Neuroscientific evidence requires a monistic understanding of brain/mind. Truly appropriating what this means confronts us with the vulnerability of the human condition. Ca‐muss absurd and Tillich's despair are extreme expressions of a similar confrontation. This crisis demands a type of courage that is consistent with scientific truth and does not undermine the spiritual dimension of life. That dimension is not a separate substance but the process by which brain/mind meaningfully wrestles with its crisis through aesthetic symbols, religious faith, and ethical (...) affirmation. The validity of these activities does not depend upon human autonomy but instead upon the fact that they exist. Furthermore, they constitute the self, which Dennett calls a “center of narrative gravity.”. (shrink)

This book explains why moral beliefs can and likely do play an important role in the development and operation of market economies. It provides new arguments for why it is important that people genuinely trust others-even those whom they know don't particularly care about them-because in key circumstances institutions are incapable of combating opportunism. It then identifies specific characteristics that moral beliefs must have for the people who possess them to be regarded as trustworthy. When such moral beliefs are held (...) with sufficient conviction by a sufficiently high proportion of the population, a high trust society emerges that supports maximum cooperation and creativity while permitting honest competition at the same time. Such moral beliefs are not tied to any particular religion and have nothing to do with moral earnestness or the set of moral values-what matters is how they affect the way people think about morality. Such moral beliefs are based on abstract ideas that must be learned so they are matters of culture, not genes, and are therefore able to explain differences in economic performance across societies. (shrink)

Deception sometimes results in nonconsensual sex. A recent body of literature diagnoses such violations as invalidating consent: the agreement is not morally transformative, which is why the sexual contact is a rights violation. We pursue a different explanation for the wrongs in question: there is valid consent, but it is not consent to the sex act that happened. Semantic conventions play a key role in distinguishing deceptions that result in nonconsensual sex (like stealth condom removal) from those that don’t (like (...) white lies). Our framework is also applicable to more controversial cases, like those implicated in so-called “gender fraud” complaints. (shrink)

The study of social norms sprawls across all of the social sciences but the the concept lacks a unified conception and formal theory. We synthesize an account that can be applied generally, at the social scale of analysis, and can be applied to empirical evidence generated in field and lab experiments. More specifically, we provide new analysis on representing norms for application in empirical political science, and in parts of economics that do not follow the recent trend among some behavioral (...) economists to build models of the cognitive and motivational states of individuals taken “one at a time”. Foundational sources for our project are Bicchieri (2006, 2017), Kuran (1995), and Stirling (2012, 2016). From Bicchieri take that a norm exists in a social structure when a significant networked subset of individuals share descriptive and injunctive expectations that it regulates their interactions. From Kuran we take the insight that prevailing norms may come to be widely disliked by participants in networks but survive because norm suppress public displays of disenchantment. From Stirling we apply conditional game theory (CGT) to provide the technical resources for building our model of a norm-regulated social interaction. The example we use is a multi-player Investment/Trust Game. (shrink)

Alternative displays of effect size statistics can enhance the understandability and impact of validity evidence in a variety of applied settings. Arguably, the proliferation of alternative effect size statistics has been limited due to the lack of user-friendly tools to create them. Common statistical packages do not readily produce these alternative effect sizes and existing tools are outdated and inaccessible. In this paper, I introduce a free-to-use web-based calculator (https://dczhang.shinyapps.io/expectancyApp/) for generating alternative effect size displays from empirical data. This calculator (...) requires no mathematical or programming expertise, and therefore, is ideal for academics and practitioners. I also present results from an empirical study that demonstrates the benefits of alternative effect size displays for enhancing lay people’s perceived understandability of validity information and attitudes toward the use of standardized testing for college admissions. (shrink)

Brain Mystique Light and Dark bridges the gap between neuroscience, brain evolution and consciousness by examining scientific models of how the brain becomes conscious. The book argues that the spiritual dimension of life is compatible with scientific naturalism. Not bound by conventional stereotypes, Charles Don Keyes safeguards the unity of brain/mind, synthesized from a wide range of sources, reinterprets the triune brain concept and self-reference models of consciousness.

