I want to deal in this essay with the group of philosophers that G.E.M. Anscombe includes under the term ‘modern moral philosophy’ in her essay by that name. The stars of this group are Hobbes, Hume, Adam Smith, Mill, Sidgwick, Moore. I mean to include as well generally the last hundred years of emotivists, utilitarians, and those theorists who have emphasized universalizability in its various versions. For reasons which I hope will soon become clear, I will refer to this broad (...) group as the ‘atomistic tradition.’ I will be assuming, though not often saying, that the most forthright and thorough spokesman of the tradition is David Hume who, in his purely skeptical moments, was so atomistic and extensionalist that he even denied personal identity over time. Anything less than that is not purely atomistic. (shrink)

Individuals regaining reliable day-to-day walking function after incomplete spinal cord injury report persisting unsteadiness when confronted with walking challenges. However, quantifiable measures of walking capacity lack the sensitivity to reveal underlying impairments of supra-spinal locomotor control. This study investigates the relationship between intramuscular coherence and corticospinal dynamic balance control during a visually guided Target walking treadmill task. In thirteen individuals with iSCI and 24 controls, intramuscular coherence and cumulant densities were estimated from pairs of Tibialis anterior surface EMG recordings during (...) normal treadmill walking and a Target walking task. The approximate center of mass was calculated from pelvis markers. Spearman rank correlations were performed to evaluate the relationship between intramuscular coherence, clinical parameters, and center of mass parameters. In controls, we found that the Target walking task results in increased high-frequency intramuscular coherence, which negatively related to changes in the center of mass movement, whereas this modulation was largely reduced in individuals with iSCI. The impaired modulation of high-frequency intramuscular coherence during the Target walking task correlated with neurophysiological and functional readouts, such as motor-evoked potential amplitude and outdoor mobility score, as well as center of mass trajectory length. The Target walking effect, the difference between Target and Normal walking intramuscular coherence, was significantly higher in controls than in individuals with iSCI [F = 13.042, p < 0.001]. Intramuscular coherence obtained during challenging walking in individuals with iSCI may provide information on corticospinal gait control. The relationships between biomechanics, clinical scores, and neurophysiology suggest that intramuscular coherence assessed during challenging tasks may be meaningful for understanding impaired supra-spinal control in individuals with iSCI. (shrink)

A stable democracy requires a shared identity and political culture. Its citizens need to identify as one common demos lest it fracture and balkanise into separate political communities. This in turn necessitates some common communication network for political messages to be transmitted, understood and evaluated by citizens. Hence, what demarcates one demos from another are the means of communication connecting the citizens of those demoi, allowing them to debate and persuade each other on the proper conduct of government and on (...) issues of common interest. For the ancient Athenians, their public sphere was the agora (marketplace); for the Federalists in the American colonies, the newspaper; for us today, it is the Internet. Until now, the physical nature of these communication networks has resulted in a trade-off between the reach of political messages (the numeric and geographic composition of the demos who receive political messages and may participate in the public sphere) and the ability to target the content of a message on that network towards individual citizens. One-to-one interpersonal conversation in the agora was highly targeted but could reach only as far as a voice could carry. The speakers and audience were well known to each other through personal interaction. As the printing press and later television allowed for greater and greater reach, the content of these messages became more generic as the speakers became more distant from their audience. The wider the audience grew, the less a message could be targeted at a particular audience segment without alienating others. (shrink)

Several high-profile episodes have recently thrust drug safety and the pharmaceutical industry's practices into the spotlight. Merck's recall of the drug Vioxx, for instance, was a major news event. GlaxoSmithKline's suppression of data linking suicidal behavior among children to Paxil also galvanized tremendous public attention. What differentiates these events from the usual evolving process of scientific knowledge, and marks them with an aura of “scandal,” are questions about the propriety of corporate behavior. Who knew what, and when did they know (...) it? Concerns are growing about the potential for industry sponsors to suppress negative results from clinical trials research. Scientists, medical journal editors, legislators, and the public have called for greater transparency in the conduct of clinical trials and the drug approval process. (shrink)

During the early twentieth century, the Swiss Zoologist Adolf Naef (1883–1949) established himself as a leader in German comparative anatomy and higher level systematics. He is generally labeled an ‘idealistic morphologist’, although he himself called his research program ‘systematic morphology’. The idealistic morphology that flourished in German biology during the first half of the twentieth century was a rather heterogeneous movement, within which Adolf Naef worked out a special theoretical system of his own. Following a biographical sketch, we present an (...) English translation of a previously unpublished typescript from Naef’s estate, which Naef intended as the introduction to a textbook on Comparative Anatomy for which he was unable to find a publisher before his sudden death in 1949. The typescript contains Naef’s mature thoughts with unprecedented conciseness, focus, and clarity. The density of Naef’s text warrants a historical and contextual explication of its content. (shrink)

