Storage and Commodity Markets is primarily a work of economic theory, concerned with how the capability to store a surplus affects the prices and production of commodities. Its focus on the behaviour, over time, of aggregate stockpiles provides insights into such questions as how much a country should store out of its current supply of food considering the uncertainty in future harvests. Related topics covered include whether storage or international trade is a more effective buffer and whether stockpiles are more (...) useful in raw or processed form. Several chapters are devoted to analysing such government programmes as price bands, buffer stocks, and strategic reserves. This material is in the domain of applied welfare analysis with public finance. Because the theory presented is sufficiently general, it should be of interest to macroeconomists studying aggregate inventories or savings and to those in operations research studying inventory and pricing policies of large firms. (shrink)

The question of what makes someone the same person through time and change has long been a preoccupation of philosophers. In recent years, the question of what makes ordinary or lay people judge that someone is—or isn’t—the same person has caught the interest of experimental psychologists. These latter, empirically oriented researchers have sought to understand the cognitive processes and eliciting factors that shape ordinary people’s judgments about personal identity and the self. Still more recently, practitioners within an emerging discipline, experimental (...) philosophical bioethics or “bioxphi”—the focus of this chapter—have adopted a similar aim and employed similar methodologies, but with two distinctive features: (a) a special concern for enhanced ecological validity in the examples and populations studied; and (b) an interest in contributing to substantive normative debates within the wider field of bioethics. Our aim in this chapter is to sample illustrative work on personal identity in bioxphi, explore how it relates to studies in psychology covering similar terrain, and draw out the implications of this work for matters of bioethical concern. In pursuing these issues, we highlight recent work in bioxphi that includes the perceived validity of advance directives following neurodegeneration, the right of psychologically altered study participants to withdraw from research, how drug addiction may cause one to be regarded by others as “a completely different person,” the effect of deep-brain stimulation on perceptions of the self, and the potential influence of moral enhancement interventions on intuitive impressions of a person’s character. (shrink)

When making substituted judgments for incapacitated patients, surrogates often struggle to guess what the patient would want if they had capacity. Surrogates may also agonize over having the (sole) responsibility of making such a determination. To address such concerns, a Patient Preference Predictor (PPP) has been proposed that would use an algorithm to infer the treatment preferences of individual patients from population-level data about the known preferences of people with similar demographic characteristics. However, critics have suggested that even if such (...) a PPP were more accurate, on average, than human surrogates in identifying patient preferences, the proposed algorithm would nevertheless fail to respect the patient’s (former) autonomy since it draws on the ‘wrong’ kind of data: namely, data that are not specific to the individual patient and which therefore may not reflect their actual values, or their reasons for having the preferences they do. Taking such criticisms on board, we here propose a new approach: the Personalized Patient Preference Predictor (P4). The P4 is based on recent advances in machine learning, which allow technologies including large language models to be more cheaply and efficiently ‘fine-tuned’ on person-specific data. The P4, unlike the PPP, would be able to infer an individual patient’s preferences from material (e.g., prior treatment decisions) that is in fact specific to them. Thus, we argue, in addition to being potentially more accurate at the individual level than the previously proposed PPP, the predictions of a P4 would also more directly reflect each patient’s own reasons and values. In this article, we review recent discoveries in artificial intelligence research that suggest a P4 is technically feasible, and argue that, if it is developed and appropriately deployed, it should assuage some of the main autonomy-based concerns of critics of the original PPP. We then consider various objections to our proposal and offer some tentative replies. (shrink)

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We (...) also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

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)

This paper explores an emerging sub-field of both empirical bioethics and experimental philosophy, which has been called “experimental philosophical bioethics” (bioxphi). As an empirical discipline, bioxphi adopts the methods of experimental moral psychology and cognitive science; it does so to make sense of the eliciting factors and underlying cognitive processes that shape people’s moral judgments, particularly about real-world matters of bioethical concern. Yet, as a normative discipline situated within the broader field of bioethics, it also aims to contribute to substantive (...) ethical questions about what should be done in a given context. What are some of the ways in which this aim has been pursued? In this paper, we employ a case study approach to examine and critically evaluate four strategies from the recent literature by which scholars in bioxphi have leveraged empirical data in the service of normative arguments. (shrink)

