This book, first published in 1989, contains a spirited debate between eminent economists, journalists, and publishers about the spread of economic ideas. Using many of the same ideas as do the rhetorical and sociological philosophical schools, the contributors to this book discuss the spread of economic ideas in readily understandable English. The examination of the flow of ideas among economists and from economists to the public is followed by a discussion of the public policy use and abuse of these concepts. (...) A final section provides insights into the funding of ideas and the incentives to make economics more relevant. The dialogue among the book's contributors provides both the lay reader and the interested professional with fascinating insights into what happens behind the scenes in academia, publishing, and journalism. (shrink)

One way in which philosophers have often sought to distinguish moral judgments from non-moral judgments is by using the “moral-conventional” distinction. I seek to raise serious questions about the significance of the moral-conventional distinction, at least for philosophers interested in moral judgment. I survey recent developments in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science that have led many to the conclusion that moral judgment is not a distinctive kind of judgment or the result of a specific, identifiable cognitive process. (...) I argue that if this conclusion is largely correct, the moral-conventional distinction loses significance. If moral judgment does not correspond to a distinctive cognitive process, it is unclear how distinguishing between types of norms tracks anything of significance to human judgment formation. I then discuss the implications of abandoning the distinction for research in the field of moral psychology and tentatively propose a more modest way of conceiving of norm significance. (shrink)

In recent years, Bayesian probability theory has emerged not only as a powerful tool for building computational theories of vision, but also as a general paradigm for studying human visual perception. This book provides an introduction to and critical analysis of the Bayesian paradigm. Leading researchers in computer vision and experimental vision science describe general theoretical frameworks for modeling vision, detailed applications to specific problems and implications for experimental studies of human perception. The book provides a dialogue between different perspectives (...) both within chapters, which draw on insights from experimental and computational work, and between chapters, through commentaries written by the contributors on each other's work. Students and researchers in cognitive and visual science will find much to interest them in this thought-provoking collection. (shrink)

The sciences use a wide range of visual devices, practices, and imaging technologies. This diversity points to an important repertoire of visual methods that scientists use to adapt representations to meet the varied demands that their work places on cognitive processes. This paper identifies key features of the use of visualization in a range of scientific domains and considers the implications of this repertoire for understanding scientists as cognitive agents.

Considerable debate has occurred about the proper role of philosophers when offering ethics consultations. Some argue that only physicians or clinical experienced personnel should offer ethics consultations in the clinical setting. Others argue still further that philosophers are ill-equipped to offer such advice, since to do so rests on no social warrant, and violates the abstract and neutral nature of the discipline itself.I argue that philosophers not only can offer such consultations but ought to. To be a bystander when one's (...) discipline does offer insights and methods of value discernment is pusillanimous. But this position requires a view of clinical medical ethics as one that arises out of the clinical practice of medicine, and not just from an application of general ethical principles to the practice of medicine. I conclude with some skills that trained philosophers can bring to the consultation service, and note that all consultations are in the form of recommendations that the patient, family, and physician are still free to accept or reject. Philosophers in the clinical setting do not make decisions. (shrink)

Ideen om at lovbrytere fortjener straff, må legges til grunn dersom vi skal kunne forstå og begrunne strafferetten i Norge og i andre rettsstater. Av noen teoretikere har dette kravet til fortjent straff blitt forstått som et negativt krav, som setter en begrensning på oppnåelsen av straffens formål. Straffen må da være «ikke ufortjent». I denne artikkelen argumenterer jeg for at en slik forståelse av fortjenesteideen er utilstrekkelig. Straff som fortjent må ansees som et positivt, selvstendig formål for strafferetten. Artikkelen (...) ser på norsk rettspraksis og lovforarbeider, og drøfter hvorfor det i norsk strafferett må legges til grunn at det er verdifullt å oppfylle lovbryterens fortjeneste. (shrink)

Participants with posttraumatic stress disorder and participants with a trauma but without PTSD wrote narratives of their trauma and, for comparison, of the most-important and the happiest events that occurred within a year of their trauma. They then rated these three events on coherence. Based on participants’ self-ratings and on naïve-observer scorings of the participants’ narratives, memories of traumas were not more incoherent than the comparison memories in participants in general or in participants with PTSD. This study comprehensively assesses narrative (...) coherence using a full two by two design. The results are counter to most prevalent theoretical views of memory for trauma. (shrink)