What is meaning? How is linguistic communication possible? What is the nature of language? What is the relationship between language and the world? How do metaphors work? The Philosophy of Language, Sixth Edition, is an excellent introduction to such fundamental questions. Incorporating insights from new coeditor David Sosa, the sixth edition collects forty-eight of the most important articles in the field, making it the most up-to-date and comprehensive volume on the subject. Revised to address changing trends and contemporary developments, (...) the sixth edition features eighteen new articles, including influential work by Kent Bach, Paul Boghossian, M. A. E. Dummett, Delia Graff Fara, Hartry Field, H. P. Grice and P.F. Strawson, Carl G. Hempel, Saul Kripke, Benson Mates, Hilary Putnam, Diana Raffman, Nathan Salmon, Stephen Schiffer, John R. Searle, Roy Sorenson, David Sosa, Dennis Stampe, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A general introduction and introductions to each section give students background to the issues and explain the connections between them. A bibliography of suggested further reading follows each section. (shrink)

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps (...) sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

Volume 44 & 45 of Advances in Child Development and Behavior includes chapters that highlight some the most recent research in the area of embodiment and epigenesis. A wide array of topics are discussed in detail, including multiple trajectories in the developmental psychobiology of human handedness and the integration of culture and biology in human development. Each chapter provides in-depth discussions, and this volume serves as an invaluable resource for developmental or educational psychology researchers, scholars, and students. Chapters that highlight (...) some of the most recent research in the area. A wide array of topics are discussed in detail. (shrink)

Widely regarded as the founder of the Islamic philosophical tradition, and as the single greatest philosophical authority after Aristotle by his successors in the medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian communities, Alfarabi was a leading figure in the fields of Aristotelian logic and Platonic political science. The first complete English translation of his commentary on Aristotle's Topics, Alfarabi's Book of Dialectic, or Kitāb al-Jadal, is presented here in a deeply researched edition based on the most complete Arabic manuscript sources. David (...) M. DiPasquale argues that Alfarabi's understanding of the Socratic art of dialectic is the key prism through which to grasp his recovery of an authentic tradition of Greek science on the verge of extinction. He also suggests that the Book of Dialectic is unique to the extent to which it unites Alfarabi's logical and political writings, opening up novel ways of interpreting Alfarabi's influence. (shrink)

This book explores food from a philosophical perspective, bringing together sixteen leading philosophers to consider the most basic questions about food: What is it exactly? What should we eat? How do we know it is safe? How should food be distributed? What is good food? David M. Kaplan’s erudite and informative introduction grounds the discussion, showing how philosophers since Plato have taken up questions about food, diet, agriculture, and animals. However, until recently, few have considered food a standard subject (...) for serious philosophical debate. Each of the essays in this book brings in-depth analysis to many contemporary debates in food studies—Slow Food, sustainability, food safety, and politics—and addresses such issues as “happy meat,” aquaculture, veganism, and table manners. The result is an extraordinary resource that guides readers to think more clearly and responsibly about what we consume and how we provide for ourselves, and illuminates the reasons why we act as we do. (shrink)

One. Hundred. Years. of. Homosexuality. I. In 1992, when the patriots among us will be celebrating the fivehundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, our cultural historians may wish to mark the centenary of  ...

In this book, David M. Black asks questions such as 'why do we care?' and 'what gives our values power?' using ideas from psychoanalysis and its adjacent sciences such as neuroscience and evolutionary biology in order to do so. _Why Things Matter_ explores how the comparatively new scientific discipline of consciousness studies requires us to recognize that subjectivity is as irreducible a feature of the world as matter and energy. Necessarily inter-disciplinary, this book draws on science, philosophy and the (...) history of religion to argue that there can be influential values which are not based exclusively on biological need or capricious life-style choices. It suggests that many recent scientific critics of religion, including Freud, have failed to see clearly the issues at stake. This book will be key reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well as counsellors with an interest in the basis of religious feeling and in moral and aesthetic values. The book will also be of interest to scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy and religion. (shrink)

