tutti il fascismo e il nazismo - che il nostro secolo ha proposto alla ragione storica. Fino a vedere, nel campo di concentramento, il paradigma biopolitico nascosto della modernità in cui città e casa sono diventate indiscernibili e la possibilità di distinguere tra il nostro corpo biologico e il nostro corpo politico ci è stata tolta una volta per tutte. (shrink)

Foreword by Oliver Sacks Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was already an established neuropsychologist when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. This book, his magnum opus and widely regarded as a modern classic in psychology and biology, grew out of his dissatisfaction with traditional natural science techniques for analyzing living beings. It offers a broad introduction to the sources and ranges of application of the "holistic" or "organismic" research program that has since become a standard part (...) of biological thought. Goldstein was especially concerned with the breakdown of organization and the failure of central controls that take place in catastrophic responses to situations such as physical or mental illness. But he was equally attuned to the amazing powers of the organism to readjust to such catastrophic losses, if only by withdrawal to a more limited range that it could manage by a redistribution of its reduced energies, thus reclaiming as much wholeness as new circumstances allowed. Goldstein's theses in The Organism have had an important impact on philosophical and psychological thought throughout the twentieth century, as evidenced in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Ernst Cassirer, and Ludwig Binswanger. (shrink)

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions (...) of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. (shrink)

Despite the recent backlash against epistemic consequentialism, an explicit systematic alternative has yet to emerge. This paper articulates and defends a novel alternative, Epistemic Kantianism, which rests on a requirement of respect for the truth. §1 tackles some preliminaries concerning the proper formulation of the epistemic consequentialism / non-consequentialism divide, explains where Epistemic Kantianism falls in the dialectical landscape, and shows how it can capture what seems attractive about epistemic consequentialism while yielding predictions that are harder for the latter to (...) secure in a principled way. §2 presents Epistemic Kantianism. §3 argues that it is uniquely poised to satisfy the desiderata set out in §1 on an ideal theory of epistemic justification. §4 gives three further arguments, suggesting that it (i) best explains the objective normative significance of the subject's perspective in epistemology, (ii) follows from the kind of axiology needed to solve the swamping problem together with modest assumptions about the relation between the evaluative and the deontic, and (iii) illuminates certain asymmetries in epistemic value and obligation. §5 takes stock and reassesses the score in the debate. (shrink)

It is widely recognised that mainstream economics has failed to translate micro consistently into macro economics and to provide endogenous explanations for the continual changes in the economic system. Since the early 1980s, a growing number of economists have been trying to provide answers to these two key questions by applying an evolutionary approach. This new departure has yielded a rich literature with enormous variety, but the unifying principles connecting the various ideas and views presented are, as yet, not apparent. (...) This 2005 volume brings together fifteen original articles from scholars - each of whom has made a significant contribution to the field - in their common effort to reconstruct economics as an evolutionary science. Using meso economics as an analytical entity to bridge micro and macro economics as well as static and dynamic realms, a unified economic theory emerges. (shrink)

The only way to a peaceful and just world is, rejecting old and narrow national attitudes, nihilism and anarchy, to improve the institutions we already have.

First English translation of revolutionary paper that established that even in elementary parts of arithmetic, there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved within the system. Introduction by R. B. Braithwaite.

According to a view I’ll call Epistemic Normativism, knowledge is normative in the same sense in which paradigmatically normative properties like justification are normative. This paper argues against EN in two stages and defends a positive non-normativist alternative. After clarifying the target in §1, I consider in §2 some arguments for EN from the premise that knowledge entails justification. I first raise some worries about inferring constitution from entailment. I then rehearse the reasons why some epistemologists reject the Entailment Thesis (...) and argue that a non-normativist picture provides the best explanation of all the intuitions surrounding this thesis, favorable and unfavorable. On this picture, human knowledge is a structured non-normative complex that has as one of its parts a justification-making property, analogous in role to good-making properties like pleasurableness. After giving three arguments against EN in §3 and answering an objection in §4, I turn in §5 to further develop the positive view sketched in §2. In §6, I take stock and conclude. (shrink)

This paper is an opinionated guide to the literature on normative epistemic reasons. After making some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of normative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states, and concluding that they are not mental states. In §3, I examine the distinction between normative epistemic reasons there are and normative epistemic reasons we possess. I offer a novel account of this distinction and argue that we (...) in fact ought to acknowledge a threefold distinction between objective, possessed, and apparent normative epistemic reasons. In §4, I discuss the question of which normative reasons for doxastic attitudes are the epistemic ones, evaluating reasons against a simple evidentialist answer. Finally, in §5, I look at the role of reasons in epistemology, considering challenges to viewing reasons as the building blocks of epistemic normativity and maintaining that the challenges recommend a novel bi-level epistemology rather than a marginalization of reasons in epistemology. (shrink)

