Background The European Union aims to optimize patient protection and efficiency of health-care research by harmonizing procedures across Member States. Nonetheless, further improvements are required to increase multicenter research efficiency. We investigated IRB procedures in a large prospective European multicenter study on traumatic brain injury, aiming to inform and stimulate initiatives to improve efficiency. Methods We reviewed relevant documents regarding IRB submission and IRB approval from European neurotrauma centers participating in the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury. (...) Documents included detailed information on IRB procedures and the duration from IRB submission until approval. They were translated and analyzed to determine the level of harmonization of IRB procedures within Europe. Results From 18 countries, 66 centers provided the requested documents. The primary IRB review was conducted centrally or locally and primary IRB approval was obtained after one, two or three review rounds with a median duration of respectively 50 and 98 days until primary IRB approval. Additional IRB approval was required in 55% of countries and could increase duration to 535 days. Total duration from submission until required IRB approval was obtained was 114 days and appeared to be shorter after submission to local IRBs compared to central IRBs. Conclusion We found variation in IRB procedures between and within European countries. There were differences in submission and approval requirements, number of review rounds and total duration. Research collaborations could benefit from the implementation of more uniform legislation and regulation while acknowledging local cultural habits and moral values between countries. (shrink)

The inaugural collection in an exciting new exchange between philosophers and geographers, this volume provides interdisciplinary approaches to the environment as space, place, and idea. Never before have philosophers and geographers approached each other's subjects in such a strong spirit of mutual understanding. The result is a concrete exploration of the human-nature relationship that embraces strong normative approaches to environmental problems.

One of the central debates within contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy concerns how to formulate an egalitarian theory of distributive justice which gives coherent expression to egalitarian convictions and withstands the most powerful anti-egalitarian objections. This book brings together many of the key contributions to that debate by some of the world’s leading political philosophers: Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, T.M. Scanlon, and Larry Temkin.

The Language and Style of Film Criticism brings together original essays from an international range of academics and film critics highlighting the achievements, complexities and potential of film criticism. In recent years, in contrast to the theoretical, historical and cultural study of film, film criticism has been relatively marginalised, especially within the academy. This book highlights the distinctiveness of film criticism and addresses ways in which it can take a more central place within the academy and develop in dynamic ways (...) outside it. The Language and Style of Film Criticism is essential reading for academics, teachers, students and journalists who wish to understand and appreciate the language and style of film criticism. (shrink)

Methods to facilitate co-production in mental health are important for engaging end users. As part of the Technology for Healthy Aging and Wellbeing initiative we organized two interactive co-production workshops, to bring together older adults, health and social care professionals, non-governmental organizations, and researchers. In the first workshop, we used two activities: Technology Interaction and Scavenger Hunt, to explore the potential for different stakeholders to discuss late life mental health and existing technology. In the second workshop, we used Vignettes, Scavenger (...) Hunt, and Invention Test to examine how older adults and other stakeholders might co-produce solutions to support mental wellbeing in later life using new and emerging technologies. In this paper, we share the interactive materials and activities and consider their value for co-production. Overall, the interactive methods were successful in engaging stakeholders with a broad range of technologies to support mental health and wellbeing and in co-producing ideas for how they could be leveraged and incorporated into older people’s lives and support services. We offer this example of using interactive methods to facilitate co-production to encourage greater involvement of older adults and other under-represented groups in co-producing mental health technologies and services. (shrink)

This reader brings together classic and contemporary contributions to debates about social justice. A collection of classic and contemporary contributions to debates about social justice. Includes classic discussions of justice by Locke and Hume. Provides broad coverage of contemporary discussions, including theoretical pieces by John Rawls, Robert Nozick and Ronald Dworkin. Contains papers that apply theories of justice to concrete issues, such as gender and the family, the market, world poverty, cultural rights, and future generations. Philosophically challenging yet accessible to (...) students. (shrink)

This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown (...) University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. (shrink)

This chapter sets out the liberal ideals of justice and legitimacy that form the basis of the conception of upbringing defended in later chapters. It begins with a summary of Rawls’s conception of political morality, then discusses the different dimensions of liberal autonomy and summarizes Rawls’s case for anti-perfectionist justice. Section 3 considers certain objections to Rawls’s political liberalism and against Rawls, asserting the view that autonomy should be treated as valuable in non-political lives. Section 4 sets out a conception (...) of advantage with which to judge the demands of justice, drawing on Rawls’s account of the interests of citizens and Dworkin’s hypothetical insurance scheme. Finally, the questions addressed in later chapters are clarified by reference to recent discussions of the issue of the site of political morality offered by G.A. Cohen and Andrew Williams. (shrink)

