Psychopaths routinely disregard social norms by engaging in selfish, antisocial, often violent behavior. Commonly characterized as mentally disordered, recent evidence suggests that psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy that historically increased reproductive success at the expense of others. Natural selection ought to have favored strategies that spared close kin from harm, however, because actions affecting the fitness of genetic relatives contribute to an individual’s inclusive fitness. Conversely, there is evidence that mental disorders can disrupt psychological mechanisms designed to (...) protect relatives. Thus, mental disorder and adaptation accounts of psychopathy generate opposing hypotheses: psychopathy should be associated with an increase in the victimization of kin in the former account but not in the latter. Contrary to the mental disorder hypothesis, we show here in a sample of 289 violent offenders that variation in psychopathy predicts a decrease in the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders; that is, psychopathy predicts an increased likelihood of harming non-relatives. Because nepotistic inhibition in violence may be caused by dispersal or kin discrimination, we examined the effects of psychopathy on (1) the dispersal of offenders and their kin and (2) sexual assault frequency (as a window on kin discrimination). Although psychopathy was negatively associated with coresidence with kin and positively associated with the commission of sexual assault, it remained negatively associated with the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders after removing cases of offenders who had coresided with kin and cases of sexual assault from the analyses. These results stand in contrast to models positing psychopathy as a pathology, and provide support for the hypothesis that psychopathy reflects an evolutionary strategy largely favoring the exploitation of non-relatives. (shrink)

Van Lange et al. propose that climate affects violence via its effects on life history. That much is reasonable (and not novel), but their theory lacks causal specificity. Their foundational claim of an association between heat and violence is not well documented, and several findings that the authors themselves cite seem inconsistent with their model, rather than supportive.

Susan Schneider (2019) has proposed two new tests for consciousness in AI (artificial intelligence) systems, the AI Consciousness Test and the Chip Test. On their face, the two tests seem to have the virtue of proving satisfactory to a wide range of consciousness theorists holding divergent theoretical positions, rather than narrowly relying on the truth of any particular theory of consciousness. Unfortunately, both tests are undermined in having an ‘audience problem’: Those theorists with the kind of architectural worries that motivate (...) the need for such tests should, on similar grounds, doubt that the tests establish the existence of genuine consciousness in the AI in question. Nonetheless, the proposed tests constitute progress, as they could find use by some theorists holding fitting views about consciousness and perhaps in conjunction with other tests for AI consciousness. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

