The rise of conspiracy culture and the growing influence of conspiracy theories have attracted the attention of scholars from a range of fields. In recent years, Daniel Jolley, Asbjørn Dyrendal, and others have noted the prevalence of conspiracy theories amongst adolescent schoolchildren in Scandinavia and the UK. This article draws on Paulo Freire’s concept of the ‘banking model’ of education to make the case against a ‘debunking’ approach to anticonspiracist education. It argues that conspiracism should be understood as a feature (...) of our culture and as such it should be interrogated rather than dismissed by educators who are engaged in the process of educating for democracy. (shrink)

Among the virtues of relationist approaches to Frege’s puzzle is that they put us in a position to outline structural features of the puzzle that were only implicit in earlier work. In particular, they allow us to frame questions about the relation between the explanatory roles of sense and sameness of sense. In this paper, I distinguish a number of positions about that relation which have not been clearly distinguished. This has a few pay-offs. It allows us to shed light (...) on recent controversies about the ‘essential indexical’, and it also allows us to see what’s at stake between relationists and their opponents. When we see what’s at stake, we can see that we have reason to adopt an account of cognitive significance that incorporates elements of both relationist and Fregean approaches. (shrink)

David Malament argued that Hartry Field's nominalisation program is unlikely to be able to deal with non-space-time theories such as phase-space theories. We give a specific example of such a phase-space theory and argue that this presentation of the theory delivers explanations that are not available in the classical presentation of the theory. This suggests that even if phase-space theories can be nominalised, the resulting theory will not have the explanatory power of the original. Phase-space theories thus raise problems for (...) nominalists that go beyond Malament's initial concerns. Thanks to Mark Steiner, Jens Christian Bjerring, Ben Fraser, John Mathewson, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Abstract: Proponents of the this-universe objection to fine-tuning arguments for a multiverse claim that while the multiverse hypothesis raises the probability that some universe is fine-tuned for life, it fails to raise the probability that this one is. Because that is so, they further argue, those who take the fine-tuning of this universe as evidence for the multiverse hypothesis are guilty of a probabilistic fallacy. I argue that a proper evaluation of the this-universe objection requires the development of a general, (...) formal framework for reasoning probabilistically with evidence statements expressed using indexical terms (such as the statement This universe is fine-tuned). I proceed to develop such a framework and then to apply it to the this-universe objection. While my primary aim is to defend the this-universe objection from recent rebuttals, a secondary aim is to exhibit the utility of the framework itself, which has the potential for wider application. (shrink)

Four experiments investigated how people judge the plausibility of category-based arguments, focusing on the diversity effect, in which arguments with diverse premise categories are considered particularly strong. In Experiment 1 we show that priming people as to the nature of the blank property determines whether sensitivity to diversity is observed. In Experiment 2 we find that people's hypotheses about the nature of the blank property predict judgements of argument strength. In Experiment 3 we examine the effect of our priming methodology (...) on people's tendency to bring knowledge about causality or similarity to bear when evaluating arguments, and in Experiment 4 we show that whether people's hypotheses about the nature of the blank property were causal predicted ratings of argument strength. Together these results suggest that diversity effects occur because diverse premises lead people to bring general features of the premise categories to mind. Although our findings are broadly consistent with Bayesian and Relevance-based approaches to category-based inductive reasoning, neither approach captures all of our findings. (shrink)

A main thread of the debate over mathematical realism has come down to whether mathematics does explanatory work of its own in some of our best scientific explanations of empirical facts. Realists argue that it does; anti-realists argue that it doesn't. Part of this debate depends on how mathematics might be able to do explanatory work in an explanation. Everyone agrees that it's not enough that there merely be some mathematics in the explanation. Anti-realists claim there is nothing mathematics can (...) do to make an explanation mathematical ; realists think something can be done, but they are not clear about what that something is. I argue that many of the examples of mathematical explanations of empirical facts in the literature can be accounted for in terms of Jackson and Pettit's [1990] notion of program explanation, and that mathematical realists can use the notion of program explanation to support their realism. This is exactly what has happened in a recent thread of the debate over moral realism. I explain how the two debates are analogous and how moves that have been made in the moral realism debate can be made in the mathematical realism debate. However, I conclude that one can be a mathematical realist without having to be a moral realist. (shrink)