This Afterword looks back over both parts of the discussion of “God and the World of Signs”—“Semiotics and the Emergence of Life” in the previous issue of Zygon and “Semiotics and Theology” in this issue. Three central questions in this extended debate are identified: What is the nature of biological organisms and biological evolution? What is the relationship between the natural world and the Triune God of the Christian theological tradition? What should be the goals of Science/Religion Studies? I summarize (...) the answers that Christopher Southgate and Andrew Robinson have given in their program and the challenges raised by their critics. Their strengths and weaknesses are assessed. In the conclusion I ask readers to imagine that this particular research program were to be taken as a model program in science-and-religion research (with some tweaking) and then consider the features of the program that could function as standards for scholars working in other areas of the dialogue. (shrink)

Hay dos supuestos sobre el valor epistémico que guían las discusiones más recientes sobre éste. El primero es que hay algo bueno con respecto a la creencia verdadera. El segundo supuesto es que es posible que dos creencias difieran en su valor incluso si ambas creencias son igualmente correctas. El veritista tiene fácil explicar el primer supuesto, pero tiene más difícil explicar el segundo. Para explicarlo, el veritista tiene que mostrar que las creencias verdaderas pueden diferir en su valor porque (...) encarnan diferentes valores de bienes derivativos. El veritista tiene que proporcionarnos una historia de cómo es posible que pares de creencias verdaderas difieran en su valor epistémico no-instrumental. La forma más prometedora que una explicación de este tipo puede tomar, en mi opinión, apela al trabajo de Sosa (2007) sobre el valor epistémico y la naturaleza del conocimiento. Según la postura de Sosa, el conocimiento es un tipo de logro, un tipo de éxito que es atribuible al sujeto y a sus habilidades. Estos logros, nos sugiere, son más valiosos que un caso de éxito atribuible a la suerte y que no constituye un logro. Presentaré algunas dificultades potenciales para su postura y consideraré si tiene los recursos para lidiar con ellas. Voy a delinear los detalles de una postura alternativa que evade estas dificultades. Tal postura retiene el análisis del conocimiento de Sosa, pero requiere que revisemos algunas propuestas veritistas sobre el valor epistémico. La postura revisada nos proporciona algunas herramientas que serán útiles al tratar de ofrecer una teoría de la creencia racional o diestra. (shrink)

The study of animal cognition raises profound questions about the minds of animals and philosophy of mind itself. Aristotle argued that humans are the only animal to laugh, but in recent experiments rats have also been shown to laugh. In other experiments, dogs have been shown to respond appropriately to over two hundred words in human language. In this introduction to the philosophy of animal minds Kristin Andrews introduces and assesses the essential topics, problems and debates as they cut (...) across animal cognition and philosophy of mind. She addresses the following key topics: what is cognition, and what is it to have a mind? What questions should we ask to determine whether behaviour has a cognitive basis? the science of animal minds explained: ethology, behaviourist psychology, and cognitive ethology rationality in animals animal consciousness: what does research into pain and the emotions reveal? What can empirical evidence about animal behaviour tell us about philosophical theories of consciousness? does animal cognition involve belief and concepts; do animals have a ‘Language of Thought’? animal communication other minds: do animals attribute ‘mindedness’ to other creatures? moral reasoning and ethical behaviour in animals animal cognition and memory. Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is made throughout the book. These include Cheney and Seyfarth’s ververt monkey research, Thorndike’s cat puzzle boxes, Jensen’s research into humans and chimpanzees and the ultimatum game, Pankseep and Burgdorf’s research on rat laughter, and Clayton and Emery’s research on memory in scrub-jays. Additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind, animal cognition. It will also be an excellent resource for those in fields such as ethology, biology and psychology. (shrink)

Edited by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce, _Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation _is the fifth volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected papers. Containing some of Marcuse’s most important work, this book presents for the first time his unique syntheses of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical social theory, directed toward human emancipation and social transformation. Within philosophy, Marcuse engaged with disparate and often conflicting philosophical perspectives - ranging from Heidegger and phenomenology, to Hegel, Marx, and Freud - to create unique philosophical insights, often (...) overlooked in favor of his theoretical and political interventions with the New Left, the subject of previous volumes. This collection assembles significant, and in some cases unknown texts from the Herbert Marcuse archives in Frankfurt, including: critiques of positivism and idealism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and the tradition of German philosophy philosophical essays from the 1930s and 1940s that attempt to reconstruct philosophy on a materialist base Marcuse’s unique attempts to bring together Freud and philosophy philosophical reflections on death, human aggression, war, and peace Marcuse’s later critical philosophical perspectives on science, technology, society, religion, and ecology. A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s work in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century politics and philosophy. An Afterword by Andrew Feenberg provides a personal memory of Marcuse as scholar, teacher and activist, and summarizes the lasting relevance of his radical thought. (shrink)