What makes conscious experience a difficult or confusing subject for science to deal with is its personal or individualistic character (that is to say the fact that a given experience is an experience apparently tied to a particular individual). It is in this respect very different from the other phenomena studied by science, where while the phenomena may be observed by a particular individual they are considered to be in principle independent of that individual. To say that an individual’s experience (...) is merely the functioning ofthat individual’s brain does not fully resolve the problem, since experiences are so very different in nature from brain processes. (shrink)

The WHO, American Academy of Pediatrics and other Western medical bodies currently maintain that all medically unnecessary female genital cutting of minors is categorically a human rights violation, while either tolerating or actively endorsing medically unnecessary male genital cutting of minors, especially in the form of penile circumcision. Given that some forms of female genital cutting, such as ritual pricking or nicking of the clitoral hood, are less severe than penile circumcision, yet are often performed within the same families for (...) similar reasons, it may seem that there is an unjust double standard. Against this view, it is sometimes claimed that while female genital cutting has ‘no health benefits’, male genital cutting has at least some. Is that really the case? And if it is the case, can it justify the disparate treatment of children with different sex characteristics when it comes to protecting their genital integrity? I argue that, even if one accepts the health claims that are sometimes raised in this context, they cannot justify such disparate treatment. Rather, children of all sexes and genders have an equal right to bodily autonomy. This includes the right to decide whether their own ‘private’ anatomy should be exposed to surgical risk, much less permanently altered, for reasons they themselves endorse when they are sufficiently mature. (shrink)

Asay (2018) criticizes our contention that psychologists do best to adhere to a substantive theory of correspondence truth. He argues that deflationary theory can serve the same purposes as correspondence theory. In the present article we argue that (a) scientific realism, broadly construed, requires a version of correspondence theory and (b) contrary to Asay’s suggestion, correspondence theory does have important additional resources over deflationary accounts in its ability to support generalizations over classes of true sentences.

In her excellent essay, Blumenthal-Barby (2024) argues that it is “time for bioethics to end talk of personhood.” She is concerned, more specifically, with “the philosophical concept of personhood,...

This collection contains hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Wittgenstein and the most important of his Cambridge friends and includes editorial notes based on archival material not previously explored. Incorporates many previously undiscovered unique and significant letters. A powerful record and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought. Extensive editorial annotations.

The enhancement debate in neuroscience and biomedical ethics tends to focus on the augmentation of certain capacities or functions: memory, learning, attention, and the like. Typically, the point of contention is whether these augmentative enhancements should be considered permissible for individuals with no particular “medical” disadvantage along any of the dimensions of interest. Less frequently addressed in the literature, however, is the fact that sometimes the _diminishment_ of a capacity or function, under the right set of circumstances, could plausibly contribute (...) to an individual's overall well-being: more is not always better, and sometimes less is more. Such cases may be especially likely, we suggest, when trade-offs in our modern environment have shifted since the environment of evolutionary adaptation. In this article, we introduce the notion of “diminishment as enhancement” and go on to defend a _welfarist_ conception of enhancement. We show how this conception resolves a number of definitional ambiguities in the enhancement literature, and we suggest that it can provide a useful framework for thinking about the use of emerging neurotechnologies to promote human flourishing. (shrink)

The moral enhancement (or bioenhancement) debate seems stuck in a dilemma. On the one hand, the more radical proposals, while certainly novel and interesting, seem unlikely to be feasible in practice, or if technically feasible then most likely imprudent. But on the other hand, the more sensible proposals – sensible in the sense of being both practically achievable and more plausibly ethically justifiable – can be rather hard to distinguish from both traditional forms of moral enhancement, such as non-drug-mediated social (...) or moral education, and non-moral forms of bioenhancement, such as smart-drug style cognitive enhancement. In this essay, I argue that bioethicists have paid insufficient attention to an alternative form of moral bioenhancement – or at least a likely candidate – that falls somewhere between these two extremes, namely the (appropriately qualified) use of certain psychedelic drugs. (shrink)

This thesis is about toleration as a modality of citizenship for pluralistic societies. Its central argument is that the current dissatisfaction with "mere" toleration which we find so broadly represented in our public and scholarly cultures is based on an underestimation of the capacities and attitudes that toleration entails. The liberal recasting of toleration, sophisticated and indeed invaluable though it is abets this devaluation by focusing too exclusively on public justification and on the Lockean stream of the tradition from which (...) we draw. ;The present thesis begins by tracing some of the difficulties facing the Rawlsian and Habermasian projects if we accept a vivid picture of the pluralisms amidst which we live. It then sketches the central features of a complementary tradition of toleration as it flows to us through the works of Montaigne, William James, Mikhail Bakhtin and others. An attempt is made to show where the resources drawn from this tradition might fit in to a theory of citizenship given reasonable Rawlsian qualms about "thick" public conceptions and given the fissiparous nature of a civil society like ours. The thesis ends with a pair of empirically oriented chapters which show ways in which we could conceive a praxis of toleration which might respond to the issues raised in the earlier sections of the work. (shrink)