Proponents of the this-universe objection to fine-tuning arguments for a multiverse claim that while the multiverse hypothesis raises the probability that some universe is fine-tuned for life, it fails to raise the probability that this one is. Because that is so, they further argue, those who take the fine-tuning of this universe as evidence for a multiverse are guilty of a probabilistic fallacy. Some opponents of the this-universe objection contend that it turns on contentious assumptions regarding the essential properties of (...) universes and agents. In particular, it is alleged to turn on the assumption that universes fail to have their nomic properties essentially as well as on the assumption that we could not have existed in other universes. I argue by contrast that the this-universe objection does not depend on these assumptions. (shrink)

Responses to the pernicious influences of mainstream pornography on its viewers fall into two main sorts: regulation and education. Pornography has long been a core topic in analytic feminist philosophy, but it has largely focused on issues around regulation, in particular with trying to undermine arguments against regulation on the grounds that pornography should count as protected speech. Here I instead look at some ways that philosophy can contribute to an education-based approach, in particular to what has been called an (...) ‘education to address pornography's influence’. I first argue that philosophical considerations can help to motivate this kind of overall approach to countering pornography's influence, but the main contribution of the paper is to contend that such considerations can also contribute to shaping the kind of content and messaging that such an education should have. I discuss two related issues, focusing on pornographic films. The first concerns the status of pornographic films as fiction; it is misleading and unhelpful to tell teenagers and young adults that pornography is ‘just fiction’, as is sometimes proposed, but it is not clear what more effective and accurate message might be offered instead. The second concerns the ways that pornographic films often present the people (and in particular the women) who perform in them as ideals or archetypes when it comes to what kinds of sexual acts people typically choose and enjoy, which I argue is a neglected form of objectification. I briefly evaluate some suggestive examples of proposed messaging, targeted at teens and young adults. (shrink)

Predicativism about names—the view that names are metalinguistic predicates—has yet to confront a foundational issue: how are names represented in the lexicon? I provide a positive characterization of the structure of the lexicon from the point of view Predicativism. I proceed to raise a problem for Predicativism on the basis of that characterization, focusing on cases in which individuals have names which are spelled the same way but pronounced differently. Finally, I introduce two potential strategies for solving the problem, and (...) offer reasons not to be optimistic about either. (shrink)

Some have argued that chance and determinism are compatible in order to account for the objectivity of probabilities in theories that are compatible with determinism, like Classical Statistical Mechanics (CSM) and Evolutionary Theory (ET). Contrarily, some have argued that chance and determinism are incompatible, and so such probabilities are subjective. In this paper, I argue that both of these positions are unsatisfactory. I argue that the probabilities of theories like CSM and ET are not chances, but also that they are (...) not subjective probabilities either. Rather, they are a third type of probability, which I call counterfactual probability. The main distinguishing feature of counterfactual-probability is the role it plays in conveying important counterfactual information in explanations. This distinguishes counterfactual probability from chance as a second concept of objective probability. (shrink)

Crispin Wright has proposed that one has entitlements to accept certain propositions that play a foundational role within one’s body of belief. Such an entitlement is a kind of warrant that does not require the possessor to have acquired evidence speaking in favor of the proposition in question. The proposal allows Wright to concede much of the force of the most powerful arguments for scepticism, while avoiding the truly sceptical conclusion that one lacks warrant for most of one’s beliefs. Here (...) I will argue that Wright has underestimated a problem for his proposal, the alchemy problem, which is that it seems to make room for the easy conversion of mere entitlement to accept a proposition into justification to believe it. I question the adequacy of Wright’s own response to this worry, and instead explore the idea that epistemic alchemy, properly understood, is not epistemically objectionable. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice has become one of the most widely discussed topics in social epistemology, and has revived interest in issues in the intersections between epistemology and ethics and political philosophy. Much of the impetus for this recent explosion of interest has been the influential work of Miranda Fricker; however, Fricker’s framework and terminology for discussing the phenomena and the kinds of examples she’s interested in has not always been cleanly separated from the phenomena themselves. This chapter examines what’s distinctive of (...) Fricker’s treatment of the phenomena she labels epistemic injustice, focusing on the two varieties that her discussion highlights, testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Once the distinctive elements of Fricker’s treatment are clearer, we will be better placed to assess which of them are plausible and which implausible, and to consider alternative theoretical frameworks for thinking about the phenomena, such as that developed by Kristie Dotson. (shrink)

in the treatise, hume claims to identify many “fictions of the imagination” among both “vulgar” and philosophical beliefs. To name just a few, these include the fiction of one aggregate composed of many parts,1 the fiction of a material object’s identity through change, and the fiction of a human mind’s identity through change and interruption in its existence. Hume claims that these fictions and others like them are somehow defective: in his words, they are “improper,” “inexact,” or not “strict”. I (...) will argue that this claim conflicts with other commitments.. (shrink)

