This essay compares Rawls's and Nozick's theories of justice. Nozick thinks patterned principles of justice are false, and offers a historical alternative. Along the way, Nozick accepts Rawls's claim that the natural distribution of talent is morally arbitrary, but denies that there is any short step from this premise to any conclusion that the natural distribution is unjust. Nozick also agrees with Rawls on the core idea of natural rights liberalism: namely, that we are separate persons. However, Rawls and Nozick (...) interpret that idea in different ways-momentously different ways. The tension between their interpretations is among the forces shaping political philosophy to this day. Footnotesa For comments, I thank Alyssa Bernstein, Geoffrey Brennan, Jason Brennan, Tom Christiano, Andrew I. Cohen, Andrew Jason Cohen, Tyler Cowen, Teresa Donovan, David Estlund, Jerry Gaus, Allen Habib, Alex Kaufman, Mark LeBar, Loren Lomasky (especially Loren, for insight and inspiration over a period of many years), Cara Nine, Ellen Frankel Paul, Guido Pincione, Thomas Pogge, Dan Russell, Michael Smith, Horacio Spector, and Matt Zwolinski. I thank the Earhart Foundation for financial support in the fall of 2002 and Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences for its wonderful hospitality during a ten week stay in 2002. The support of the folks at Liberty Fund in Indianapolis during the final stages of this project goes beyond anything I will ever be able properly to thank them for. (shrink)

This book walks readers through relevant Scripture passages on the topic of concience--a largely neglected topic in the church today--to offer guiding principles and practical advice for aligning our consciences with God's will.

This paper is a reflection on the emergent directions of Australian culture and values in the context of the process of globalization. It views Australian society as a multi-cultural mosaic where aboriginal cultures coexist with the derived cultures of migrants from Europe, America and Asia. Adding that globalization has meant both greater confusion and conformity to intrusive American culture and practices, the author asks: Will we be able to find and clarify a changing set of shared values in this emergent (...) society? Although Australia still finds itself in the mould of the acquisitive Western society, a transition to the stronger communitarian value system of the East is a distinct possibility. Drawing inspiration from an experiential workshop in India, the author concludes with the hope that ultimately the survival and enrichment of an edifying Australian culture and set of human values will depend on and flow from the hearts, minds and human creativeness of Australians in a continually changing world. (shrink)

Adam Smith’s ‘natural price’ has long been interpreted as a ‘normal price’ or ‘centre of gravitation price’ based on the famous gravitation metaphor of the Wealth of Nations I.vii, natural in the sense that it is the price that would … More ›.

One of the many reasons for the sustainability of the Arthurian legend in popular culture would seem to involve its educational aspects: most particularly, the educational narrative that describes the relationship between Merlin and Arthur. However much the other elements of the legend suffer alterations through their many retellings, generally the story of Arthur's instruction under Merlin remains unchanged. The reason for this involves the sort of master Merlin is. From his earliest manifestations to present-day representations, Merlin remains a pedagogical (...) hybrid. In one respect, his instruction of Arthur and his motivations for this instruction call to mind the classical conventions of the mentor: conventions... (shrink)

Film studies has largely avoided the biocultural turn that has swept through other areas of the humanities. This resistance may be understood in terms of the field’s recent distaste for grand theory—and in terms of the loose, social-constructionist thinking that is one residue of that distaste. Fortunately, a biocultural approach to cinema can offer film studies a necessary and defensible set of assumptions. It can also offer interpretive tools and potential ways of conceptualizing perennial concerns like authorship and genre. This (...) essay demonstrates the last two points through an evolutionary reading of Howard Hawks’s musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and through proposals for new ways of approaching auteurism and pornography. (shrink)

What effect does creativity have on individuals, groups and societies, and on the fundamental values on which they base their actions and institutions? What constitutes good and evil, right and wrong, and how does creativity disrupt these beliefs? The Ethics of Creativity brings together an impressive collaboration of thinkers from several countries and disciplines to illuminate the thorny issues that arise when novel ideas and products brought forth by creativity collide with the rules and norms of what we believe to (...) be 'right' or 'good'. This book tackles questions of why most people claim to love creativity yet, in practice, may quash creative intentions, how creative innovations can create new ethical problems, when creativity and ethics tend to coincide and when they tend to conflict, and how both creativity and ethics might be harnessed to support a brighter future for all. (shrink)

The virtues of this book are many. It covers a large amount of often-neglected material introduced by Russell in his Principles of Mathematics and elsewhere, and by Russell and Whitehead in Princip...