I would like to begin this essay by sharing an intuition. It is an intuition requiring much fuller development, but I see myself making a modest contribution to it here—and that is the prospect of integrating mimetic theory with Christian contemplative practice. Such integration would, I imagine, be the beginning of something very ancient and very new.I am aware of some promising developments in this direction,1 but my conviction is that its potential is barely tapped. It would probably be too (...) much to suggest that such integration could result in a distinctive "school" of spirituality, though that is not inconceivable. Perhaps a better analogy for what I envision can be found in the emerging field of Contemplative... (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 72-75.

Historically, empirical research in bioethics has drawn on methods developed within the social sciences, including qualitative interviews, focus groups, ethnographic studies, and opinion surveys, t...

The American College of Nurse-Midwives, American Society for Pain Management Nursing, American Academy of Pediatrics, and other largely US-based medical organizations have argued that at least some forms of non-therapeutic child genital cutting, including routine penile circumcision, are ethically permissible even when performed on non-consenting minors. In support of this view, these organizations have at times appealed to potential health benefits that may follow from removing sexually sensitive, non-diseased tissue from the genitals of such minors. We argue that these appeals (...) to “health benefits” as a way of justifying medically unnecessary child genital cutting practices may have unintended consequences. For example, it may create a “loophole” through which certain forms of female genital cutting—or female genital “mutilation” as it is defined by the World Health Organization—could potentially be legitimized. Moreover, by comparing current dominant Western attitudes toward female genital “mutilation” and so-called intersex genital “normalization” surgeries (i.e. surgeries on children with certain differences of sex development), we show that the concept of health invoked in each case is inconsistent and culturally biased. It is time for Western healthcare organizations—including the American College of Nurse-Midwives, American Society for Pain Management Nursing, American Academy of Pediatrics, and World Health Organization—to adopt a more consistent concept of health and a unified ethical stance when it comes to child genital cutting practices. (shrink)

Background: Recent literature on addiction and judgments about the characteristics of agents has focused on the implications of adopting a ‘brain disease’ versus ‘moral weakness’ model of addiction. Typically, such judgments have to do with what capacities an agent has (e.g., the ability to abstain from substance use). Much less work, however, has been conducted on the relationship between addiction and judgments about an agent’s identity, including whether or to what extent an individual is seen as the same person after (...) becoming addicted. Methods: We conducted a series of vignette-based experiments (total N = 3,620) to assess lay attitudes concerning addiction and identity persistence, systematically manipulating key characteristics of agents and their drug of addiction. Conclusions: In Study 1, we found that US participants judged an agent who became addicted to drugs as being closer to ‘a completely different person’ than ‘completely the same person’ as the agent who existed prior to the addiction. In Studies 2-6, we investigated the intuitive basis for this result, finding that lay judgments of altered identity as a consequence of drug use and addiction are driven primarily by perceived negative changes in the moral character of drug users, who are seen as having deviated from their good true selves. (shrink)

Transgender healthcare faces a dilemma. On the one hand, access to certain medical interventions, including hormone treatments or surgeries, where desired, may be beneficial or even vital for some gender dysphoric trans people. But on the other hand, access to medical interventions typically requires a diagnosis, which, in turn, seems to imply the existence of a pathological state—something that many transgender people reject as a false and stigmatizing characterization of their experience or identity. In this paper we argue that developments (...) from the human enhancement debate can help clarify or resolve some of the conceptual and ethical entanglements arising from the apparent conflict between seeking medicine while not necessarily suffering from a pathology or disorder. Specifically, we focus on the welfarist account of human enhancement and argue it can provide a useful conceptual framework for thinking about some of the more contentious disagreements about access to transgender healthcare services. (shrink)