The model of clinical ethics consultation (CEC) defended in the ASBH Core Competencies report has gained significant traction among scholars and healthcare providers. On this model, the aim of CEC is to facilitate deliberative reflection and thereby resolve conflicts and clarify value uncertainty by invoking and pursuing a process of consensus building. It is central to the model that the facilitated consensus falls within a range of allowable options, defined by societal values: prevailing legal requirements, widely endorsed organizational policies, and (...) professional standards of practice and codes of conduct. Moreover, the model stipulates that ethics consultants must refrain from giving substantive recommendations regarding how parties to a moral disagreement in the clinic should evaluate their options. We argue that this model of CEC is incomplete, because it wrongly assumes that what counts as the proper set of allowable options among which the parties are to deliberate will itself always be clearly discernible. We illustrate this problem with a recent case on which one of us consulted—a neonate born with trisomy 18 (T18). We try to show that law, policy, and standards of practice reveal no clear answer to the question posed by the case: namely, whether forgoing gastrostomy tube feedings for a baby with T18 is allowable. We suggest there may be other kinds of cases in which it may simply be unsettled whether a given choice falls within the set of allowable options within which consensus is to be facilitated. What should an ethicist do when confronting such unsettled cases? We agree with the facilitation model that an ethicist should remain neutral among the allowable options, when it is clear what the allowable options are. But, in unsettled cases, the role of a consultant should be expanded to include a process of moral inquiry into what the allowable options should be. We end by raising the issue of whether this means an ethicist should share his or her own conclusions or views about the allowability of a given clinical option. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, academic economics has undergone a mild revolution in methodology. The language, concepts and techniques of noncooperative game theory have become central to the discipline. This book provides the reader with some basic concepts from noncooperative theory, and then goes on to explore the strengths, weaknesses, and future of the theory as a tool of economic modelling and analysis. The central theses are that noncooperative game theory has been a remarkably popular tool in economics over the (...) past decade because it allows analysts to capture essential features of dynamic competition and competition where some parties have proprietary information. The theory is weakest in providing a sense of when it - and equilibrium analysis in particular - can be applied and what to do when equilibrium analysis is inappropriate. Many of these weaknesses can be addressed by the consideration of individuals who are boundedly rational and learn imperfectly from the past. Written in a non-technical style and working by analogy, the book, first given as part of the Clarendon Lectures in Economics, is readily accessible to a broad audience and will be of interest to economists and students alike. Knowledge of game theory is not required as the concepts are developed as the book progresses. (shrink)

This book provides an exploration of the ethics of cardiology practice. The chapters are divided by five broad areas of practice: beginning-of-life, end-of-life, transplantation and allocation of expensive or scarce resources, professionalism, and research.

USING QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS AT CATHOLIC AND JEWISH HOSPITAL organizations, this essay contrasts the market-driven reforms of consumer-directed health care and physician entrepreneurship with the mission-driven structures of religious nonprofits. A structural analysis of values in health care makes a convoluted system more transparent. It also demonstrates the limitations of market reforms to the extent that they erode organizational structures of solidarity, which are needed to pool risks, shift costs, and maintain safety nets in a complex and expensive health economy.

Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER 1 HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AND HIV: The Duty To WarnI -- CHAPTER 2 EMERGENCY CARE AND HIV: Treatment Policy and -- Pracice17 -- CHAPTER 3 A REVOLUTIONARY POLICY? Mandatory Disclosure of HIV -- Serostaus29 -- CHAPTER 4 MINORS AND HEALTH CARE: The Limits of Consent and -- Confidentiality39 -- CHAPTER 5 THE RIGHTS TO REFUSE AND DEMAND MEDICAL -- TREATMENT: The Bounds ofAutonomy andFutli{y47 -- CHAPTER 6 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE RIGHT TO REFUSE CARE: -- (...) What Are The Limits?65 -- CHAPTER 7 ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY: The Business of -- Making Babies 89 -- CHAPTER 8 TWINS AND TRANSPLANTS: Choosing Who Lives 113 -- CHAPTER 9 FREE ABORTION SERVICES AND FETAL TISSUE RESEARCH: -- Freedom of Choice and Coercion123 -- CHAPTER 10 PROPERTY RIGHTS, BODY PARTS, AND REPRODUCTION: -- Who Owns the Human Body? - 139 -- CHAPTER 11 OUTBREAK IN AMERICA: The Policy of Public Verses Private -- Interests 153 -- APPENDIX A CONFIDENTIALITY OF HIV TEST RESULTS: California Health -- and Safety Code Sections 120975 Through 121020169 -- APPENDIX B HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AND HIV: Texas Health and -- Safety Code Section 58.204 175 -- APPENDIX C TARASOFF v, THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF -- CALIFORNIA: Supreme Court of California177 -- APPENDIX D THE RIGHTS OF MINORS TO CONSENT TO HEALTH CARE: -- California Family Code Sections 6903 Through 6929183 -- APPENDIX E FEDERAL DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE CONFIDENTIALITY -- REGULATIONS: Title 42 Code of Federal Regulations Part 2 187 -- APPENDIX F CHILD ABUSE REPORTING LAWS: Caitfornia Penal Code -- Sections 11164 Through 11166 193. (shrink)