Da gegenwärtig kein allgemeinverbindlicher Begriff des ‚Neukantianismus‘ oder gar der ‚Transzendentalphilosophie‘ zur Verfügung steht und somit unter heutigen Bedingungen nicht aufs Geratewohl eine Geschichte der transzendentalsystematischen Bemühungen des 20. Jahrhunderts verfaßt werden kann, lag es nahe, sich diesem Thema anhand einer Analyse der Diskussionen zu nähern, in denen sich die sogenannte Selbstauflösung des Neukantianismus dokumentiert. Im Zuge dieser Annäherung war insbesondere an Siegfried Marcks zweibändiges Werk über DIE DIALEKTIK IN DER PHILOSOPHIE DER GEGENWART (Tübingen 1929/31) anzuknüpfen, das die transzendentalphilosophische Diskussion (...) der 20er Jahre unter dem Aspekt einer „kritischen Dialektik“ zusammenfaßt; einer kritischen Dialektik, die sich aufgrund der Ablehnung der neukantianischen „Konstruktion eines idealen Subjekts“ und der darum nunmehr verstärkten Einsicht in die „Spannung zwischen dem existierenden Subjekte und dem Geltungsbereich“ ausgeformt habe und als das verbindende Motiv in „Jonas Cohns Theorie der Dialektik, R. Höngswalds Denkpsychologie, Br. Bauchs Ideenlehre, P. Natorps Lehre vom Grenzdenken, N. Hartmanns Aporetik, E. Cassirers philosophische[r] ‚Anthropologie‘, Max Adlers neukantische[m] Marxismus“ anzusehen sei (S. Marck [1929], S. III). Wie allein schon der Hinweis auf „N[icolai] Hartmanns Aporetik“ zeigt, geht diese,Hegel-Renaissance in der deutschen Philosophie‘ (H. Levy) auch Hand in Hand mit einer Ontologisierung der Transzendentalphilosophie. Dieser Transzendentalontologie, die sich - teils in dialektischem Einverständnis mit und teils in antidialektischem Gegensatz zur ‚Hegel-Renaissance‘ - mit einer nach den unterschiedlichsten Richtungen hin wirksamen ‚Leibniz-Renaissance‘ verband, war im Titel der vorliegenden Untersuchung um so mehr Rechnung zu tragen, als das ontologische Motiv (vorallem unter dem Eindruck der Hartmannschen Neo-Ontologie und der Heideggerschen Existentialontologie) in den transzendentalsystematischen Arbeiten der Nachkriegszeit eindeutig in den Vordergrund tritt. Der Titel KRITISCHE DIALEKTIK UND TRANSZENDENTALONTOLOGIE steckt daher sowohl den inhaltlichen wie auch den zeitlichen Rahmen der Untersuchung ab: ihr Thema sind die post-neukantianischen Systembildungen, die in Auseinandersetzung mit den dominierenden Philosophemen der Zwischen- und Nachkriegszeit (der Neo-Ontologie und der Lebens- und Existenzphilosophie) am transzendentalen Ansatz und Systemanspruch festhielten, indem sie den überzeitlichen Geltungsanspruch der Idee und die innerzeitliche Existenz ‚dialektisch‘ oder ‚monadologisch‘ zu vermitteln suchten. Nachdem aus transzendentalsystematischer Sicht das Ringen um eben diese Vermittlungsproblematik ohnehin die gesamte abendländische Philosophiegeschichte ‚seit Parmenides und Platon‘ beherrscht, sagt diese Eingrenzung der Thematik allerdings mehr über das Selbstverständnis der Systemdenker aus, als sie zu deren philosophiegeschichtlicher Positionierung beiträgt. Man kommt daher dem Eigentümlichen der post-neukantianischen Systembildungen näher, wenn man – ihre Differenz zum Neukantianismus hervorhebend – betont, daß sie sich aufgrund der Ablehnung der neukantianischen „Konstruktion eines idealen Subjekts“ (S. Marck) dem Problem der ‚Konkretisierung der Transzendentalität‘ (Erich Heintel) oder einer ‚Philosophie der konkreten Subjektivität‘ (Hans Wagner) stellen. Da man die Phänomenologie Husserls und die Philosophische Anthropologie in gleicher Weise charakterisieren kann, muß diese Problemstellung in unserem Zusammenhang freilich nicht so sehr als Verabschiedung, sondern als Weiterführung neukantianischer Traditionen verstanden werden; da der Versuch einer Rekonstruktion der neukantianischen Theoriestränge, die sich gegenüber den lebensphilosophischen, ontologischen und positivistischen Zersetzungen des kritizistischen Ansatzes resistent erwiesen, zur Revision einiger gängiger Vorurteile bezüglich des Neukantianismus zwingt, wird im Zuge der einleitenden Analyse der sogenannten Selbstauflösung des Neukantianismus aber auch der Begriff ‚Neukantianismus‘ selbst in grundsätzlicher Weise zu bestimmen sein. Diese Begriffsbestimmung liefert das gesuchte Kriterium für die systematische Eingrenzung der Thematik und somit für die Auswahl der Repräsentanten der Kritischen Dialektik und Transzendentalontologie, deren philosophische Bemühungen in der Folge dokumentiert sind. Durchaus in Verbindung und Übereinstimmung mit diesen systematischen Erwägungen war für die nähere Auseinandersetzung mit Richard Hönigswald und Wolfgang Cramer, Bruno Bauch und Hans Wagner, sowie mit Robert Reininger und Erich Heintel, nicht zuletzt der Umstand maßgeblich, daß ihre Arbeiten eine für die Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts bemerkenswerte Kontinuität transzendentalphilosophischer Ansätze demonstrieren und dennoch keineswegs die Beachtung gefunden haben, die sie im Interesse einer lebendigen Aneignung und kritischen Weiterführung der Transzendentalphilosophie verdienen. Die vorliegende Arbeit versucht vorallem diese Kontinuität transzendentalphilosophischer bzw. neukantianischer Ansätze herauszustellen und die aus der individuellen Problemsicht der genannten Autoren resultierende produktive Weiterbildung dieser Ansätze zu dokumentieren, indem sie jeweils monographisch die einzelnen Denkwege verfolgt. (shrink)