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “moral neuroenhancement,” offering a novel definition as well as spelling out three conditions under which we expect that such neuroenhancement would be most likely to be permissible (or even desirable). Furthermore, we draw a distinction between first-order moral capacities, which we suggest are less promising targets for neurointervention, and second-order moral capacities, which we suggest are more promising. We conclude by discussing concerns that moral neuroenhancement might restrict freedom or otherwise “misfire,” and (...) argue that these concerns are not as damning as they may seem at first. (shrink)

Much of modern ethics is built around the idea that we should respect one another’s autonomy. Here, “we” are typically imagined to be adult human beings of sound mind, where the soundness of our mind is measured against what we take to be the typical mental capacities of a neurodevelopmentally “normal” person—perhaps in their mid-thirties or forties. When deciding about what constitutes ethical sex, for example, our dominant models hold that ethical sex is whatever is consented to, while a lack (...) of consent makes sex wrong.1 Consent, in turn, is analysed in terms of autonomous decision-making: a “yes” or “no” that reflects the free and informed will of our idealised, sound-minded adult. Whether such models provide adequate normative guidance for ethical, much less good, sex between neurotypical human adults is an open question.2 3 When it comes to the ethics of sexual activity between humans and non-humans—robots, say—or between humans who don’t fit the rational stereotype, we hardly know where to begin.4–7 It is therefore heartening to see a number of papers in this issue tackling the difficult question how to respectfully facilitate or respond to the needs, desires, and decisions of people with different kinds or degrees of autonomy.8 For example, Sumytra Menon and colleagues9 explicitly discuss the notion of “borderline capacity” and argue, in the medical domain, for shared and supportive decision-making practices to “foster the autonomy of patients with compromised mental capacity while being mindful of the need to safeguard their well-being.” Touching on a similar theme, Zahra Ladan 10 asks how we should conceive of liberty in the case of persons with certain inborn physical or mental limitations. Might it sometimes be necessary to …. (shrink)

How shall we decide for others who cannot decide for themselves? And who—or what, in the case of artificial intelligence — should make the decision? The present issue of the journal tackles several interrelated topics, many of them having to do with surrogate decision making. For example, the feature article by Jardas et al 1 explores the potential use of artificial intelligence to predict incapacitated patients’ likely treatment preferences based on their sociodemographic characteristics, raising questions about the means by which (...) we come to decide for others. And a clinical ethics round table led by Wilkinson and Pillay2 examines the case of a premature baby on life support whose primary surrogate is herself incapacitated. Together, these examples force us to think more deeply about the meaning and significance of taken-for-granted concepts: respect for autonomy, substituted judgement, best interests. We’ll consider the baby first and then turn to AI. “Baby T” is a critically ill newborn delivered prematurely by emergency caesarean section. The mother had entered into a surrogacy arrangement with a same-sex male couple, the intended parents, who were to take over the baby’s care after birth—just as soon as a formal parental order could be obtained through the court. Until then, the birth mother, who had used her own eggs to conceive Baby T along with sperm from an unidentified donor, would have legal and ethical responsibility to decide about the baby’s care. Unfortunately, she too was in critical condition, having fallen unconscious prior to delivery due to a sudden brain haemorrhage. She remained unconscious, and thus incapacitated, during a crucial period in which time-sensitive decisions about Baby T’s care needed to be made, including whether to continue life support. Given the mother’s incapacity, who should …. (shrink)

Our understanding of the neurochemical bases of human love and attachment, as well as of the genetic, epigenetic, hormonal, and experiential factors that conspire to shape an individual's sexual orientation, is increasing exponentially. This research raises the vexing possibility that we may one day be equipped to modify such variables directly, allowing for the creation of “high-tech” conversion therapies or other suspect interventions. In this article, we discuss the ethics surrounding such a possibility, and call for the development of legal (...) and procedural safeguards for protecting vulnerable children from the application of such technology. We also consider the more difficult case of voluntary, adult “conversion” and argue that in rare cases, such attempts might be permissible under strict conditions. (shrink)

“Love hurts”—as the saying goes—and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire (...) jealousy-fueled homicide. How might these perilous devotions be diminished? The ancients thought that treatments such as phlebotomy, exercise, or bloodletting could “cure” an individual of love. But modern neuroscience and emerging developments in psychopharmacology open up a range of possible interventions that might actually work. These developments raise profound moral questions about the potential uses—and misuses—of such anti-love biotechnology. In this article, we describe a number of prospective love-diminishing interventions, and offer a preliminary ethical framework for dealing with them responsibly should they arise. (shrink)