Can the totality of consciousness be found within the waking state? Can human consciousness be understood in its entirety by only considering the contents presented to us in the waking state? Why is the waking state so privileged? -/- This treatise from Indian author D.B. Gangolli presents the tri-basic method or the method of the three states of consciousness as the principle device or strategy employed in the science of Advaita Vedanta for arriving at knowledge and understanding of Ultimate Reality (...) as expounded in the Upanishadic tradition. This tri-basic method of wisdom inquiry into Pure Consciousness is contrasted with the pervasive mono-basic or waking-state-only method of inquiry common to science, western, and most other philosophical systems wherein explication of the Ultimate Reality is sought solely within waking consciousness. -/- The tri-basic method of the Advaita system takes waking consciousness as only one of three great states of conscious awareness within Intuition or Intuitive experience, the other two being dreaming and sleeping (deep sleep) states. Instead of privileging the waking state, the tri-basic method views all three states from the viewpoint of Intuition and sets about to inquire into the whole of conscious experience giving equal importance to all three states. It helps us to recognize how we are taught to see waking consciousness as predominant, as the sole perspective from within which we discover knowledge of truth and reality, and to see the limitations of the truncated view of consciousness that it is. -/- Advaita Vedanta is the only philosophical system that consciously inquires within all three great states of consciousness in order for the discrimination of Ultimate Reality. “To observe these states and discriminate about them means whatever is witnessed in the states – all that is to be taken en masse (rolled up into one mass) and is to be made an object to one’s Intuition, i.e., the essence of Being as the Witness or the Self, and then discriminate.” . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclecticism and Adolf Meyer’s Functional Understanding of Mental IllnessD. B. Double (bio)KeywordsAdolf Meyer, eclecticism, functionalism, biopsychosocial modelGhaemi’s Commentary and Meyer’s ‘Eclecticism’I am not against humanism. How could anyone be against the humanistic wisdom rooted in the worthy writings of Socrates, Hippocrates, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Osler, and the others listed by Nassir Ghaemi? Psychiatry should recognize the dignity and value of all people. The problem is that it may not always (...) do so, coming from a reductionist paradigm as it so often does.Ghaemi appreciates that Meyer’s compromising attitude meant that he was “unable to inoculate psychiatry from biological dogmatism.” My emphasis is on the challenge of Meyer’s psychobiology to biomedicine. In the same way, Engel’s biopsychosocial model acknowledged the need to neutralize the power of an impersonal and mechanical medicine. Doctors tend to overemphasize physical abnormalities at the expense of dealing with difficult personal issues.At the risk of oversimplification, I am juxtaposing biopsychosocial and biomedical models in psychiatry. Or in other terms, for our modern understanding, I am asserting a neo-Meyerian approach in contrast to neo-Kraepelinianism. Merely restating the Meyerian perspective will not do, because of Meyer’s ‘give and take,’ and his consequent failure to follow through the implication of his position. At least the ethical ramifications of his conceptual framework need to be acknowledged.Neo-Meyerianism also needs to be realized in the context of the reaction to anti-psychiatry. After anti-psychiatry’s attack, our modern understanding of mental illness has tended to be been subsumed into the binary opposition of ‘pro-psychiatry’ and ‘anti-psychiatry.’ But neo-Meyerianism is as much pro-psychiatric as biomedical psychiatry. It is in this sense that biopsychological approaches have been undermined by the biomedical reaction to anti-psychiatry. [End Page 355]I also agree with Ghaemi that there is a way in which the failures of the biopsychosocial model allowed the development of anti-psychiatry. For example, even though Laing quoted favorably from psychologically minded psychiatrists such as Manfred Bleuler, as far as I know he never made any reference to Meyer. There was never a systematic Meyerian theory to which Laing could refer. In fact, Laing wished to move beyond an interpretative understanding to abandon the metaphor of pathology (Double 2006). Perhaps if the biopsychosocial model had been more clearly defined, Laing would not have felt he needed to take this step. Or, at least in doing so, he would have been clearer about where he stood on this issue. When labeling Laing’s views as ‘anti-psychiatry,’ biomedical psychiatry would have had to state more precisely how Laing’s position was anti- rather than pro-psychiatric.My main disagreement with Ghaemi is his view of Meyer as eclectic. Meyer’s willingness to allow ‘anything goes’ in psychiatry meant that he did not oppose or challenge too much the views of those with whom he disagreed. Nonetheless, he did not combine together different sources to create an unintegrated philosophical and conceptual understanding. His theoretical position is internally consistent.Modern American psychiatry studied by participant observation is “of two minds,” in that there is a divided consciousness created between the practices of drug therapy and psychotherapy (Luhrmann 2000). In this sense, it is eclectic because there is no consistent theory that combines the two practice modes. True, psychiatry often claims that the foundation for this mixture is the biopsychosocial model. It asserts that everyday psychiatry is not as purely biomedical as is often maintained because it takes into account psychosocial factors that may precipitate mental disorders. It, therefore, says that it bring together the biological and psychosocial. This compromise avoids the adoption of any one model and was proposed to neutralize the dogmatism engendered by the anti-psychiatry debate (Clare 1980). I agree with Ghaemi that such eclecticism has outlived its usefulness.Where I think Ghaemi is mistaken is that he sees Meyer and Engel as the originators of this eclecticism. I regard the Meyerian approach as more genuinely pragmatic than Ghaemi suggests. Meyer’s dynamic psychology sought an integration of mind and brain as a way of dealing with the philosophical dilemma of the mind–body... (shrink)

Most of the discussion in bioethics and health policy concerning social responsibility for health has focused on society’s obligation to provide access to healthcare. While ensuring access to healthcare is an important social responsibility, societies can promote health in many other ways, such as through sanitation, pollution control, food and drug safety, health education, disease surveillance, urban planning and occupational health. Greater attention should be paid to strategies for health promotion other than access to healthcare, such as environmental and public (...) health and health research.Lifestyle plays a major role in most of the illnesses in industrialised nations.1 Six of the 10 leading factors contributing to the global burden of disease are lifestyle related: unsafe sex, high blood pressure, tobacco use, alcohol use, high cholesterol and obesity.2 Lifestyle-related illnesses also contribute to the rising costs of healthcare. Spending on healthcare accounts for about 16% of the gross domestic product in the USA, or US$1.9 trillion.3 Although smoking has declined steadily there since the 1960s, smoking-related medical expenses are still about US$75.5 billion per year.4 Obesity, which has been climbing in the past two decades, accounts for about US$75 billion in healthcare costs there each year.5 Alcoholism and drug addiction in the USA account for annual healthcare costs of about US$22.5 billion and US$12 billion, respectively.6,7 Federal government spending on healthcare relating to HIV/AIDS is over US$13 billion per year.8Given the well-documented relationship between lifestyle, disease burden and healthcare costs, it makes economic and medical sense to hold individuals morally responsible for their health-related choices. While this view has a great deal of intuitive appeal, it also faces numerous objections.9–12 First, holding individuals entirely responsible for their own health conflicts with medicine’s obligation to treat the sick and society’s obligation …. (shrink)