Interest in John Maynard Keynes has increased significantly over the past decade with the publication of his collected writings, increased access to his unpublished papers, and the resulting explosion of secondary literature. Responding to this renewed attention, this collection brings together economists and historians of economics with scholars from philosophy and other related fields to reconsider Keynes’s work and its legacy. Several of these essays look at Keynes not simply as an economist, but more broadly as a philosopher. Special attention (...) is directed to his views on aesthetics and moral philosophy, as well as his contributions as a probability theorist. The development of the Keynesian heritage is also considered: How did Keynesian ideas become assimilated and domesticated into the mainstream of economic thought—to the point of becoming dominant as the orthodoxy of the economics profession? What was the relationship between postwar British conservatives, Keynes’s work, and Britain’s relative economic decline? The archivist in charge of Keynes’s papers provides an additional vantage point on Keynes’s working methods and the broad range of scholars interested in his writings. Finally, all of the essays are followed by a responder’s comments, thus providing an exchange of viewpoints. _Contributors. _A. W. Coats, Allin F. Cottrell, Jacqueline Cox, William Darity, John Davis, Robert Dimand, Peter Groenewegen, Kevin Hoover, Henry E. Kyburg Jr., David Laidler, Michael S. Lawlor, Greg Lilly, D. E. Moggridge, R. M. O’Donnell, Kerry Pearce, Jochen Runde, Teddy Seidenfeld, J. D. Tomlinson. (shrink)

Advance care planning refers to the process of determining how one wants to be cared for in the event that one is no longer competent to make one's own medical decisions. Some have argued that advance care plans often fail to be normatively binding on caretakers because those plans do not reflect the interests of patients once they enter an incompetent state. In this article, we argue that when the core medical ethical principles of respect for patient autonomy, honest and (...) adequate disclosure of information, institutional transparency, and concern for patient welfare are upheld, a policy that would allow for the disregard of advance care plans is self-defeating. This is because when the four principles are upheld, a patient's willingness to undergo treatment depends critically on the willingness of her caretakers to honor the wishes she has outlined in her advance care plan. A patient who fears that her caretakers will not honor her wishes may choose to avoid medical care so as to limit the influence of her caretakers in the future, which may lead to worse medical outcomes than if she had undergone care. In order to avoid worse medical outcomes and uphold the four core principles, caregivers who are concerned about the future welfare of their patients should focus on improving advance care planning and commit to honoring their patients’ advance care plans. (shrink)

This paper criticises Miranda Fricker's account of the primary harm of testimonial injustice as a kind of epistemic objectification, where the latter is understood on the model provided by Martha Nussbaum's influential analysis of sexual objectification and where it is taken to involve the denial of someone's epistemic agency. I examine the existing objections to Fricker's account of the primary harm, criticising some while accepting the force of others, and I argue that one of Fricker's own central examples of testimonial (...) injustice in fact offers the basis of a particularly telling objection. While Fricker's other critics have mostly concluded that we need to look at alternative theoretical resources to offer an account of the primary harm of testimonial injustice, I aim to show that this is premature; both Fricker and her critics have underestimated the resources provided by Nussbaum's analysis of objectification when offering an account of the primary harm, and something very much in the spirit of Fricker's account survives the objections. (shrink)