According to Frankena, “the moral point of view is what Alison Wilde and Heather Badcock did not have.” Most of us, however, are not such extreme examples. We are capable of the moral point of view, but we fail to take the necessary time or make the required efforts. We resist pulling ourselves from other distractions to focus on the plight of others and what we might do to ameliorate their suffering. Perhaps compassion is rooted in understanding what it is (...) that connects us with others rather than what separates us, and rests on developing sufficient awareness, to internalize what our actions, or lack of them, mean in the lives of others. (shrink)

The two target articles in this issue draw an important connection between disability bioethics and geriatric bioethics. Dominic JC Wilkinson makes a pragmatic case for using frailty as a fa...

To achieve the goals of ethics education, students must have oportunities to develop both moral capacities (imagination, responsibility, and perseverance) and intellectual capacities (critical thinking). This article contends that service-based learning represents an important opportunity for integrative ethics education. It describes a program of leadership internships at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, in which faculty members conduct a for-credit reflection seminar with students involved in service internships. The seminar is based upon student-written cases about ethical issues they face in (...) their work settings. (shrink)

We explore ways in which purely qualitative belief change in the AGM tradition throws light on options in the treatment of conditional probability. First, by helping see why it can be useful to go beyond the ratio rule defining conditional from one-place probability. Second, by clarifying what is at stake in different ways of doing that. Third, by suggesting novel forms of conditional probability corresponding to familiar variants of qualitative belief change, and conversely. Likewise, we explain how recent work on (...) the qualitative part of probabilistic inference leads to a very broad class of 'proto-probability' functions. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers differ on whether selection should be analyzed at the level of the gene or of the individual. In Peter Godfrey-Smith’s book, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, he argues that individuals can be good members of Darwinian populations, whereas genes rarely can. I take issue with parts of this view, and suggest that Godfrey-Smith’s scheme for thinking about Darwinian populations is also applicable to populations of genes.

Acculturation is the process through which an individual's cultural behaviors and values change via contact with a majority or host culture. Although some individuals accomplish acculturation smoothly, most experience psychological stress during the acculturation process. When psychologists encounter individuals struggling to acculturate, they are mandated by ethical guidelines and principles to help through several steps: (a) recognize their own biases, beliefs, and attitudes that may influence their work with the acculturating individual; (b) develop competence to work with individuals whose cultural (...) beliefs and practices differ from their own; (c) counsel the acculturating individual using scientifically supported techniques; and (d) intervene without discrimination or disrespect. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how psychologists can ethically and effectively encourage mentally healthy acculturation. Keywords: acculturation, ethics, cultural differences. (shrink)

The dynamical hypothesis is strong in that, for it to be true, every cognitive phenomenon must be best modeled by a dynamical system. Depending on how it is interpreted, however, the hypothesis may be seen as probably false or even unfalsifiable. Strengthening the hypothesis to require unification, or at least coherence, across models in different cognitive domains alleviates this problem.

In this paper dedicated to Carlos Alchourrón, we review an issue that emerged only after his death in 1996, but would have been of great interest to him: To what extent do the formal operations of AGM belief change respect criteria of relevance? A natural criterion was proposed in 1999 by Rohit Parikh, who observed that the AGM model does not always respect it. We discuss the pros and cons of this criterion, and explain how the AGM account may be (...) refined, if we so desire, so that it is always respected. En este trabajo dedicado a Carlos Alchourrón consideramos un problema que surgió recién después de su muerte en 1996 pero que seguramente habría sido de gran interés para él: ¿hasta dónde las operaciones formales sobre el cambio de creencias de AGM respetan el criterio de relevancia? Un criterio natural ha sido propuesto en 1999 por Rohit Parikh quien asimismo observó que el modelo AGM no siempre lo respeta. Nosotros discutimos los pros y los contras de este criterio y explicamos cómo podría refinarse AGM para que, si así lo deseáramos, lo respetara siempre. (shrink)