The phrase “minimal risk,” as defined in the United States’ federal research regulations, is ambiguous and poorly defined. This article argues that most of the ambiguity that one finds in the phrase stems from the “daily life risks” standard in the definition of minimal risk. In this article, the author argues that the daily life risks standard should be dropped and that “minimal risk” should be defined as simply “the probability and magnitude of the harm or discomfort anticipated in research (...) are not greater than those encountered during the performance of routine physical or psychological examinations or tests”. (shrink)

This essay develops a framework for thinking about the moral basis for the commodification of human reproductive materials. It argues that selling and buying gametes and genes is morally acceptable although there should not be a market for zygotes, embryos, or genomes. Also a market in gametes and genes should be regulated in order to address concerns about the adverse social consequences of commodification.

The precautionary principle holds that we should not allow scientific uncertainty to prevent us from taking precautionary measures in response to potential threats that are irreversible and potentially disastrous. Critics of the principle claim that it deters progress and development, is excessively risk-aversive and is unscientific. This paper argues that the principle can be scientific provided that (1) the threats addressed by the principle are plausible threats, and (2) the precautionary measures adopted are reasonable. The paper also argues that one (...) may use epistemic criteria, such as consistency, coherence and explanatory power, to determine whether a threat is plausible, and that one may use practical considerations, such as effectiveness, proportionality, cost-effectiveness, realism and consistency, to determine whether a response to a threat is reasonable. (shrink)

George Engel’s biopsychosocial model was associated with the critique of biomedical dogmatism and acknowledged the historical precedence of the work of Adolf Meyer. However, the importance of Meyer’s psychobiology is not always recognized. One of the reasons may be because of his tendency to compromise with biomedical attitudes. This paper restates the Meyerian perspective, explicitly acknowledging the split between biomedical and biopsychological approaches in the origin of modern psychiatry. Our present-day understanding of this conflict is confounded by reactions to ‘anti-psychiatry.’ (...) Neo-Meyerian principles can only be reestablished by a challenge to biomedicine that accepts, as did Meyer, the inherent uncertainty of medicine and psychiatry. (shrink)

Purpose. The aim of the article is to clarify the content of the concept of culture as an explication of vitality within the philosophy of life and its further modifications in current problems of contemporary. The analysis performed standing from the point, that contrasting of nature and culture is irrelevant, since culture does not contradict natural determinants and patterns, but rather qualitatively alters them. So, are justified the idea of culture as a phenomenon that exist accordingly and in proportion to (...) nature, need to form its potential and content and not contradict the axioms and values of life. Theoretical basis. In the theoretical field of philosophy of life, the local development of the problem of culture as an explication of vitality produces grounds for analytical and prognostic activity concerning meaningful transformations in a separate historical and social horizon. The fundamental categories of culture: spirit, value, symbol, freedom, justice and harmony receive the requested content and meaning. The idea of the constancy and super-naturality of cultural universals is illusory and dangerous. The consequences of such a "non-cosmological" justification of freedom and will, and the assertion of values, that contradict the logic of life, are the global environmental, economic and social crisis of our time. Originality. The originality of the authors’ thought lies in the interpretation of the essence of culture as an explication of vitality, as a logical and natural extension of life. In this formulation of the problem of culture, the possibility of reconciling the natural, social and value determinants of human life is formed. Theorists of the philosophy of life substantiated the primacy and supremacy of the values of life over the values and meanings of culture. The position of authors position consists in the need to understand culture as an environmentally appropriate and dimensional phenomenon, the content and strategies of which are determined by a single ontology. Conclusions. The analysis let authors understand the voluntarily chaotic element of life. Culture in its philosophical analysis took on a clearer anthropomorphic dimension: the immanent logic of being in substantiating the essence and purpose of man and the value of his being localized the universe of transcendence in the concept of "living world", "inhabited space", "human, too human". Accordingly, the range of cultural evaluations has been polarized: from the approving statement of its vital essence, to the disparaging calls for its reform. The chaotic state of voluntarily acts is transformed into cultural codes and stereotypes by rationalization. The modern global nature of crisis phenomena, both in the worldview, in the social, and in the ecological dimension, requires reformatting the understanding of culture as a continuation of nature, and not its antipode. (shrink)

