Causal theories of action have for some time stumbled over so-called wayward causal chains, Gettier-like counter-examples in which the behavior is causally traceable to e.g., a desire/belief complex but the path from this intentional cause to behavior is so tortuous that intuition balks at calling the behavior action proper. Part of the difficulty is that such theories of action presuppose a Humean account of causality, with all its implied passivity.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S39-S41, March‐April 2022.

Del Giudice's examination of sex differences in reproductive strategy within an attachment context is well taken. Sex has been studied as behavior within romantic relationships, but attachment styles should also be reflected in strategic behavior within relationships that are sexual. This seems particularly true within adolescence, and sex differences may be better reflected as differences in correlation patterns of process variables than as main effects models.

Their nursing experience and/or training may lead students preparing for the nursing profession to have less moral distress and more favorable attitudes towards a hastened death compared with those preparing for other fields of study. To ascertain if this was true, 66 undergraduates (54 women, 9 men, 3 not stated) in southeastern USA completed measures of moral distress and attitudes towards hastening death. Unexpectedly, the results from nursing and non-nursing majors were not significantly different. All the present students reported moderate (...) moral distress and strong resistance to any efforts to hasten death but these factors were not significantly correlated. However, in the small sample of nurses in training, the results suggest that hastened death situations may not be a prime reason for moral distress. (shrink)

The ethics of citation has attracted increased attention in recent discussions of research and publication ethics, fraud and plagiarism. Little attempt has been made, however, to situate specific citation misbehaviors in terms of broader ethical practices and principles. To investigate researchers’ perceptions of citation norms, we surveyed active US researchers receiving federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Participants (n = 257) were asked about citation (...) norms they endorse (norm reports), the behaviors they perceive others to engage in (peer reports), and their own citation behaviors (self-reports). Our analyses showed that while considerable discrepancies exist between norm reports, peer reports and self-reports, respondents’ discipline has no significant effect on these. Participants indicated that their own practices and that of their peers falls short of the norms they endorse, but that their own behavior is much less ethically deficient than that of their peers. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that ethically questionable citation behaviors could be grouped usefully into three categories: strategic citations, neglectful citations, and blind citations. Contrary to our hypothesis, the survey showed that greater experience does not always result in better citation practices. A particularly divisive issue pertained to intentionally citing authors from underrepresented demographic groups for reasons of social justice, but broad support for this practice is lacking, although arts and humanities scholars are slightly more supportive. Most researchers view questionable citation practices as negatively affecting their disciplines. Our findings suggest the need for clearer articulations of the citation norms and improved guidance and training about citations. (shrink)

Retractions have traditionally been reserved for correcting the scientific record and discouraging research misconduct. Nonetheless, the potential for actual societal harm resulting from accurately reported published scientific findings, so-called information hazards, has been the subject of several recent article retractions. As these instances increase, the extent of support for such decisions among the scientific community and lay public remains unclear. Undergraduates (Study 1) and federally funded researchers (Study 2) reported their support for retraction decisions described as due to misconduct, honest (...) errors, or potential information hazards. Participants supported retraction on the former two grounds more than the latter. Despite limited support, women remained more receptive to retractions based on information hazards. Activist tendencies additionally predicted undergraduate men’s receptivity. Receptivity toward retraction due to information hazards was unrelated to scientists’ engagement in activism, suggesting that formal scientific training affords researchers an ability to separate personal and professional values in scientific discourse. Findings could inform the development of educational materials that may aid less experienced scientists and the lay public in understanding retraction ethics. (shrink)

Lack of health insurance coverage is a large and growing problem for millions of American families. Rising health care costs and economic insecurity continue to threaten the bedrock of the health insurance system - employer-sponsored coverage - while states’ fiscal situations and the escalating federal deficit complicate any efforts at reform. Providing health insurance coverage to the millions of uninsured remains a major health care challenge for the nation and understanding the current health insurance environment, who the uninsured are, and (...) why they are uninsured is critical when considering health care reform. This paper aims to define the problem of the uninsured, providing an overview of the uninsured in America and the roles and limits of private and public insurance. Following this discussion, the paper describes the current health insurance environment and examines the prospects for improving coverage. (shrink)

The Covid‐19 pandemic has revealed myriad social, economic, and health inequities that disproportionately burden populations that have been made medically or socially vulnerable. Inspired by state and local governments that declared racism a public health crisis or emergency, the Anti‐Racism in Public Health Act of 2020 reflects a shifting paradigm in which racism is considered a social determinant of health. Indeed, health inequities fundamentally rooted in structural racism have been exacerbated by the Covid‐19 pandemic, which calls for the integration of (...) antiracist praxis to promote ethical public health research processes. This commentary describes ways in which antiracist praxis—which emphasizes empowerment of traditionally marginalized populations—offers strategies to explicitly address power imbalance, stigmatization, and other consequences of structural racism in public health research. (shrink)