The physics and metaphysics of identity and individuality Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9463-7 Authors Don Howard, Department of Philosophy and Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA Bas C. van Fraassen, Philosophy Department, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA Otávio Bueno, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA Elena Castellani, Department of Philosophy, University of Florence, Via Bolognese 52, 50139 (...) Florence, Italy Laura Crosilla, Department of Pure Mathematics, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT UK Steven French, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Décio Krause, Department of Philosophy, Federal University of Santa Catarina, 88040-900 Campus Trindade, Florianópolis, SC Brazil Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796. (shrink)

We present the first comprehensive taxonomic revision and review the biology of the olingos, the endemic Neotropical procyonid genus Bassaricyon, based on most specimens available in museums, and with data derived from anatomy, morphometrics, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, field observations, and geographic range modeling. Species of Bassaricyon are primarily forest-living, arboreal, nocturnal, frugivorous, and solitary, and have one young at a time. We demonstrate that four olingo species can be recognized, including a Central American species (Bassaricyon gabbii), lowland species with (...) eastern, cis-Andean (Bassaricyon alleni) and western, trans-Andean (Bassaricyon medius) distributions, and a species endemic to cloud forests in the Andes. The oldest evolutionary divergence in the genus is between this last species, endemic to the Andes of Colombia and Ecuador, and all other species, which occur in lower elevation habitats. Surprisingly, this Andean endemic species, which we call the Olinguito, has never been previously described; it represents a new species in the order Carnivora and is the smallest living member of the family Procyonidae. We report on the biology of this new species based on information from museum specimens, niche modeling, and fieldwork in western Ecuador, and describe four Olinguito subspecies based on morphological distinctions across different regions of the Northern Andes. (shrink)

This handbook offers a deep analysis of the main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation from both a logical-philosophical and legal perspective. These forms are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and the handbook accordingly divides in three parts: the first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the main general forms of reasoning and argumentation relevant for legal discourse. The third one looks at their application in law as well as at (...) the different areas of legal reasoning. The handbook’s division in three parts reflects its conceptual architecture, since legal reasoning and argumentation are considered in relation to the more general types of reasoning. (shrink)

Women do most of the parenting. To provide a stable and healthier setting for children they must sublimate their own interests and feelings, which puts greater pressures on women to communicate needs clearly or to be deceptive when the occasion demands. The likely advantage in communication skills and self-control may ameliorate the impact of disorders like ADHD where the most serious deficit is in self-inhibition. This would account for the strikingly uneven male to female sex ratio of 2:1 (in epidemiological (...) samples) to 10:1 (in clinical settings), the higher threshold for females, and the sex difference in the pattern of associated mental disorders. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism is often adrift in a sea of interpretations. As such, it is frequently conflated with related terms like globalism, multiculturalism, and internationalism, just as it is unfittingly juxtaposed with concepts like nationalism and patriotism. Cosmopolitanism thus risks becoming a concept so fluid as to lose all meaning. While cosmopolitanisms’ conceptual ambiguity and definitional fluidity has provided inspiration for over two millennia of debate, it has also contributed to the lack of a grounded and accessible conceptual framework from which today’s (...) students, educators, and cosmopolitanism-minded practitioners can build. This article seeks to address that deficit by introducing an original conceptual framework from which modern cosmopolitanism, as an ethical project, might be succinctly identified, understood, and evaluated. This framework forwards that modern notions of cosmopolitanism rest on three primary pillars: respect, responsibility, and rootedness, each of which must be simultaneously realized for cosmopolitanism to exist. In the cosmopolitan context, respect prioritizes unconditional respect for free rational beings even as it conditionally assesses how cultural practices uplift the individual. Concurrently, cosmopolitan responsibility is recognizing and fulfilling one’s inexorable moral obligation to others. Finally, cosmopolitan rootedness is creating and maintaining conditions where social justice and human flourishing may thrive within one’s own traditions, cultures(s), and society. (shrink)

Much work in game theory concerns mechanisms by which players can infer information about the utilities and beliefs of other players based on actions within games and pre-play signals. When game theory is applied to interactions among people, such analysis interprets them as ‘mindreading’. Recent work in cognitive science, however, suggests that human coordination rests more centrally on ‘mindshaping’, where interactants determine preferences jointly. As mindshaping is strategic, there is motivation to extend game theory to accommodate it. Conditional Game Theory (...) (CGT) is a strategic theory of mindshaping. We show how it can be used to help players of standard games identify correlated equilibrium, and thus solve games. We then extend CGT to address a challenge to the relevance of correlated equilibrium to empirical choice data, by showing how pre-play analysis using CGT can reconcile the Harsanyi Doctrine – assumed common priors among Bayesian players – with rank-dependent choice as observed in economic experiments. (shrink)

Academic opinions are irrelevant to the value of tenure. Facts are relevant, and the facts are that tenure protects some academics from losing their jobs because they communicate unpopular information, and that some untenured academics do lose their jobs because they communicate unpopular information. (Published Online February 8 2007).