The present commentary addresses two issues arising from Memmert’s paper. First, can the ‘misdirection’ and ‘inattentional blindness’ paradigms provide important insights into the relationship between ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ attentional processes? Second, what are the most fruitful directions for research that seeks to combine these attentional paradigms in ecologically valid settings? We argue that although Memmert’s paper postulates several important differences between the misdirection and inattentional blindness paradigms, it may not emphasise sufficiently strongly the significant insights into attention that have been (...) yielded by the former approach. To illustrate, we discuss the utility of the misdirection paradigm in providing an ecologically valid method to investigate the relationship between overt and covert attentional processes. Such naturalistic methods are required to ensure optimal integration of the misdirection and inattentional blindness paradigms within a general theory of attention. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has proposed that we should give a ‘knowledge first’ twist to David Lewis’s account of content, maintaining that for P to be the content of one’s belief is for P to be the content that would be attributed by an idealized interpreter working under certain constraints, and that the fundamental constraint on interpretation is a principle of knowledge maximization. According to this principle, an interpretation is correct to the extent that it maximizes the number of knowledgeable judgments the (...) subject comes out as making. Here I will argue against knowledge maximization and two fallback positions suggested by Williamson’s discussion. Williamson intends the principle of knowledge maximization to form the basis of an argument against a certain sort of skepticism about judgment. In the final section I argue that the kind of general response to judgment skepticism envisaged by Williamson is neither desirable nor necessary. (shrink)

When scientists act unethically, their actions can cause harm to participants, undermine knowledge creation, and discredit the scientific community. Responsible Conduct of Research training i...

In this paper we argue that it is often adaptive to use one's background beliefs when interpreting information that, from a normative point of view, is incomplete. In both of the experiments reported here participants were presented with an item possessing two features and were asked to judge, in the light of some evidence concerning the features, to which of two categories it was more likely that the item belonged. It was found that when participants received evidence relevant to just (...) one of these hypothesised categories they used their background beliefs to interpret this information. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, participants behaved in a broadly Bayesian manner when the evidence they received constituted a completed likelihood ratio. We discuss the circumstances under which participants, when making their judgements, consider the alternative hypothesis. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for an understanding of hypothesis testing, belief revision, and categorisation. (shrink)

Proponents of the predicate view of names explain the reference of an occurrence of a name N by invoking the property of bearing N. They avoid the charge that this view involves a vicious circularity by claiming that bearing N is not itself to be understood in terms of the reference of actual or possible occurrences of N. I argue that this approach is fundamentally mistaken. The phenomenon of ‘reference transfer’ shows that an individual can come to bear a name (...) in virtue of the referential practices of a group of speakers. I develop a picture of name-bearing which captures this fact by treating the extension of name as a function of the way that extension is represented in the presuppositions of groups of speakers. I show that though there is a form of circularity inherent in this approach, it is not vicious circularity. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas is one the great figures of the Christian church, and his ideas continue to have a powerful effect on theologians and contemporary thinkers from very different backgrounds and traditions. In Discovering Aquinas Aidan Nichols offers a lively and authoritative introduction to the life, thought, and ongoing influence of this singular churchman. After a lengthy period of declining interest in Aquinas, we are now witnessing a Thomistic renaissance, including a renewed appreciation for the way his work brings together (...) philosophy, theology, spirituality, revelation, and ethics. After first introducing the compelling facts of Aquinas's life in relation to his own time, Nichols explores the major facets of Aquinas's thought, showing not only its historical importance but also why so many today now see it as a vital partner in current debates about the future of Christianity. (shrink)

It is commonly argued that the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for life favors both a design hypothesis as well as a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis. The claim that the fine-tuning of this universe supports a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis has been forcefully challenged however by Ian Hacking and Roger White. In this paper we take this challenge even further by arguing that if it succeeds, then not only does the fine-tuning of this universe fail to support a multiverse hypothesis, but (...) it tends to favor a single-universe hypothesis instead. (shrink)

Antibiotic resistance presents a classic example of the “tragedy of the commons.” In this eponymous tragedy, the commons — shared, public access lands — are overgrazed because farmers can send their livestock onto the land at a zero price. The “tragedy” occurs because overgrazing destroys the land and reduces its ability to provide fodder. The application to antibiotics is obvious: the use of antibiotics creates selection pressure leading to increased proportions of resistant bacteria in the patient and the environment. The (...) increase in frequency of resistant organisms diminishes the effectiveness of antibiotics in treating future infections; thus, the long-term value of the antimicrobial resource is reduced. (shrink)