After a brief summary of Alvin Goldman’s theory of the “level-generation” of complex act-tokens from basic acts, it is argued that if the occurrent want which causes the basic act becomes deactivated in medias res, or during the interval between the basic act and the generated events, the latter do not qualify as actions proper. A discussion follows of Steven Davis’s at tempts to provide a counterexample to GoIdman’s theory by suggesting an example in which the Goldman conditions are met (...) and yet intuition tells us that the generated event is not an action. After concluding that Davis’s counterexamples are men of straw, a series of legitimately generated events which terminate in non-action is offered. (shrink)

The overwhelming majority of action theories have relied on a Humean model of causality and of explanation; even those theories that explicitly reject aspects of that model uncritically adopt others. The atomistic presuppositions embodied in the model are unable to account for either the dynamic and fabric-like nature of action or the features of control and meaning present therein. It is these atomistic presuppositions that give rise to the “Gettier-like vexations” that are common counterexamples in action theory. The Humean requirement (...) that cause and effect be only contingently connected and generalizable into a covering law is also discussed with respect to the explanation of action.Representatives of the three major approaches to the problem of action: causal (including intentional, volitional, as well as agent causation and reasons-as-causes theories), behaviorist, so-called “contextual”, and teleological theories are examined. (shrink)

AS IS WELL KNOWN, one of Kant's major concerns was the reconciliation of Newtonian science and metaphysics, a preoccupation made particularly acute by the need to provide a satisfactory explanation of organisms. It is in light of his claim that only the mechanistic principles of Newton's physics can provide scientific knowledge that the role to be played by purposiveness becomes problematic. Purpose appears to resist mechanistic explanation and is therefore a major impediment to unifying science under one set of principles. (...) Kant concludes that although organisms cannot be explained mechanistically, the impossibility is due to a limitation of reason. By appealing to the critical turn Kant thus avoids an antinomy between mechanism and finality while allowing that it is possible for mechanism and finality to be reconciled in the supersensible. This reconciliation, unfortunately, we will never know. (shrink)

Vattimo rethinks ontology at a time when modernity's concept of Being has been uprooted along with any faith in history as a unitary process characterized by progressive reappropriations of its own origins. Having dissolved the ground of the new, the end of modernity sees Being reduced to exchange value, the new for the sake of the new, which in turn science and technology make routine. The impasse is a radical one, for modernity cannot be left behind by offering a truer (...) foundation, since "overcoming" and "foundation" themselves are concepts central to modernity. The first section of the book consists in an account of this condition. (shrink)

Rosen's critique of analytic philosophy is not a call for the abolition of analysis. It is a plea for analytic philosophers to come to grips with its limits, to recognize that analysis can have nothing to say about the context within which it is carried out. In the realm of the context of analysis, only intuitions and dreams will do. Philosophy, however, presently lacks a wide enough sense of rationality to cover both analysis and dreaming.

Classical philosophy of science ran out of gas because it lacked a subject matter all along. It belongs "subsumed under a unified social science which in its search for regularities and causal mechanisms will provide the basis for science policy".

Being a person, unlike being just an individual, Deutsch argues, represents an achievement and not just a "given." A person "is a dynamic integration of the particular conditions and universal features of his individual being... in a manner that... is appropriate for himself". This articulation takes the form of "masking," the creation of a mask that fits properly and which allows for self-expression. If the mask is too tight the person and his appearance are coextensive; if it is too loose (...) appearances hide the individual's inner self. A mask that fits properly, on the other hand, reveals a person who is "right for himself," one whom we are therefore inclined to trust, and who is free, for freedom is a quality of achieved personhood. A person, furthermore, is characterized by an autonomy and a self-confidence which can recognize the "other" as a person also. (shrink)

English summary: This book attests that a study on the history of philosophy has its place in contemporary debates. This book attempts to reconstruct William of Ockham's position on the nature and function of real definitions in order to show that nominalism does not oblige a particular position on essences. French description: Guillaume d'Ockham, defenseur bien connu du nominalisme, a manifeste un interet soutenu pour les definitions reelles. Cet ouvrage s'efforce de reconstruire sa position sur la nature et la fonction (...) des definitions reelles. Un examen de ce qu'est une definition reelle appelle une etude de ce qu'est une essence et de la nature du lien a poser entre l'essentiel et le necessaire. Cet ouvrage a pour objectif de montrer que le nominalisme ne contraint pas a une position determinee sur les essences. Saul Kripke nous dit que l'essentiel se reduit au necessaire. Kit Fine, par contre, affirme qu'il faut revenir a Aristote et soutenir que l'essentiel est irreductible au necessaire. Notre examen atteste qu'une etude en histoire de la philosophie a toute sa place dans les debats contemporains. L'essentialisme de Guillaume d'Ockham incite a rendre a Aristote ce qui lui revient et a faire preuve de circonspection. En definitive, les deux positions en presence ne sont peut-etre pas incompatibles. (shrink)