Food is a challenging subject. There is little consensus about how and what we should produce and consume. It is not even clear what food is or whether people have similar experiences of it. On one hand, food is recognized as a basic need, if not a basic right. On the other hand, it is hard to generalize about it given the wide range of practices and cuisines, and the even wider range of tastes. This book is an introduction to (...) the philosophical dimensions of food. David M. Kaplan examines the nature and meaning of food, how we experience it, the social role it plays, its moral and political dimensions, and how we judge it to be delicious or awful. He shows how the different branches of philosophy contribute to a broader understanding of food: what food is (metaphysics), how we experience food (epistemology), what taste in food is (aesthetics), how we should make and eat food (ethics), how governments should regulate food (political philosophy), and why food matters to us (existentialism). Kaplan embarks on a series of philosophical investigations, considering topics such as culinary identity and authenticity, tasting and food criticism, appetite and disgust, meat eating and techno-foods, and consumerism and conformity. He emphasizes how different narratives help us navigate the complex world of food -- yet we all have responsibilities to ourselves, to others, and to animals. An original treatment of a timely subject, Food Philosophy is suitable for undergraduates while making a significant contribution to scholarly debates. (shrink)

Presents essays and articles by 17 philosophers and legal scholars on sexuality, the family, and the proper role of the law in these areas. Subjects include the social construction and reconstruction of care, pornography left and right, homosexuality and the constitution, and declining well-being among US children. For students and general readers interested in sexuality, gender, feminism, and the family. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

I suggest that the social justice issues raised by Internet regulation can be exposed and examined by using a methodology adapted from that described by John Rawls in 'A Theory of Justice'. Rawls' theory uses the hypothetical scenario of people deliberating about the justice of social institutions from the 'original position' as a method of removing bias in decision-making about justice. The original position imposes a 'veil of ignorance' that hides the particular circumstances of individuals from them so that they (...) will not be influenced by self-interest. I adapt Rawls' methodology by introducing an abstract description of information technology to those deliberating about justice from within the original position. This abstract description focuses on computing devices that users can use to access information and information networks that information devices use to communicate. The abstractness of this description prevents the particular characteristics of the Internet and the computing devices in use from influencing the decisions about the just use and regulation of information technology and networks. From this abstract position, the principles of justice that the participants accept for the rest of society will also apply to the computing devices people use to communicate, and to Internet regulation. (shrink)

David M. Zientek; Response to the Consensus Statement of the Working Group on Roman Catholic Approaches to Determining Appropriate Critical Care, Christian bioe.

A wide-ranging study of the central concepts in epistemology - belief, truth and knowledge. Professor Armstrong offers a dispositional account of general beliefs and of knowledge of general propositions. Belief about particular matters of fact are described as structures in the mind of the believer which represent or 'map' reality, while general beliefs are dispositions to extend the 'map' or introduce casual relations between portions of the map according to general rules. 'Knowledge' denotes the reliability of such beliefs as representations (...) of reality. Within this framework Professor Armstrong offers a distinctive account of many of the main questions in general epistemology - the relations between beliefs and language, the notions of proposition, concept and idea, the analysis of truth, the varieties of knowledge, and the way in which beleifs and knowledge are supported by reasons. The book as a whole if offered as a contribution to a naturalistic account of man. (shrink)

Competition cannot stem the rise of health care expenditures because it leaves agency diffuse and transferred in part to the institutions of advanced capitalism, which excel in generating demand for their services. The United States should turn to state rate setting to concentrate purchasing power.

Vernon, Jim, ‘A passion for justice’: Martin Luther King, Jr. and G. W. F. Hegel on ‘world-historical individuals’, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 43 February 2017 pp. 187–207, DOI 10.1177/0191453716680126 SAGE regrets that an error in the title of this article was included in the original publication. Subsequent online versions of this article will be corrected.

This is a book about the education America owes to its children, why its education system is in poor condition, and what might be done to give that system both energy and quality.