This paper re-examines the debate between those who, with Miranda Fricker, diagnose the primary, non-contingent harm of testimonial injustice as a kind of epistemic objectification and those who contend it is better thought of as a kind of epistemic othering. Defenders of the othering account of the primary harm have often argued for it by presenting cases of testimonial injustice in which the testifier’s epistemic agency is affirmed rather than denied, even while their credibility is unjustly impugned. In previous work, (...) I have instead argued that such cases suggest that we need to enrich our conception of epistemic objectification in ways encouraged by Martha Nussbaum’s cluster analysis of objectification. Here I continue to make the case for this approach, and I consider the othering account in more detail. I focus in particular on Gaile Pohlhaus Jr.’s arguments for a version of the othering account in terms of the notion of derivatization, which turns on the idea that only such an account can enable us to properly understand the harms of testimonial injustice, in particular the ways in which it interferes with a subject’s epistemic agency and autonomy, and I’ll argue that such arguments should not sway us. Finally, I’ll further support my contention that it is illuminating and helpful to think of the primary harm of testimonial injustice in terms of epistemic objectification, though I will concede that the notion of epistemic othering may offer further helpful resources for understanding how subjects can be harmed by testimonial injustice. (shrink)

According to a tradition reaching back to Plato, questions about the nature of knowledge are to be answered by offering an analysis in terms of truth, belief, justification, and other factors presumed to be in some sense more basic than knowledge itself. In light of the apparent failure of this approach, knowledge first philosophy instead takes knowledge as the starting point in epistemology and related areas of the philosophies of language and mind. Knowledge cannot be analyzed in the traditional sense, (...) but this does not make it mysterious or unimportant. On the contrary, we are freed to use our grasp of what knowledge is to elucidate the nature of belief, justification, evidence, the speech act of assertion, and the demands on action and practical reasoning, and to treat knowledge as a purely mental state in its own right. Knowledge First? offers the first overview and critical evaluation of knowledge first philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

I offer an overview of Alessandra Tanesini’s discussion of how best to educate for intellectual virtue in the final chapter of her book The Mismeasure of the Self. I identify the unifying theme behind most of her objections to existing approaches, namely that they fail to instil the proper motivations for intellectual virtue, and I raise an issue about whether Tanesini’s preferred approach, self-affirmation, avoids this worry. I argue that it is not clear that it does; in particular, it’s left (...) unclear how self-affirmative interventions are meant to encourage a person’s evaluations of their own intellectual achievements and capacities to be motivated by accuracy or knowledge, as Tanesini requires them to be if they are to be intellectually virtuous rather than vicious. (shrink)

This essay gives a new interpretation of Hume's second thoughts about minds in the Appendix, based on a new interpretation of his view of composition. In Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume argued that, as far as we can conceive it, a mind is a whole composed by all its perceptions. But—this essay argues—he also held that several perceptions form a whole only if the mind to which they belong supplies a “connexion” among them. In order to do so, it (...) must contain a further perception or perceptions. But when the perceptions in question are all of those belonging to a given mind—as in the section “Of personal identity” and the Appendix—there cannot be a further perception in that mind, and so those perceptions do not form a whole. Hence, Hume's views were inconsistent. This essay argues that, unlike most others, this interpretation explains his retreat to skepticism in the Appendix. (shrink)

Proponents of the no-miracles argument contend that scientific realism is “the only philosophy that doesn’t make the success of science a miracle.” Bas van Fraassen argued, however, that the success of our best theories can be explained in Darwinian terms—by the fact they are survivors of a winnowing process in which unsuccessful theories are rejected. Critics of this selectionist explanation complain that while it may account for the fact we have chosen successful theories, it does not explain why any particular (...) one of those theories succeeds. Against this I defend the claim that if selectionists manage to account for the former, they have no burden to account for the latter; the success of any particular one of our best theories might as well be an extraordinary coincidence. I refer to this enhanced selectionist reply as “coincidentalism” and argue that it is a serious but underappreciated response to the no-miracles argument. More generally, I argue the considerations raised in favor of this response show that versions of the no-miracles argument focusing on the success of particular theories are misguided. (shrink)

The orthodox position in epistemology, for both externalists and internalists, is that a subject in a ‘bad case’—a sceptical scenario—is so epistemically badly off that they cannot know how badly off they are. Ofra Magidor contends that externalists should break ranks on this question, and that doing so is liberating when it comes time to confront a number of central issues in epistemology, including scepticism and the new evil demon problem for process reliabilism. In this reply, I will question whether (...) Magidor’s argument should persuade externalists, whether it really engages with the orthodox view on what subjects in bad cases can know, and whether the dispute is, as Magidor insists, a significant one for contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