Simulation relations have been discovered in many areas: Computer Science, philosophical and modal logic, and set theory. However, the simulation condition is strictly a first-order logic statement. We extend modal logic with modalities and axioms, the latter’s modeling conditions are the simulation conditions. The modalities are normal, i.e., commute with either conjunctions or disjunctions and preserve either Truth or Falsity (respectively). The simulations are considered arrows in a category where the objects are descriptive, general frames. One can augment the simulation (...) modalities by axioms for requiring the underlying modeling simulations to be bisimulations or to be p-morphisms. The modal systems presented are multi-sorted and both sound and complete with respect to their algebraic and Kripke semantics. (shrink)

Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland (2023) argue that controlled donation after circulatory death does not violate the dead donor rule because the dead donor rule “merely requires that procurement of organs...

While there is a growing literature on “dark traits” (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first draft (...) measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and benefice... (shrink)

As Christians, we affirm that Scripture is our supreme guide to truth and righteousness. Some wish to go further and assert that it is our only guide. But how then can we account for the remarkable insight and moral integrity that many unbelievers seem to display? Indeed, how to account for the myriad ways in which believers themselves navigate the world based on knowledge and intuition not always derived from Scripture? Enter the doctrine of natural law. Frequently misrepresented as an (...) assertion of the autonomous power of human reason or as a uniquely Roman Catholic doctrine, natural law has actually been an integral part of orthodox Christian theology since the beginning, and is even clearly asserted in Scripture itself. In this brief guide, David Haines and Andrew Fulford explain the philosophical foundations of natural law, clear up common misunderstandings about the term, and demonstrate the robust biblical basis for natural law reasoning. (shrink)

In 1996, President Clinton offered a promissory vision for human genetics when he said: “I think it won't be too many years before parents will be able to go home from the hospital with their newborn babies with a genetic map in their hands that will tell them, here's what your child's future will likely be like.”The rapid evolution of genetic sequencing technologies has advanced that vision. In October 2006, the cost of sequencing an entire human genome was $10.4 million; (...) by 2014 the cost had decreased a thousand fold. The term next generation sequencing describes a variety of laboratory methods that allow efficient determination of the precise order of nucleotides in a DNA sequence. The papers in this issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics focus on “clinical NGS,” which refers to rapid DNA sequencing using second-, third- and fourth-generation sequencing technologies to perform genome-wide sequencing of multiple genes or alleles for clinical prognostic, diagnostic, and therapeutic purposes. (shrink)

The paper examines the contribution of the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the subject of ethics in organizations. The paper combines an analysis of Foucault’s work on discipline and control, with an examination of his later work on the ethical subject and technologies of the self. Our paper argues that the work of the later Foucault provides an important contribution to business ethics theory, practice and pedagogy. We discuss how it offers an alternative avenue to traditional normative ethical theory that (...) both converges and diverges with other extant alternatives. By situating ethics as practices of the self, and by demonstrating the conditions under which freedom in organizations can be exercised, Foucault’s ethics attempt to connect an understanding and critique of power with a personal project of self. He therefore provides a theory of subjectivity that potentially informs a reshaping of contemporary virtue ethics theory, value-based management, and business ethics teaching. (shrink)

About one-third of Australians use the services of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM); but debate about the role of CAM in public healthcare is vociferous. Despite this, the mechanisms driving CAM healthcare choices are not well understood, especially in rural Australia. From 2016 to 2018, 2,679 persons from the Goulburn Valley, northern Victoria, were surveyed, 28% (755) of whom reporting visiting CAM practitioners. A Generalized Linear Mixed Model was used to assess associations between various socio-demographic variables and the use of (...) CAM services. The strongest significant inverse (p < 0.05) association with CAM use overall was being unemployed, with markedly lower odds of using CAM than those employed full-time (OR 0.22 [0.12, 0.41]). The next strongest inverse relationship was being retired (OR 0.44 [0.30, 0.65]). The strongest positive associations were with English spoken at home (OR 2.38 [1.34, 4.24]), private health insurance (hospital cover) (1.57 [1.28, 1.91]), being Australian born (OR 1.61 [1.14, 2.28]), and female sex (1.25 [1.02, 1.52])). Females had significantly higher odds of using osteopathy than males (OR 1.98 [1.33, 2.96]) but there were no significant sex differences for chiropractic or massage. This is the first such study conducted solely for a rural Australian population. The drivers of CAM use differed from previous nation-wide studies and they varied across modalities. The factors identified here as being associated with CAM use could be used by CAM practitioners in developing person-centred services. Similarly, the findings are relevant to primary-care services in understanding what sectors of society might eschew conventional health care for CAM in rural regions, where health services are often limited. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the most common state policy responses to the opioid crisis, dividing them into six broad categories. Within each category we highlight the rationale behind the group of policies within it, discuss the details and support for individual policies, and explore the research base behind them. The objective is to better understand the most prevalent state responses to the opioid crisis.