At the end of the most violent century in human history, it is good to take stock of our commitments to human and other life forms, as well as to examine the rights and the duties that might flow from their biological makeup. Professor Thomasma and Professor Loewy have held a long-standing dialogue on whether there are moral differences between animals and humans. This dialogue was occasioned by a presentation Thomasma made some years ago at Loewy's invitation at the University (...) of Illinois, Peoria, Medical Center. During that presentation, Thomasma argued that human beings are sufficiently distinct from other animals genetically and otherwise to justify a moral difference in rights and obligations. In effect, he argued that there are species-specific rights. This essay will pick up the threads of that dialogue. (shrink)

Each paper explores the influences on different parts of Peripatetic rhetoric, its discussion of character, emotion, reason, and style, its relationships with other texts, including those of Theodectes and the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, and its relationship with the oratory of the 4th century BC.

In advanced technological societies there is growing concern about the prospect of protracted deaths marked by incapacitation, intolerable pain and indignity, and invasion by machines and tubing. Life prolongation for critically ill cancer patients in the United States, for example, literally costs a fortune for very little benefit, typically from $82,845 to $189,339 for an additional year of life. Those who return home after major interventions live on average only 3 more months; the others live out their days in a (...) hospital intensive care unit. (shrink)

David Shaw has a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy from the Aquinas Institute. This three-year in-depth study of Aristotle was illuminated with commentaries by Thomas Aquinas. Many persons believe that God has created everything that is. I do not disagree with them but I am not satisfied with this generality. There is no guidance in this belief. We have endured 300 years since the revolutionaries of modern science began their dismemberment of the Greek cosmos that had endured for (...) 2,000 years. We now have no theory of creation. The Hebrew cosmos and the Greek cosmos made up the traditional theories of creation for the western world. Since many have forgotten this history, I summarize it before venturing into my proposal for a new theory of creation. Our universe and the ancient universe are vastly different. The ancient universe was static. It was thought to have no history. Our universe is dynamic. It has a history. Harold Morowitz has identified 28 emergences of new complexity in our universe [1]. I propose a new theory of creation. I give four arguments for community as the next emergence based on the statements of four great thinkers: Plato, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, and Michael Sandel. These thinkers do not propose community as the next emergence, they do identify community as a central process in human affairs. A description of my experience with community-building projects is included. While writing this section, the importance of civic fabric in building community confronted me.Community does not flow from civic fabric. Community does not flow without civicfabric. Civic fabric is the foundation for community. 1. Morowitz, Harrold. The Emergence Of Everything: How The World Became Complex. (shrink)

Many worry that global warming may produce dire consequences not just for humankind, but for many other living organisms on the planetEarth. This has raised concerns about the desirability of the political and economic policies that brought us to this point in history, a period of markedly higher levels of consumptionConsumption that produce higher levels of CO2. That, in turn, has raised new concerns about the ideologies and theoretical paradigms upon which such political and economic policies are based. Many now (...) call for a rejection of free marketFree Market economies to make room for more centrally planned economic systems. Even the idea of Homo EconomicusHomo Economicus – the primary actor in the modern free marketFree Market economy – is under fire in favor of a new conceptualization of the primary actor: Homo CuratorHomo Curator. This essay explains why these changes are both unnecessary and dangerous. I argue they are unnecessary by showing: (1) Homo Economicus and excessive consumptionConsumption are not the root of the problem, and (2) how the theory of market failure already gives us proven means to address problems like global warming. I argue that abandoning Homo Economicus and the free marketFree Market economy is dangerous because it will inevitably lead to a world that is far less likely to support individual and collective human flourishing; one that poorer, less free, and less respectful of the sanctity of the individual. (shrink)

A critical edition and facing-page translation, accompanied by substantial analytical introduction and notes, of Perspectiva by Roger Bacon, a foundational text of modern optics written in about 1260, which defined the subject for the next 350 years.

We define and examine a notion of logical friendliness, which is a broadening of the familiar notion of classical consequence. The concept is tudied first in its simplest form, and then in a syntax-independent version, which we call sympathy. We also draw attention to the surprising number of familiar notions and operations with which it makes contact, providing a new light in which they may be seen.