C’est grâce à son essai Politische Romantik, publié en 1919, que Carl Schmitt fait une entrée remarquée sur la scène intellectuelle allemande. L’ouvrage se présente comme une charge systématique et radicale contre la tradition allemande du « romantisme politique », et fut vivement discuté dans les années qui suivirent sa publication. Mais aujourd’hui il se trouve relégué parmi les œuvres de jeunesse de Schmitt et reste rarement étudié par la recherche, qui le lit au mieux comme une belle contribution à (...) l’histoire culturelle du xixe siècle.Pourtant, une étude approfondie de l’essai, ainsi que du contexte historique dans lequel il s’insère, fait apparaître que ce n’est pas dans une telle perspective que Politische Romantik manifeste toute sa portée : bien plus qu’une étude historique, cet essai constitue un élément de réponse à la crise du conservatisme allemand tel qu’il apparaît dans l’après-guerre. Le rejet du « romantisme politique » marque la rupture de Schmitt avec l’idéal « apolitique » des intellectuels allemands de l’époque, et par là constitue le premier moment du projet schmittien, tel qu’il se verra développé de manière croisée dans son étude sur le catholicisme et sa Théologie politique. (shrink)

Pandemics first and foremost hit those who are most vulnerable, and the COVID-19 pandemic is not different. Although the infection rate in the nation’s poorest neighborhoods is twice as it is in th...

In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often‐ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science—including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes—can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of responsible behavior in the context of SBG research. (...) SBG research that compares individuals within a group according to a “sensitive” phenotype requires extra attention to responsible conduct and to responsible communication about the research and its findings. SBG research (1) on sensitive phenotypes that (2) compares two or more groups defined by (a) race, (b) ethnicity, or (c) genetic ancestry (where genetic ancestry could easily be misunderstood as race or ethnicity) requires a compelling justification to be conducted, funded, or published. All authors agree that this justification at least requires a convincing argument that a study's design could yield scientifically valid results; some authors would additionally require the study to have a socially favorable risk‐benefit profile. (shrink)

A central thesis of this paper is that understanding the nature of child maltreatment is so complex that no one disciplinary specialty is likely to be sufficient for the task. Although life history theory is the guiding principle for our analysis, we argue that an evolutionary explanation adds precision by incorporating empirical findings originating from the fields of anthropology; clinical, developmental, and social psychology; and sociology. Although evolutionary accounts of child maltreatment have been largely limited to the role of the (...) coefficient of relatedness, the prospective reproductive value of a child, and the residual reproductive potential of parents, a case is made for expanding this basic application. An explanatory model is presented that describes how ecological conditions as well as parental and child traits interact to influence the degree of parental investment. As shown in the model, these various “marker variables” alter parental perceptions of the benefits and costs associated with child care and promote low-investment parenting, which leads to disrupted family management practices and to a downward-spiraling, self-perpetuating system of coercive family interaction, increased parental rejection of the child, and even lower parental investment. Child maltreatment is the ultimate outcome of this downward trajectory of family relations. (shrink)

Nuestra aproximación al fenómeno saturado en J.-L. Marion se realizará mediante los ejemplos de mandato y anuncio que se dan en el ámbito de la revelación. Con ellos justamente se pretende llamar la atención sobre la necesidad de una fenomenología de la donación que abarque lo que desde nuestra comprensión humana se rechaza como intolerable, e incluso imposible, atendiendo sin embargo a fenómenos saturados que no se limitarían a un determinado ámbito, como algunas críticas parecen sugerir cuando se refieren al (...) “giro teológico” en la fenomenología (Janicaud, 1991). La donación exige ser reconocida, y que no nos opongamos a ella de entrada por nuestras inclinaciones metafísicas hacia la objetividad, el cálculo, el control, la predicción, etc. En este sentido nos referimos a un sacrificio de la metafísica, acreditando la oportunidad para que pudiera desmentirse lo que parece hacerla imprescindible (más que meramente necesaria), y a favor de nuevas posibilidades del pensar y del enriquecimiento de la experiencia. Para ello sería de suma relevancia proteger la confianza en la donación, incluso en los casos más extremos, que en nuestros ejemplos también dan crédito a la libertad. (shrink)