Our soft survey reveals that the assumption underlying much of the business ethics literature -- that the conduct of business can and ought to support the social good -- is not accepted within the workplace. This paper considers an apparent dichotomy, with companies investing in ethical programs whose worth their employees and managers question. We examine the relationship between work, bureaucracy and "the market" and conclude that employees often question the existence of business ethics because there is no good and (...) bad between which to choose. The choice is between success and failure. A common view of success and the "good life" is one determined by hard work in a well-organised company operating in a free market. Analysing the three aspects of this view (the free market, hard work, bureaucracy) we suggest these are mere fictions. A major problem we identify in business is that organisations are designed as profit making mechanisms and have no interest in the good of society. The challenge is to convince such organisations that a direct benefit accrues to them through their own ethical behaviour. In order to do this organisations must first be shown the importance of long termism. Executives, managers and other employees can be expected to attain high ethical standards only when they feel they are a integral part of an organisation and the organisation itself respects those standards. One of the keys to unravelling the undesirable situation of a perceived absence of ethics in business is in encouraging a greater identity community, company and workforce. We provide some examples of ways companies can meet the challenge of encouraging more ethical, long-sighted behaviour. In addition, we highlight ways in which the expectations of the organisations of the organisation can be communicated more strongly through corporate structures that foster ethical action that benefits the long term interests of the individual and the organisation. Overall implementing a successful ethical program is shown to parallel that of the implementation of a quality program. (shrink)

There is a growing interest in assessing how cognitive processes fluidly adjust across trials within a task. Dynamic adjustments of control are typically measured using the congruency sequence effect (CSE), which refers to the reduction in interference following an incongruent trial, relative to a congruent trial. However, it is unclear if this effect stems from a general control mechanism or a distinct process tied to cross-trial reengagement of the task set. We examine the relationship of the CSE with another measure (...) of control referred to as the item-specific proportion congruency effect (ISPC), the finding that frequently occurring congruent items exhibit greater interference than items that are often incongruent. If the two effects reflect the same control mechanism, one should find interactive effects of CSE and ISPC. We report results from three experiments utilizing a vocal Stroop task that manipulated these two effects while controlling for variables that are often confounded in the literature. Across three experiments, we observed large CSE and ISPC effects. Importantly, these effects were robustly additive with one another (Bayes Factor for the null approaching 9). This finding indicates that the CSE and ISPC arise from independent mechanisms and suggests the CSE in Stroop may reflect a more general response adjustment process that is not directly tied to trial-by-trial changes in attentional control. (shrink)

Widely regarded as one of the most important and influential sports books of all time, C. L. R. James's _Beyond a Boundary_ is—among other things—a pioneering study of popular culture, an analysis of resistance to empire and racism, and a personal reflection on the history of colonialism and its effects in the Caribbean. More than fifty years after the publication of James's classic text, the contributors to _Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket_ investigate _Beyond a Boundary_'s production and reception and its implication (...) for debates about sports, gender, aesthetics, race, popular culture, politics, imperialism, and English and Caribbean identity. Including a previously unseen first draft of _Beyond a Boundary_'s conclusion alongside contributions from James's key collaborator Selma James and from Michael Brearley, former captain of the English Test cricket team, _Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket_ provides a thorough and nuanced examination of James's groundbreaking work and its lasting impact. Contributors. Anima Adjepong, David Austin, Hilary McD. Beckles, Michael Brearley, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, David Featherstone, Christopher Gair, Paget Henry, Christian Høgsbjerg, C. L. R. James, Selma James, Roy McCree, Minkah Makalani, Clem Seecharan, Andrew Smith, Neil Washbourne, Claire Westall. (shrink)

This paper critically engages ethical issues in the allocation of novel, and potentially costly, health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness. First, we review potential benefits of novel health care resources for patients and their families and outline preliminary considerations to address concerns about cost. We then address two problems regarding the allocation of health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness: (1) the problem of uncertain moral status; and (2) the problem of accurately measuring the welfare (...) burdens these resources would relieve. We conclude by suggesting that opportunity-based frameworks might complement standard approaches for justifying resources allocation to patients with disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

What we pay attention to is influenced by both reward learning and aversive conditioning. Although early attention tends to be biased toward aversively conditioned stimuli, sustained ignoring of such stimuli is also possible. How aversive conditioning influences how a person chooses to search, or the strategic control of attention, has not been explored. In the present study, participants learned an association between a colour and an aversive outcome during a training phase, and in a subsequent test phase searched for one (...) of two targets presented on each trial; one target was rendered in the aversively conditioned colour (CS+) and the other in a neutral colour (CS-). Given the distribution of colour stimuli in the search array, it was more optimal to search for and report a target in one of the two colours on some trials. Our results demonstrate that participants were biased away from the CS+ target, which resulted in non-optimal search on some trials. Surprisingly, rather than accentuate this bias, greater state anxiety was associated with a stronger tendency to find and report the CS+ target. Our findings have implications for our understanding of the learning-dependent control of attention and abnormal attentional biases observed in high-anxious individuals. (shrink)