Previously published: Princeton University Press, 1940.

A classical work on Gestalt psychology from a member of the "Berlin School." Discusses perception in relation to the environment, along with action, learning, memory, and socieity.

The paper is an opinionated tour of the literature on the reasons for which we hold beliefs and other doxastic attitudes, which I call ‘operative epistemic reasons’. After drawing some distinctions in §1, I begin in §2 by discussing the ontology of operative epistemic reasons, assessing arguments for and against the view that they are mental states. I recommend a pluralist non-mentalist view that takes seriously the variety of operative epistemic reasons ascriptions and allows these reasons to be both propositions (...) and truth-making facts. In §3, I turn to consider what it takes for a consideration to be an operative epistemic reason, examining three conditions – the representational, treating, and explanatory conditions – that have been proposed. I offer a novel view about the explanatory condition. In §4, I discuss the special case of inferential operative reasons and examine attempts to understand them in terms of rule-following, sketching a competence-based spinoff of dispositionalism. Finally, in §5, I consider whether there are non-inferential operative reasons, observing that one needn't countenance them to be a foundationalist but then developing a view about what they are and how they do and don't differ from inferential reasons. (shrink)

According to models of objectification, viewing someone as a body induces de-mentalization, stripping away their psychological traits. Here evidence is presented for an alternative account, where a body focus does not diminish the attribution of all mental capacities but, instead, leads perceivers to infer a different kind of mind. Drawing on the distinction in mind perception between agency and experience, it is found that focusing on someone's body reduces perceptions of agency but increases perceptions of experience. These effects were found (...) when comparing targets represented by both revealing versus nonrevealing pictures or by simply directing attention toward physical characteristics. The effect of a body focus on mind perception also influenced moral intuitions, with those represented as a body seen to be less morally responsible but more sensitive to harm. These effects suggest that a body focus does not cause objectification per se but, instead, leads to a redistribution of perceived mind. (shrink)

Diverse lines of evidence point to a basic human aversion to physically harming others. First, we demonstrate that unwillingness to endorse harm in a moral dilemma is predicted by individual differences in aversive reactivity, as indexed by peripheral vasoconstriction. Next, we tested the specific factors that elicit the aversive response to harm. Participants performed actions such as discharging a fake gun into the face of the experimenter, fully informed that the actions were pretend and harmless. These simulated harmful actions increased (...) peripheral vasoconstriction significantly more than did witnessing pretend harmful actions or to performing metabolically-matched non-harmful actions. This suggests that the aversion to harmful actions extends beyond empathic concern for victim harm. Together, these studies demonstrate a link between the body and moral decision making processes. (shrink)