Experiments in Love and Death is about the depth and complexity of the ethical issues that arise in illness and medicine. In his concept of 'microethics' Paul Komesaroff provides an alternative to the abstract debates about principles and consequences that have long dominated ethical thought. He shows how ethical decisions are everywhere: in small decisions, in facial expressions, in almost inconspicuous acts of recognition and trust. Through powerful descriptions of case studies and clear and concise explanations of contemporary philosophical theory (...) the book brings discussions about ethics in medicine back to where they belong-to the level of the everyday experience where people actually live, suffer and hope. A fresh and evocative look at the changing world of ethics as it applies to health and illness, this is an important book for all those touched by illness or suffering. About the author Paul Komesaroff is a physician and philosopher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His books include Objectivity, Science and Society, Troubled Bodies, Sexuality and Medicine (ed. with Philipa Rothfield and John Wiltshire) and Pathways to Reconciliation (ed. with Philipa Rothfield and Cleo Fleming). (shrink)

In his new book, Constitutional Essentials, Frank Michelman provides a splendid elaboration and defense of ‘the constitutional theory of political liberalism’ implicit in John Rawls’s classic work, Political Liberalism. In this essay, we make some observations about what a difference 30 years makes, comparing the political and constitutional climate in which Rawls wrote and published Political Liberalism in 1993 with the climate in which Michelman wrote and published this exegesis of it. We focus on (1) changes in our circumstances of (...) pluralism, including the accentuation of polarization and unreasonable views, and (2) the simultaneous breakdown of trust in the Supreme Court authoritatively to resolve disputes concerning constitutional essentials. Throughout, we acknowledge and seek to reckon with the possibility that Michelman may have given Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy its fullest, most coherent account just at the moment when the possibility of realizing it seems to be passing. (shrink)

Good sleep is essential for health but there is no consensus on how to define and measure people’s understanding of good sleep. To date, people’s perceptions of a good night’s sleep have been, almost exclusively, conceptualized under the lens of sleep quality, which refers to objective characteristics of good sleep, such as such as ease and time needed to fall asleep, hours of sleep, and physical symptoms during sleep and upon awakening. A related, yet different construct, sleep satisfaction, refers to (...) perceived positive affect about one’s sleep experience and has, to date, received little attention. This research focuses on sleep satisfaction, rather than sleep quality, and aims to develop a self-report measure to assess sleep satisfaction in an English adult population. As the measure will be developed in Suffolk, England, and its primary intended users are Suffolk community members, it is labelled the Suffolk Sleep Index. The SuSI will draw from principles of community-based participatory research, following a seven-phase developmental process comprising literature review, interviews with Suffolk community members, synthesis of literature review and interview findings, pre-testing, pilot-testing, scale evaluation, and refinement. The present research will also investigate indices related to sleep satisfaction, including the community’s general health status, lifestyle factors and socio-economic status. The research will add to the limited, yet emerging body of research on perceived sleep satisfaction and its measurement. To our knowledge, a valid and reliable sleep satisfaction self-report measure has not been developed in the United Kingdom previously. (shrink)

4.2 Contextually Salient Functions -- 4.3 Negative Contextual Sensitivity -- 4.4 Strong and Weak Novelty and NP Strength -- 4.5 Existential Force and Strong vs. Weak Novelty -- 4.6 Maximality -- 4.7 Consequences of the Existential Presupposition -- 4.7.1 Positive Contextual Sensitivity -- 4.7.2 Dependent Functional Reading -- 5 Conclusion -- Notes -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.

Introduction Cet article part d’une interrogation : qui écrit le texte numérique? On pensera peut-être spontanément aux programmeurs, aux commentateurs d’une page web, à celui ou celle qui écrit un article de blog ou un tweet. À cette diversité d’acteurs humains, il faut cependant ajouter toute une chaîne d’acteurs non humains, machiniques. Prenons une page web de mediapart.fr par exemple. L’article qui apparaît sous nos yeux a été écrit par des humains, son affichage a été programmé par des...