Three kinds of nationalism are distinguished and explained: (1) Unifying nationalism, which created Italy, and is the more or less voluntary uniting of similar and usually contiguous territories. (2) Ethnic separatist nationalism, which created Ireland, and is the effort of an ethnic group to establish sovereignty in its historical territory. (3) Ongoing patriotic nationalism, which is found in every nation. Each comes in degrees of civility ranging from the democratic to the murderous.Five criticisms of nationalism are then examined in the (...) light of the three varieties of it: (1) It is a historical novelty only two hundred years old, hence less essential and enduring than often supposed (Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm). (2) Separatist nationalism is acceptable only if its underlying goal is to achieve democracy. (3) Nationalism makes the interests of the state supreme and those of the individualnegligible, racializes ethnic difference, and leads to intolerance and genocide (William Pfaff, Isaiah Berlin). (4) If we encourage separatists the world will fragment into “5,000 countries” (Warren Christopher). (5) Supporting existing borders is simply a better safeguard against war (Pfaff).Each of these criticisms is found wanting. I discuss the difference between loyalties, which are particularistic, and morality including constitutional principles, which are universal, a distinction important both to the critics and to my rebuttal of them. (shrink)

This Article is a review of Barry Smith and Ernest Lepore's "Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language".

The article begins with a sociologically triumphalist critique of philosophical aesthetics, grounded in the work of Ernest Gellner and Emile Durkheim. It proceeds to note the practical failure of this kind of sociology to become institutionalized within the wider discipline. It explores a number of possible explanations for this failure, but finally suggests that a normalized sociology of art requires a normalized conception of art itself, such as that tentatively advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Franco Moretti. The article also (...) has an autobiographical subtext. (shrink)

In the conclusion to a most critical essay spanning nearly thirty pages of unrelieved polemic, Ernest Nagel has commented that Blanshard’s “vision … of the scope, and office of human reason is not without grandeur and inspiring power, and its insistence on system and rational order reveals its sources in human aspirations.” The grandeur of Blanshard’s vision of sovereign reason and its roots in human aspirations may be glimpsed, along with its difficulty, by a brief survey of his philosophy.

In their recent book Holism, Jerry Fodor & Ernest Lepore (F&L) argue that various species of content holism face insuperable difficulties. In this paper I reply to their claims. After describing the version of holism to which I subscribe, I follow them in addressing, in turn, its implications for these related topics: interpersonal understanding, false beliefs and reference, psychological explanation, content sirnilarity and identity, the analytic-synthetic distinction, and empirical evidence. The most prominent theme in my response to F&L is (...) that while holism does suffer from the problems they note in principle, it’s able to avoid them in practice. Holism’s implications, in short, are not only not fatal, but not even so bad --- and very possibly desirable. (shrink)

Events and intellectual fashion have conspired to bring the once neglected topics of nationalism and Staatslehre to the forefront of political-philosophical debate in this country, a development which makes David Runciman’s intellectual-historical study quite timely. The history Runciman tells is that of the early twentieth century English movement of political pluralism, whose central figures were Frederic W. Maitland, John N. Figgis, Ernest Barker, George D. H. Cole, and Harold Laski. To tell their story Runciman quite properly recognizes that he (...) must also discuss Thomas Hobbes and Otto von Gierke. For the story of political pluralism is the story of a debate over the concept of group personality, the problems of which are originally and decisively formulated by Hobbes, but which are received by the English pluralists by way of Gierke. Runciman’s approach here is “somewhat dialectical”, in that the discussions of Hobbes and Gierke are meant to shed light upon the English pluralists even as the discussions of the latter are intended to illuminate them. Runciman characterizes this as a movement between philosophy and history. (shrink)