What to do with the missing shade of blue (MSB)? Some have argued that Hume's famous thought experiment undermines his central doctrine – the ‘copy principle’ – such that he should have revised his whole theory in light of it. Others contend that the MSB is not a true or actual counterexample to the copy principle, but merely an apparent or conceivable one, so that he had no such obligation to revise. In this essay, I argue that even if the (...) MSB is a true counterexample, Hume would not have been obligated to revise his theory, given methodological resources he makes available to himself elsewhere in his work and his overarching empiricist aims. And I offer a new suggestion for why he might have included and even highlighted the MSB in his writings despite its being so very vexing and peculiar. (shrink)

Near the end of his speech, Timaeus outlines a theory of bodily health and disease which has seemed to many commentators loosely unified or even inconsistent . But this section is better unified than it has appeared, and gives us at least one important insight into the workings of physical causality in the Timaeus. I argue first that the apparent disorder in Timaeus’s theory of disease is likely a deliberate effect planned by the author. Second, the taxonomy of disease in (...) the passage consists of one genus subsuming two species. Third, in Timaeus’s theory, health lies between perfect stability and a chaos of all possible motions; this indicates a conception of health as the activation of the body's powers in the right way. A power is a property directed towards bringing about some change. Fourth, the activation of these powers can change depending on the location of their possessors. This last point shows that causation among the physical items in the Timaeus involves structures as well as pushes. (shrink)

Male circumcision—partial or total removal of the penile prepuce—has been proposed as a public health measure in Sub-Saharan Africa, based on the results of three randomized control trials showing a relative risk reduction of approximately 60 per cent for voluntary, adult male circumcision against female-to-male human immunodeficiency virus transmission in that context. More recently, long-time advocates of infant male circumcision have argued that these findings justify involuntary circumcision of babies and children in dissimilar public health environments, such as the USA, (...) Australasia and Europe. In this article, we take a close look at the necessary ethical and empirical steps that would be needed to bridge the gap between the African RCTs and responsible public health policy in developed countries. In the course of doing so, we discuss some of the main disagreements about the moral permissibility of performing a nontherapeutic surgery on a child to benefit potential future sexual partners of his. In this context, we raise concerns not only about weaknesses in the available evidence concerning such claims of benefit, but also about a child’s moral interest in future autonomy and the preservation of his bodily integrity. We conclude that circumcision of minors in developed countries on public health grounds is much harder to justify than proponents of the surgery suggest. (shrink)

In this paper I ask how Timaeus explains change within the trianglebased part of his cosmos. Two common views are that change among physical items is somehow caused or enabled by either the forms or the demiurge. I argue for a competing view, on which the physical items are capable of bringing about change by themselves, prior to the intervention of the demiurge, and prior to their being turned into imitations of the forms. I outline three problems for the view (...) that physical things depend on the forms for their causal powers, and show how the view I propose solves each. I then add further arguments for my view, based on (a) statements by Timaeus that seem to favor my view directly, (b) implications of Timaeus’ positions that favor the view, and (c) Timaeus’ explanatory practice in the second half of his speech. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett (1996) has disputed David Chalmers' (1995) assertion that there is a "hard problem of consciousness" worth solving in the philosophy of mind. In this paper I defend Chalmers against Dennett on this point: I argue that there is a hard problem of consciousness, that it is distinct in kind from the so-called easy problems, and that it is vital for the sake of honest and productive research in the cognitive sciences to be clear about the difference. But I (...) have my own rebuke for Chalmers on the point of explanation. Chalmers (1995, 1996) proposes to "solve" the hard problem of consciousness by positing qualia as fundamental features of the universe, alongside such ontological basics as mass and space-time. But this is an inadequate solution: to posit, I will urge, is not to explain. To bolster this view, I borrow from an account of explanation by which it must provide "epistemic satisfaction" to be considered successful (Rowlands, 2001; Campbell, 2009), and show that Chalmers' proposal fails on this account. I conclude that research in the science of consciousness cannot move forward without greater conceptual clarity in the field. (shrink)