ABSTRACT In this paper I examine some of the issues surrounding the moral status of the therapy known as ‘deprogramming’. I argue against the extreme view that all deprogrammings are morally impermissible. In certain instances deprogramming is morally justified because it is quite capable of restoring the conditions needed for the exercise of autonomy. The view of autonomy I am following is that constructed by Gerald Dworkin, wherein two conditions must be met in describing a person as autonomous—authenticity and procedural (...) independence. Autonomy of another type, described by Dworkin as authenticity plus substantive independence, may be lost by persons involved in cults but in those instances deprogramming as reconstructed in this paper is not a morally justified measure. (shrink)

In late Medieval Greek and many modern dialects, pronominal clitics are syntactically adjoined to an IP projection. In another set of dialects they have become syntactically adjoined to a verbal head. In the most innovating dialects (which include Standard Greek) they are agreement affixes. Extending the Fontana/Halpern clitic typology, we propose a trajectory of lexicalization from Xmax clitics via X0 clitics to lexical affixes. The evolution of clitic placement also reveals the rise of a composite functional projection ΣP.

The present collection addresses a number of issues in the semantic interpretation of modal and temporal expressions. Despite the variety the papers exhibit both in the selection of topics and the choice of formal frameworks, they are interconnected through several overarching themes that are at the centre of much ongoing research. The purpose of this brief introduction is to put the papers into context and draw the reader's attention to some of these connections. The topics we will discuss in the (...) remainder are: counterfactuals, causality, partiality, compositionality of conditionals, and context dependence. (shrink)

The rapid innovations in digital technology deeply influence views on language and information processing. These exciting developments raise many questions for researchers, and shed new light on old approaches. Researchers are drawn to closely investigate the relation between form and content, the ways that linguistic utterances change information content, and the dynamics of information change. Logic, as an established method of valid argumentation, is a tool that researchers can use to gain insight in these questions of language and computation. In (...) answer to these linguistic and computational questions, this book presents a broad range of logical investigations into language and information processing. The topics surveyed include the notion of 'reasonable belief' in commonsense reasoning, perceptual reports in natural languages, and the logic of creation and modification of objects. The book also presents work on the verification of temporal aspects of reactive systems, analysis of scope by combining model theory and situation semantics and semantic analysis of the information articulation of linguistic statements. This volume exemplifies the abundant development of logical methods and tools in an interdisciplinary context. (shrink)

In recent years, two important books by Yoram Cohen and Matthew Rutz have marked significant progress in research on the archives of Late Bronze Age Emar in northwestern Syria. Both of them approach Emar by way of its scribes. Cohen undertakes a systematic review of all named scribes identified in texts associated with Emar, while Rutz narrows his object to the building that yielded by far the largest number of excavated tablets. This work is foundational to future work on the (...) Emar texts even as it calls for cautious consideration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language Criticism, and: Ordinary Language Criticism: Literary Thinking after Cavell after WittgensteinRichard FlemingRhetorical Investigations: Studies in Ordinary Language Criticism, by Walter Jost; 368 pp. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004, $55.00. Ordinary Language Criticism: Literary Thinking after Cavell after Wittgenstein, edited by Kenneth Dauber and Walter Jost; 353 pp. Evansville: Northwestern University Press, 2003, $29.95 paper.On the question of ordinary language criticism and (...) philosophy, "Who pleases whom?" Judging by many of the articles, essays, and books of the last decade the answer might be: almost nobody pleases anyone. Whether in appreciation or incomprehension of its importance and substance, renewed efforts at understanding, redirections of thinking, and disappointments and frustrations with the [End Page 209] subject-matter are prevalent when ordinary language is the topic of discussion. These two recent books tend to strengthen this assessment. Rhetorical Investigations is a sustained effort to "revisit" and "rethink" grammatical (conceptual) reflections on ordinary language and literature; and in so doing provide a "reinvention" of characteristics of literary theory through an extensive and detailed consideration of the work of Robert Frost. Although sometimes overreaching in its efforts (particularly when discussing logic), it imaginatively uses rhetoric and ordinary language concerns as a means of direction and focus for new, explanatory discussions in literary—philosophical analysis. Ordinary Language Criticism (part of the general series, "Rethinking Theory," edited by Gary Saul Morson) is a diverse and uneven collection of fifteen articles concerning and using ordinary language interests, several of which (R. M. Berry, Garry L. Hagberg, Richard Eldridge, Gerald L. Bruns) valuably repay the diligence needed to discover them in 350 plus pages. The text includes an editors' introduction that voices the wish to "return criticism to its grounds in the 'ordinary' or natural language we all speak" and (unsuccessfully but lustily) pronounces and explains "ordinary language criticism" as a new yet traditional area of study. ("New" in that it takes "as its point of departure" the ordinary language philosophy of Wittgenstein, and "traditional" in that "all criticism is really ordinary language criticism.") The editors further undertake in this introduction the endeavor to sketch something of a program for the book, meant to show connected promptings among the various writings, whereas the specific authors themselves settle down quickly and separately to a critical work at hand without particular references to each other. Both of these texts, like others in this field of study before, valuably raise questions and apprehensions of what use there is in talk about ordinary language. The best of such material provides provocations for thinking that are to be found nowhere else. The worst of such books and articles is that they prejudice sensible people against the study of the ordinary.Can one conceive of something to say about these two books that the authors and the current readers haven't already heard or of which they can be profitably reminded? It certainly would not be wise to presume such a grand stand. This is a large question to which only a small answer might be given here. Setting aside the perhaps undiscussable differences of what we each see of primary importance in the primary texts and how best to read them, one issue and difference of understanding, specific and plain enough to state briefly, perhaps usefully does arise. It is a lack of a clear sense of the "ordinary," its distinctiveness, its implications; and thereby a continuation of many of the confusions that have inhabited philosophical and literary writing before and after Wittgenstein turned his attention to the matter. Is this not partly why frustrations of understanding, disagreements in thinking, and displeasures in discussion remain pervasive and unrelenting?This difficulty and difference with such work can only prove worthwhile introducing, however, against a background of agreement over the centrality [End Page 210] of a cluster of issues, of which three might be specified: a first agreement concerns the sensitivity or fear that something is being missed or remains unintelligible in the culture about the ordinary; a respect for the ordinary is a needed, often unnoticed beginning of our reflections. Rhetorical Investigations importantly develops its analyses from such a perspective (Jost's... (shrink)