Virtue Reliabilism and Virtue Responsibilism are two theories within the enterprise of Virtue Epistemology. The former considers virtues to be those competences whose reliability is what confers justification on its product beliefs. The latter considers virtues as being those deep-seated intellectual traits that are part of a person's very character, and so when such virtues are possessed and exercised by an agent, they achieve beliefs that are justified via being the products of virtue. Both theories face difficult objections, however. Virtue (...) reliabilism is challenged by the generality problem which claims that since justification is determined by how reliable the belief-forming process is, what we have to do to figure out just how reliable a process is will be by coming up with a proper description of the relevant process. However, there is no principled way to come up with such descriptions in order to determine the correct level of generality regarding the description of a belief-forming process. Virtue responsibilism is challenged by the situationist critique which claims that virtues do not do the kind of work we think they do. Rather, when agents morally and intellectually act in praiseworthy ways, their success is due to situational features of their experience and not to anything like what we think of as virtue. What both problems have in common is that they require their respective target theories to come up with explanations that accurately describe what's going on when people get things right epistemically. As such, virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism both face the same sort of problem. In this dissertation, I attempt to provide a contextual response to the generality problem that doesn't solve that problem per se, but suggests that the problem itself is problematic. In requiring the reliabilist to come up with a universal principle(s) that allows the epistemic practitioner to determine the relevant description for reliable belief-forming processes, the proponent of the generality problem assumes that processes are relevantly alike in all instances of belief formation. But our epistemic practices show otherwise. Indeed, standards for belief justification vary between different situations and contexts. Some contexts have quite stringent standards regarding how reliable a process must be in order to be considered reliable enough while other contexts are not so stringent. As such, that there could be some universal standard or principle for process description is impossible. This dissertation argues for a contextual resolution to the generality problem. Furthermore, it argues that the Virtue Reliabilism of Ernest Sosa seems to have embedded in it a very congenial affinity to attributor contextualism. In light of (i) those arguments, (ii) the similar contextual nature of neo-Aristotelian aretaic thought, (iii) as well as the similarity of the situationist critique to the generality problem, a similar contextual response to that critique is then offered. (shrink)

Many liberals assume that, while children should not be rigidly indoctrinated, parents may raise them according to their own comprehensive values. Matthew Clayton, however, argues that the reasons for embracing antiperfectionism in politics also apply to parental authority. In this paper, I defend the perfectionist conception of childrearing. I claim that we cannot realistically foster a child’s sense of justice without embedding it in a comprehensive doctrine. Furthermore, I argue that since parents cannot avoid bearing some responsibility for their (...) children’s intial orientation to comprehensive doctrines, they are justified in parenting according to their own views of the valuable and true. (shrink)

In a series of recent articles, Matthew Clayton, Andrew Williams and Rasmus Sommer Hansen and Soren Flinch Midtgaard argue that a key virtue of Ronald Dworkin’s account of distributive justice, Equality of Resources, is that it provides a distribution that is continuous with the evaluations of the individuals whom it ranges over. The idea of continuity, or as Williams calls it the ‘continuity test’, limits distributive claims in at least one important way: one person cannot claim compensation from another (...) when she does not believe she is worse off than him. In this article, I challenge whether an account of distributive justice should be continuous with the evaluations of the individuals whom it ranges over. My argument is that continuity competes with another consideration, namely, correctness. An account of distributive justice should track who actually is disadvantaged, not whether individuals believe they are disadvantaged. In addition, I offer an account of how we can get closer to a correct account of who is disadvantaged based on two sources of evidence. (shrink)

THE INDICATIVE CONDITIONAL. A PROBABILISTIC CRITERION OF SOUNDNESS FOR DEDUCTIVE INFERENCES Our objective in this section is to establish a prima facie case ...

Entry for the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy.

The multiverse hypothesis is the leading alternative to the competing fine-tuning hypothesis. The multiverse dispels many aspects of the fine-tuning argument by suggesting that there are different initial conditions in each universe, varying constants of physics, and the laws of nature lose their known arbitrary values; thus, making the previous single-universe argument from fine- tuning incredibly weak. The position that will be advocated will be that a form of multiverse could exist and that any level of Tegmark's multiverse does not (...) circumvent the fine-tuning argument for the existence of a fine-tuner. An argument will be presented suggesting that the multiverse could strengthen the fine-tuning argument by narrowing down the parameters of the data to a more fundamental description needed for the multiverse to function as it does since it may be the case that some physical descriptions are not the same in every universe. That is, the task of explaining how the multiverse mechanism functions cannot be accounted for by the multiverse itself. Fine-tuning by a mind serves as a sufficient and best explanation for the data. (shrink)

Washington University v. Catalona revolves around ownership of tissue samples provided by patients for research purposes, raising significant ethical and legal questions concerning patient rights, current human research practices, and the treatment of samples as capital resources by the research institution.

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not identical to beliefs or desires, and (...) an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and explain behavior through appeal to personality traits that the target wouldn't endorse, and so could not serve as the target's reasons. I conclude by suggesting that our folk psychology includes the notion that some behavior is explained by personality traits—who the person is—rather than by beliefs and desires—what the person thinks. Consequences of this view for the debate between simulation theory and theory theory, as well as the debate on chimpanzee theory of mind are discussed. (shrink)

Andrews Reath presents a selection of his best essays on various features of Kant's moral psychology and moral theory, with particular emphasis on his conception of rational agency and his conception of autonomy. Together the essays articulate Reath's original approach to Kant's views about human autonomy, which explains Kant's belief that objective moral requirements are based on principles we choose for ourselves. With two new papers, and revised versions of several others, the volume will be of great interest to (...) all students and scholars of Kant and of moral philosophy. (shrink)