A theme running through Katherine Hawley’s recent works on trust and trustworthiness is that thinking about the relations between these and Miranda Fricker’s notion of testimonial injustice offers a perspective from which we can see several limitations of Fricker’s own account of testimonial injustice. This paper clarifies the aspects of Fricker’s account that Hawley’s criticisms target, focusing on her objections to Fricker’s proposal that its primary harm involves a kind of epistemic objectification and her characterization of testimonial injustice in terms (...) of prejudicial credibility deficits. I also offer an assessment of the potency of Hawley’s objections, concluding that they do point to genuine limitations of Fricker’s account, but that we can appreciate Hawley’s points without adopting her trust-centric approach to testimonial injustice, or her specific commitment-based accounts of trust and trustworthiness. However, in the last section I examine the positive picture of testimonial injustice that emerges from Hawley’s discussion of unequally distributed obstacles to both being trustworthy and maintaining a reputation for trustworthy testimony in her recent book How To Be Trustworthy, considering how this picture contrasts with Fricker’s account and where it might have important affinities with other accounts in the literature. (shrink)

This article explains Hume's conception of the imagination and its relations to our other faculties of thought, highlighting the continuities and discontinuities between his views and those of his Early Modern predecessors. It then presents some of the basic functions that Hume thinks the imagination performs, and surveys some highlights of his science of man, showing how he uses the imagination’s basic functions to explain several important mental phenomena; examines “fictions of the imagination,” which have an important place in his (...) science of man; examines his view that whatever we can clearly imagine is possible; and discusses the relationship between Hume’s theory of the imagination and his skepticism. (shrink)

This paper is based on a piano piece commissioned by the British and Ireland School of Feminist Theology for its anniversary conference. It interrogates the situations in which the sections of the piece were created through the lens of conceptions of failure. It explores religious experience and identity in mental health contexts and the development of groups associated with Feminist Theology over the past 20 years. It examines the repression of the feminine, the place of anger in religion and therapy (...) and its relation to a theology of the crucifixion and the processes of forgiveness. It integrates poetry into its text and sets out the role of the arts in process theology. (shrink)

Scientific integrity cannot be adequately ensured by appeals to the ethical principles of individual researchers. Research fraud has become a public scandal, exacerbated by our inability accurately to judge its extent. Current reliance on peer review of articles ready for publication as the sole means to control the quality and integrity of the majority of research has been shown to be inadequate, partly because faults in the research process may be concealed and partly because anonymous peer review is itself imperfect. (...) Consequently, the scientific literature is mixed, with the reader unable always to distinguish the good articles from the bad. Scientific research is subject to market forces that will always provide a motivation for a range of misdemeanours. This has led to a ‘market for lemons’. Regulations, and sanctions against miscreants, need to be modelled on those historically found necessary to limit financial fraud. Practical and effective systems of process control and audit have already been devised to ensure the integrity of clinical and pre-clinical research. These should be adapted for use in a much wider range of research activities. (shrink)

Scientific integrity cannot be adequately ensured by appeals to the ethical principles of individual researchers. Research fraud has become a public scandal, exacerbated by our inability accurately to judge its extent. Current reliance on peer review of articles ready for publication as the sole means to control the quality and integrity of the majority of research has been shown to be inadequate, partly because faults in the research process may be concealed and partly because anonymous peer review is itself imperfect. (...) Consequently, the scientific literature is mixed, with the reader unable always to distinguish the good articles from the bad. Scientific research is subject to market forces that will always provide a motivation for a range of misdemeanours. This has led to a ‘market for lemons’. Regulations, and sanctions against miscreants, need to be modelled on those historically found necessary to limit financial fraud. Practical and effective systems of process control and audit have already been devised to ensure the integrity of clinical and pre-clinical research. These should be adapted for use in a much wider range of research activities. (shrink)

In the biomedical and behavioral sciences, it is widely recognized that researchers conducting studies involving human participants must respect the autonomy of research subjects. There is significant debate in the clinical research ethics and bioethics literatures about what it means for an individual to be autonomous. According to proponents of the Liberal Conception of Autonomy, an autonomous person is an agent who has interests and opinions and the capacity to deliberate about them. In contrast, proponents of the Relational Conception of (...) Autonomy argue that because humans are social creatures, autonomy is a relational concept and ought to be recognized as such by medical professionals. In this article, I argue that the LCA/RCA debate is flawed, and that the notion of freedom as non-domination, rather than autonomy, ought to be adopted for biomedical research ethics policies regarding informed consent and research agenda-setting. I then argue that this view of freedom should also be adopted... (shrink)