This article is about conditionalized modal statements whose antecedents concern a preferential attitude of an agent. The focus is on anankastic conditionals or, as they are known in the philosophical literature, hypothetical imperatives. We present a linguistically-motivated analysis of anankastic and related conditionals and use it to address challenges for semantic theories of natural language conditionals motivated by certain philosophical concerns about practical reasoning and the requirements of rationality.

1. What is it according to Berkeley for bodies to exist in the mind? Maybe no simple or single answer to this question fits everything that he says about it in the Principles and Dialogues , but I think he gives or suggests an answer in Principles section 49 that he may have to give or be willing to accept across the board. The trouble is that this answer comes with a fairly high price.

Linguistic Issues in Language Technology (LiLT) is an open-access journal that focuses on the relationships between linguistic insights and language technology. In conjunction with machine learning and statistical techniques, deeper and more sophisticated models of language and speech are needed to make significant progress in both existing and newly emerging areas of computational language analysis. The vast quantity of electronically accessible natural language data (text and speech, annotated and unannotated, formal and informal) provides unprecedented opportunities for data-intensive analysis of linguistic (...) phenomena, which can in turn enrich computational methods. Taking an eclectic view on methodology, LiLT provides a forum for this work. In this volume, contributors offer new perspectives on semantic representations for textual inference. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of the ‘continuum of destructiveness’ in relation to organizational corruption. This notion captures the slippery slope of wrongdoing as actors engage in increasingly dubious practices. We identify four kinds of individuals along this continuum in corrupt organizations, who range from complete innocence to total guilt. They are innocent bystanders, innocent participants, active rationalizers and guilty perpetrators. Traditional explanations of how individuals move from bystander status to guilty perpetrators usually focus on socialization and institutional factors. In (...) addition to these factors, we propose that the very distance between an act and its ethical consequences (ethical distance) may also play a determining role – if not always in the same way – in the transition process. Having developed this conceptual argument, we conclude with a discussion of managerial and research implications. (shrink)

When there have been substantial failures by institutional leadership in their oversight responsibility to protect research integrity, the public should demand that these be recognized and addressed by the institution itself, or the funding bodies. This commentary discusses a case of research failures in developing genomic predictors for cancer risk assessment and treatment at a leading university. In its review of this case, the Office of Research Integrity, an agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services, focused their (...) report entirely on one individual faculty member and made no comment on the institution’s responsibility and its failure to provide adequate oversight and investigation. These actions missed an important opportunity to emphasize the institution’s critical responsibilities in oversight of research integrity and the importance of institutional transparency and accountability. (shrink)