Pharmaceuticals or other emerging technologies could be used to enhance (or diminish) feelings of lust, attraction, and attachment in adult romantic partnerships. While such interventions could conceivably be used to promote individual (and couple) well-being, their widespread development and/or adoption might lead to “medicalization” of human love and heartache—for some, a source of serious concern. In this essay, we argue that the “medicalization of love” need not necessarily be problematic, on balance, but could plausibly be expected to have either good (...) or bad consequences depending upon how it unfolds. By anticipating some of the specific ways in which these technologies could yield unwanted outcomes, bioethicists and others can help direct the course of love’s “medicalization”—should it happen to occur—more toward the “good” side than the “bad.”. (shrink)

By nature we are all addicted to love... meaning we want it, seek it and have a hard time not thinking about it. We need attachment to survive and we instinctively seek connection, especially romantic connection. [But] there is nothing dysfunctional about wanting love.Throughout the ages, love has been rendered as an excruciating passion. Ovid was the first to proclaim: “I can’t live with or without you”—a locution made famous to modern ears by the Irish band U2. Contemporary film expresses (...) a similar sentiment: as Jake Gyllenhaal’s character famously says in Brokeback Mountain, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” And everyday speech, too, is rife with such expressions as “I need you” and “I’m addicted to you.”... (shrink)

Over the past few years, we and our colleagues have been exploring the ethical implications of what we call “love drugs” and “anti-love drugs.” We use these terms informally to refer to “current, near-future, and more speculative distant-future technologies that would enhance or diminish, respectively, the romantic bond between couples engaged in a relationship”. In a recent “qualified defense” of our work, Andrew Andrew McGee suggests that, if we would only stop using the word “love” so expansively, our ethical proposals (...) might gain more traction. Specifically, he argues that “many of the putative instances of love” that we discuss in our papers “are not in fact... (shrink)

"Neuroreductionism" is the tendency to reduce complex mental phenomena to brain states, confusing correlation for physical causation. In this paper, we illustrate the dangers of this popular neuro-fallacy, by looking at an example drawn from the media: a story about "hypoactive sexual desire disorder" in women. We discuss the role of folk dualism in perpetuating such a confusion, and draw some conclusions about the role of "brain scans" in our understanding of romantic love.

If you grade enough papers, you will find some consistent pitfalls, especially in the writing of students who are coming to philosophy for the first time. I wrote up the following tips a couple of years ago when I was a teaching assistant for an introductory philosophy class at Yale led by Daniel Greco called ‘Problems in Philosophy’. The tips were intended, then, for college students, many of them right out of high school, and most of whom had never written (...) a philosophy paper before. So the focus is on clarity and mastering the basics. With that in mind, I hope you will find these tips helpful for teaching or writing in philosophy. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas arise when one must decide between conflicting ethical imperatives. One potential ethical dilemma is a manager’s decision of whether to engage in corporate social responsibility activities. This decision could pit the ethical imperative of honoring unwritten obligations to society against the ethical imperative of honoring contractual obligations to the firm. However, CSR activities might only be a minor ethical dilemma or none at all if they simultaneously benefit the firm and society. To examine this I test the association (...) between future-period employee productivity and current-period use of one type of CSR activity: employee volunteer programs. I use a unique sample of 1428 firm-years, hand-collected from sustainability reports of 373 firms. I find evidence that the current-period use of an employee volunteer program has a positive association with future-period employee productivity. I find this result in future periods up to 6 years after a firm uses an employee volunteer program. I also find a positive association between incentives that focus CEOs’ attention on long-term firm outcomes and more extensive employee volunteer programs. (shrink)

The ‘born this way’ movement for sexual orientation minority rights is premised on the view that sexual orientation is something that can neither be chosen nor changed. Indeed, current sexual orientation change efforts appear to be both harmful and ineffective. But what if ‘high-tech conversion therapies’ are invented in the future that are effective at changing sexual orientation? The conceptual basis for the movement would collapse. In this chapter, we argue that the threat of HCT should be taken seriously, motivating (...) a change in tactics for proponents of sexual orientation minority rights. We also discuss some of the practical-ethical and public-policy issues surrounding HCT, in case the technology is one day developed. (shrink)

“Female Genital Mutilation” or FGM—the terminology is extremely contentious1—is sometimes held up as a counterexample to moral relativism.2 Those who advance this line of thought suggest that such mutilation is so harmful in terms of its physical and emotional consequences, as well as so problematic in terms of its sexist or oppressive implications, that it provides sufficient, rational grounds for the assertion of a universal moral claim—namely, that all forms of FGM are wrong, regardless of the cultural context. Prominent philosophers (...) who have argued for this position, or one reasonably close to it, include Martha... (shrink)