La lectura de todo libro, de entrada, crea expectativas en el lector. Hay libros que consiguen despertar el interés a sabiendas de que han sido publicados gracias a la confluencia de diversos factores que prometen algo novedoso y de calidad. Este es el caso de la obra que nos ocupa, publicada por un Instituto que trabaja incansablemente por los Derechos Humanos, y que ha tenido a bien reconocer la obra y el compromiso humano de Raphael Lemkin, la persona que dio (...) su vida por dar nombre y luchar contra el infame delito del genocidio. A su vez, la edición corre a cargo de Donna–Lee Frieze, una profesora de la Universidad de Deakin, editora de la edición original en lengua inglesa de Totally Unoficial. The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin y del profesor de Derecho Internacional Público y Relaciones Internacionales de la Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio de Madrid, impecable traductor y editor de esta obra en español Por su parte, el prólogo de esta Autobiografía ha salido de la pluma de un Académico de la RAE, Antonio Muñoz Molina y lleva por título: «El dueño de una sola palabra». (shrink)

La cohabitation avec la dialyse à domicile, ce lieu privé habituellement préservé de la maladie, invite à des questionnements sur la dynamique du couple au regard du nouveau rôle de soignant endossé par le conjoint et de celui de patient assigné au conjoint malade. Les auteurs, psychologues cliniciennes, interrogent ici les motivations conscientes et inconscientes qui conduisent à cette décision commune et leurs retentissements sur la dynamique du couple. Différentes configurations relationnelles observées dans notre clinique seront abordées. L’article, cas clinique (...) à l’appui, montre l’intérêt d’un groupe thérapeutique avec malades et conjoints pour mettre à jour les enjeux, au niveau de la relation de couple, d’une prise en charge à domicile. (shrink)

It is well established, following Menzies' work, that nursing practice produces considerable anxiety. Like Menzies, we bring a psychoanalytic perspective to a theorization of anxiety in nursing and do so in order to consider nursing practice in the light of psychoanalytic theory, although from a Lacanian perspective. We also draw on Bataille's notion of ‘surplus’. These concepts provide the theoretical framework for a study investigating how some clinical nurses are able to remain in clinical practice rather than leave the profession (...) or seek work at a distance from the bedside. We conducted focus groups and present here an analysis of two fragments of nurses' speech. We found the nurses responded from one of two positions. In the first position, the nurses focus on doctors, complain about the surplus afforded them, and call for it to be eliminated. In this way, the nursing group is similar to other groups, considered by Bataille, who also attempt to get rid of a surplus. However, in the second position, the nurses stay with the surplus, tolerating it as they nurse the patient. This latter position is one where the nurse practises with a focus on the patient rather than being distracted by their dispute over the doctor's privilege. The importance of this paper is in its illustration of two distinct positions from which the nurse can practise: one that is not optimal because the nurse is distracted and the other that is more focused on practice, and thus the nurse is in a position to provide the best care possible to patients. (shrink)

This essay traces the connected histories of Portuguese and French anthropology in the late nineteenth century. By looking at a Portuguese scientific institution, the Carlos Ribeiro Society, it considers how French race science, known as anthropologie, was adopted and adapted across the European Latin world as a type of “stranger-science.” That is: as an authoritative outsider scientific formation, installed into national terrain in accordance with insider strategies for turning foreign elements into native forms of scientific sovereignty and modernity. French anthropology’s (...) international diffusion becomes meaningful in the light of the Portuguese incorporating what was foreign and modern as a means to generate vitality, and authority endogenously in their own national context. Hence, addressing the circulation of stranger-sciences can pave the way for an original conceptualizing of the transnational life of race science across and even beyond the Latin world. (shrink)

La séparation parentale apparaît comme un événement fréquent, mais néanmoins majeur dans la vie d’un sujet, surtout à l’adolescence. Comment se conjuguent adolescence et les problématiques psychiques (œdipienne et de perte) et relationnelles qu’elle implique, avec la séparation parentale? L’article discute ici le cas d’Adèle, âgée de 22 ans, pour qui la séparation des parents a eu lieu lorsqu’elle avait 16 ans. Adèle a été rencontrée trois fois dans le contexte d’une recherche. Les éléments cliniques recueillis lors des entretiens mènent (...) sur la voie d’effets négatifs toujours actuels en lien avec la séparation parentale et qui se télescopent avec une sensibilité préalable à la perte. On peut repérer, dans le cas d’Adèle, une instabilité identificatoire, un clivage des figures parentales, une accentuation de l’ambivalence à l’égard du parent de sexe opposé, une errance scolaire et des difficultés relationnelles. Ce cas clinique illustre la nécessité de procéder à un repérage des adolescents en souffrance suite à la séparation parentale et d’offrir un accompagnement aux parents. (shrink)