The executive hypothesis of self-regulation places cognitive information processing at the center of self-regulatory success/failure. While the hypothesis is well supported by cross-sectional studies, no study has tested its primary prediction, that temporary lapses in executive control underlie moments of self-regulatory failure. Here, we conducted a naturalistic experiment investigating whether short-term variation in executive control is associated with momentary self-regulatory outcomes, indicated by negative affect reactivity to everyday stressors. We assessed working memory capacity (WMC) through ultra-brief, ambulatory assessments on smart (...) phones five times per day in a 7-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study involving college-aged adults. We found that participants exhibited more negative affect reactivity to stressor exposures during moments when they exhibited lower than usual WMC. Contrary to previous findings, we found no between-person association between WMC and average stress reactivity. We interpret these findings as reflecting the role of executive control in determining one’s effective capacity to self-regulate. (shrink)

An important area of business ethics research focuses on how otherwise normal and law-abiding individuals can engage in acts of corruption. Key in this literature is the concept of rationalization. This is where individuals attempt to justify past and future corrupt deeds to themselves and others. In this article, we argue that rationalization often entails a process of overcompensation whereby the justification forwarded is excessive in relation to the actual act. Such over-rationalization provides an impetus for further and more serious (...) acts of illegality. Using a number of high profile cases, it is argued that this dynamic gap between the act and excessive rationalization can explain why corruption often escalates in severity and scope in the organization. (shrink)

Critical development and food studies scholars argue that the current food security paradigm is emblematic of a ‘New Green Revolution’, characterized by agricultural intensification, increasing reliance on biotechnology, deepening global markets, and depeasantization. High-profile examples of this model are not hard to find. Less examined, however, are food-security programs that appear to work at cross-purposes with this model. Drawing on the case of Feed the Future in Guatemala, I show how USAID engages in activities that valorize ancestral crops, subsistence production, (...) and agroecological practices. Rather than the result of macro-level planning—of either the New Green Revolution or a greener reform regime—I argue that nonconforming food security projects can be traced to individual actors and their interactions on the ground. I draw on an ‘interface approach’ (Long 1990 ), focusing on the lifeworlds of development workers, their interfaces with each other, and with the to-be-developed. Doing so reveals how food security projects are significantly shaped by the relationships and interests of development actors enmeshed in particular organizational and national settings. This research contributes a fresh perspective on the food security paradigm and its role within the ‘corporate food regime’. (shrink)

This essay examines Gaspar Noë's film, Enter the Void, in light of the work of both Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou. Arguing that the film shows to viewers the 'void' that separates subjects from objects, the essay also considers Noë's film in the light of drug literature and the altered states induced by cinema and describe by Anna Powell. Finally, the essay proposes that Enter the Void is a work of 'unbecoming' cinema, which in turn points to expansion of cinematic (...) form through the use of digital technologies. (shrink)

This paper examines a legal case arising from a workplace grievance that progressed to being heard at the UK’s Supreme Court. The case of Doogan and Wood versus Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board concerned two senior midwives in Scotland, both practicing Roman Catholics, who exercised their perceived rights in accordance with section 4 of the Abortion Act not to participate in the treatment of women undergoing abortions. The key question raised by this case was: “Is Greater Glasgow and Clyde (...) Health Board entitled to require the midwives to delegate, supervise and support staff in the treatment of patients undergoing termination of pregnancy?” The ethical issues concerning conscientious objection to abortion have been much debated although the academic literature is mainly concerned with the position of medical practitioners rather than what the World Health Organization terms “mid-level professionals” such as midwives. This paper examines the arguments put forward by the midwives to justify their refusal to carry out tasks they felt contravened their legal right to make a conscientious objection. We then consider professional codes, UK legislation and church legislation. While the former are given strong weighting the latter was been ignored in this case, although cases in other European countries have been prevented from escalating to such a high level by the intervention of prominent church figures. The paper concludes by stating that the question put to the courts remains as yet unanswered but offers some recommendations for future policy making and research. (shrink)

There is an important but underappreciated ambiguity in Hobbes’ concept of personhood. In one sense, persons are representatives or actors. In the other sense, persons are representees or characters. An estate agent is a person in the first sense; her client is a person in the second. This ambiguity is crucial for understanding Hobbes’ claim that the state is a person. Most scholars follow the first sense of ‘person’, which suggests that the state is a kind of actor – in (...) modern terms, a ‘corporate agent’. I argue that Hobbes’ state is a person only in the second sense: a character rather than an actor. If there are any primitive corporate agents in Hobbes’ political thought, they are representative assemblies, not states or corporations. Contemporary political theorists and philosophers tend to miss what is unique and valuable about Hobbes’ idea of state personality because they project the idea of corporate agency onto it. (shrink)