Inappropriate authorship is a common problem in biomedical research and may be becoming one in bioethics, due to the increase in multiple authorship. This paper investigates the authorship policies of bioethics journals to determine whether they provide adequate guidance for researchers who submit articles for publication, which can help deter inappropriate authorship. It was found that 63.3% of bioethics journals provide no guidance on authorship; 36.7% provide guidance on which contributions merit authorship, 23.3% provide guidance on which contributions do not (...) merit authorship, 23.3% require authors to take responsibility for their contributions or for the article as a whole, 20% provide guidance on which contributions merit an acknowledgement but not authorship, 6.7% require authors to describe their contributions, and only 3.3% distinguish between authorship in empirical and conceptual research. To provide authors with effective guidance and promote integrity in bioethics research, bioethics journals should adopt authorship policies that address several important topics, such as the qualifications for authorship, describing authorship contributions, taking responsibility for the research and the difference between authorship in empirical and conceptual research. (shrink)

Informed consent is one of the foundational ethical and legal requirements of research with human subjects. The Nuremberg Code, the Helsinki Declaration, the Belmont Report, the Common Rule and many other laws and codes require that research subjects make a voluntary, informed choice to participate in research.12345 Informed consent is based on the moral principle of respect for autonomy, which holds that rational individuals have a right to make decisions and take actions that reflect their values and preferences. 6 Whereas (...) most guidelines and codes also require that informed consent be properly documented, informed consent is much more than signing a piece of paper: It is a continuous process of communication between the investigator and the research subject. 7 Because the body of knowledge impacting a study frequently changes, subjects should receive information from investigators after they have enrolled in a study, such as significant new findings that may affect their decision to participate in research or clinically useful tests results. 8910 In large studies, some investigators use newsletters to update subjects on the progress of research and other developments.11Most of the ongoing communications between investigators and subjects involve little more than information sharing, without revisiting the decision to participate in research or signing any additional documents. Sometimes, however, it may be necessary for subjects to reaffirm their decision to participate, to re-consent, or to sign or re-sign a document. 8 Re-consent can be defined as an action in which a subject makes the decision to participate in research once again. Re-consent is different from reaffirming a commitment to participate in a study, because in re-consent one actually reconsiders the information necessary to make decision, whereas in reaffirmation one simply expresses …. (shrink)

This essay reviews six different approaches to intellectual property. It and argues that none of these accounts provide an adequate justification of intellectual property laws and policies because (1) there are many different types of intellectual property, and (2) a variety of incommensurable values play a role in the justification of intellectual property. The best approach to intellectual property is to assess and balance competing moral values in light of the particular facts and circumstances.

Mr. Kubat attributes much of the misinformation about Brentano's theories to the lack of an edition of Brentano's collected writing. If anyone should wish to know more about Brentano's doctrines, he may have been led by this remark to despair of finding them anywhere in print. The three works which Mr. Kubat mentions, Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, Religion und Philosophie, and Die Lehre vom richtigen Urteil, all edited by F. Mayer-Hillebrand and published by A. Francke in Bern, represent no (...) more than a continuation of the Gesamtausgabe of Brentano's writings which was begun by Oskar Kraus and Alfred Kastil after Brentano's death. The volumes in the Gesamtausgabe represent ten numbers in Meiner's Philosophische Bibliothek and are listed under the heading, "Gesammelte philosophische Schriften." They contain not only new editions of much of the work which Brentano published during his lifetime, but a large amount of material which Kraus and Kastil selected from his enormous Nachlass as well. I am sure that Mrs. Mayer-Hillebrand herself would be the first to recognize that the three published volumes she has edited, and the one on esthetics which is soon to appear in print, are part of a whole which also includes the volumes edited by Kraus and Kastil. Taken altogether, the thirteen volumes that have been published by Meiner and by Francke can well be viewed as at least an adequate substitute for a collected edition. Surely they include everything which is necessary to dispel the common misinformation which Mr. Kubat tries to explain by denying their existence. The trouble has not been the lack of a collected edition, but the lack of readers. (shrink)

An examination of the contemporary Italian movement associated with M. P. Sciacca, and the serious application of dialectical and phenomenological methods to unveil the structure of "intentionality" or "spirit." An appraisal of Sciacca together with a sample critique of Dante follows a competent summary of the prevailing positions.--D. B. B.

At one stage in his account of the war against Tacfarinas, Tacitus describes the strategy of the proconsul of Africa, P. Cornelius Dolabella, as follows: ‘excito cum popularibus rege Ptolemaeo quattuor agmina parat, quae legatis aut tribunis data; et praedatorias manus delecti Maurorum duxere: ipse consultor aderat omnibus’.