The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities is now proposing a process whereby the role and authority of clinical ethics consultants can be legitimated. Without regulation and oversight, the field lacks validity and accountability. ASBH has sought to remedy the lack of uniform standards and accreditation by publishing Core Competencies in Health Care Ethics Consultation and an education guide, and now by proposing a “quality attestation process,” situated between national certification processes and local credentialing practices, to “attest to the skills (...) and ability of properly trained and competent clinical ethicists.” If the process is successful, a cadre of certified clinical ethics consultants will emerge. Before the dawn of this new era, it is worth pausing to consider the adequacy of the quality attestation process itself and how it will affect the current world of clinical ethics consultants. Ethics consultations are often done by a multidisciplinary team, and the consult note is a compilation or synthesis of the work of the team. If the evidence required to attest to one's quality as an ethics consultant is to bear on one's ability to work with a team and present an integrated consult note, then these notes are relevant. If, however, the evidence is to bear on the quality of one's own work, then the evidence is inconclusive at best, fraudulent at worst. The quality attestation process seems to be predicated on the individual ethics consultant model, which may not jibe with the realities of ethics consultation. There may be more than one way to demonstrate one's competence, and there may be more than one competency to demonstrate. (shrink)

Just Ecological Integrity presents a collection of revised and expanded essays originating from the international conference "Connecting Environmental Ethics, Ecological Integrity, and Health in the New Millennium" held in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 2000. It is a cooperative venture of the Global Ecological Integrity Project and the Earth Charter Initiative.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. Rudnick, (...) Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

The seven deadly sins have provided gossip, amusement, and the plots of morality plays for nearly fifteen hundred years. In Wicked Pleasures, well-known philosopher, business ethicist, and admitted sinner Robert C. Solomon brings together a varied group of contributors for a new look at the old catalogue of sins. Solomon introduces the sins as a group, noting their popularity and pervasiveness. From the formation of the canon by Pope Gregory the Great, the seven have survived the sermonizing of the Reformation, (...) the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the brief French reign of supreme reason, the apotheoses of capitalism, communism, secular humanism and postmodernism, the writings of numerous rabbis and evangelical moralists, two series in the New York Times, and several bad movies. Taking their cue from this remarkable history, the contributors, including Thomas Pynchon, allowed one sin apiece, provide a non-sermonizing and relatively light-hearted romp through the domain of the deadly seven. (shrink)

Book Symposium on Don Ihde’s Expanding Hermeneutics: Visualism in Science Content Type Journal Article Category Book Symposium Pages 1-22 DOI 10.1007/s13347-011-0060-5 Authors Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, University of Copenhagen, Nørre Farimagsgade 5 A, Room 10.0.27, 1014 Copenhagen, Denmark Larry A. Hickman, The Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA Robert Rosenberger, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, DM Smith Building, 685 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345, USA Robert C. Scharff, University of New (...) Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824-3574, USA Don Ihde, Stony Brook University, Harriman Hall 221, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3750, USA Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433. (shrink)

The ethical issues in conducting research on preventing HIV infection are among the most complex of any area of human subjects research. This article is an update of a 1987 article that addressed potential conflicts between research design and ethics with respect to AIDS prevention among injecting drug users. The present article reviews current ethical issues that arise in the design and conduct of HIV/AIDS prevention research focused on injecting drug users.

Although Broad published many books in his lifetime, this volume is unique in presenting some of his most interesting unpublished writings. Divided into five clear sections, the following figures and topics are covered: Autobiography, Hegel and the nature of philosophy, Francis Bacon, Hume's philosophy of the self and belief, F. H. Bradley, The historical development of scientific thought from Pythagoras to Newton, Causation, Change and continuity, Quantitative methods, Poltergeists, Paranormal phenomena. -/- Each section is introduced and placed in context by (...) the editor, Joel Walmsley. The volume also includes an engaging and informative foreword by Simon Blackburn. It will be of great value to those studying and researching the history of twentieth-century philosophy, metaphysics, and the recent history and philosophy of science, as well as anyone interested in Broad's philosophical thought and his place in the history of philosophy. (shrink)