Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Physician-Assisted Death is the eleventh volume of Biomedical Ethics Reviews. We, the editors, are pleased with the response to the series over the years and, as a result, are happy to continue into a second decade with the same general purpose and zeal. As in the past, contributors to projected volumes have been asked to summarize the nature of the literature, the prevailing attitudes and arguments, and then to advance the discussion in some way by staking out and arguing forcefully (...) for some basic position on the topic targeted for discussion. For the present volume on Physician-Assisted Death, we felt it wise to enlist the services of a guest editor, Dr. Gregg A. Kasting, a practicing physician with extensive clinical knowledge of the various problems and issues encountered in discussing physician assisted death. Dr. Kasting is also our student and just completing a graduate degree in philosophy with a specialty in biomedical ethics here at Georgia State University. Apart from a keen interest in the topic, Dr. Kasting has published good work in the area and has, in our opinion, done an excellent job in taking on the lion's share of editing this well-balanced and probing set of essays. We hope you will agree that this volume significantly advances the level of discussion on physician-assisted euthanasia. Incidentally, we wish to note that the essays in this volume were all finished and committed to press by January 1993. (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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Womanist-Buddhist Consultation as a Reading CommunityCarolyn M. Jones MedineIn Breaking the Fall, the late Robert Detweiler (1932-2008) imagines what a reading community, "a contemporary version of the old storytelling cultures,"1 might look like. He suggests that in such a community, "The accent on community itself would offer a balance to our excessively privatizing tendencies; the communal interaction could counter our relentless drive to interpret... with attitudes of play (...) and Gelassenheit (abandonment, chance, and relaxation); the writing and reading community especially as a liminal entity, could nurture a respect for the incomprehensibility of form and a reverence for mystery."2 This description offers an entry to the work of the Womanist-Buddhist Consultations. To reach a provisional understanding of the meaning of that work, I shall reflect on first what we mean when we say that we want to read something. Second, I turn to a conversation with Robert Detweiler, who was one of my mentors, as a way to address the form of reading that we do and the form of community that we make in the Womanist-Buddhist Consultations. Third, I want to draw on the thought of the consultations themselves, using Emmanuel Levinas's work on reading and ethics, to examine the capacity the consultations have to hold tensions creatively and to allow multiple meanings to be part of them. Finally, I want to address the goals for the consultations. I am thinking specifically of Melanie Harris's desire to see the consultations as generating practices that promote peace, compassion, and justice, and Charlie Hallisey's desire to generate a more complex reading of Buddhist texts in and of themselves.The Womanist-Buddhist Consultations have met three times between 2009 and 2011. We met at Harvard Divinity School and at Texas Christian University for sessions of four days each, and for an evening at the University of Georgia between the two longer meetings. The Texas Christian meeting included some previous members from the Harvard meeting, and added new ones. The University of Georgia meeting consisted primarily of students who participated in the reading practice.In the meeting at the University of Georgia, Charles Hallisey looked askance at me when I said that Buddhism offers an entry into peace and compassion; yet Melanie Harris, when she constructed the later session at Texas Christian University, deployed the terms "peace" and "justice" as descriptors for the work of the group. Hallisey's ironic glance occurred right before we read, at the University of Georgia, a text that contained magic and murder. His glance and the content of that text have prompted [End Page 47] me to think through Harris's claims and to see how our group achieves both a reading of Buddhism and an ethical practice that generates peace and points to justice.The instructions that Hallisey gives for the reading process describe a practice of "being and reading together" as we encounter a variety of Buddhist texts.3 The group's guide is the bodhisattva Manjushri, who has overseen our work through an image gracing the wall at all our meetings. Manjushri has a sword to cut through obstacles, and holds a book, signifying wisdom. The practice of reading with friends, Hallisey told us, comes from Jewish tradition: we need a friend to help us overcome what we can and to begin to see what we cannot. The work involves three steps:1. To read passages individually.2. To read the same passages together in small groups.3. To gather again as a large group and discuss what we have discovered.The major goal of reading is to encounter levels of ourselves to which we ordinarily have no access, by examining a text that becomes "generous" to us. Reading together, Hallisey asserts, makes the generosity of the text visible to us.This process of reading, I would argue, is different from what we usually do when we read and different from what we mean when we tell students to read. Patricia O'Connell Killen, an AAR Teaching Award winner, has delineated some of what we mean when we say to our students: "Read chapter 2 of 'X' and come to class prepared."4... (shrink)

The eight papers in this collection, which were delivered at the Fourth Annual Conference in Philosophy at the University of Georgia in February, 1971, deal with a variety of topics related to the current controversy about man’s use of his environment. The contributors, Eugene P. Odum, William T. Blackstone, Joel Feinberg, Charles Hartshorne, Walter O’Briant, Nicholas Rescher, Robert G. Burton, and Pete A. Y. Gunter, discuss such issues as overpopulation, man’s relation to nature, man’s attitude toward his environment, and (...) the proper role of technology in industrialized societies. Two especially interesting papers are Rescher’s "The Environmental Crisis and the Quality of Life" and Feinberg’s "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations." Rescher believes that Americans can avoid bitter disappointment only by realizing that no significant improvement in the quality of their environment is possible. He is aware that this realization will be painful because it involves surrendering the deeply held convictions that the quality of our life will continually improve and that our technology can overcome any physical obstacles. Feinberg discusses some of the complex issues involved in deciding whether people are obligated to leave a satisfactory environment for those who will come in the future. He contends that there is no obligation to add additional people; but, insofar as it is known that there will be future generations, we are obligated to consider their interests. The book has a helpful introduction by the editor which summarizes the position and arguments of each contributor.—M.G. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to an exploration of the implications for the theory of pre-lexical syntax as developed by McCawley, and for syntactic theories in general, of an analysis of English emphatic conjunctions along the lines of Green . Among the conclusions are: The underlying representation of sentences must be much more abstract than has even been imagined previously, referring, in some as yet undiscovered way, to assumptions of the speaker about the real world, in order to account for the (...) grammatical occurrence of both terms of suppletive lexical items in otherwise identical surface strings with corresponding differences in meaning. A grammatical theory which purports to be capable of relating the sentences of a language to what they mean in a systematic way must be capable of referring directly to relevant assumptions made by the speaker of any given utterance at the time of utterance. So-called 'contrastive stress' is only one of the phenomena whose ultimate explanation depends on direct reference to such assumptions. Transformational grammars, which explicitly claim to be capable of relating in a systematic way the sentences of a language and what they mean, must be capable of referring to the sub-lexical, semantic structure of sentences, and furthermore, must be capable of doing so at an indefinite number of points in their derivation. This means that the semantic representation of a sentence must be available for reference at every stage in the derivation of the sentence. (shrink)

In _Hidden Questions, Clinical Musings_, M. Robert Gardner chronicles an odyssey of self-discovery that has taken him beneath and beyond the categoies and conventions of traditional psychoanalysis. His essays offer a vision of psychoanalytic inquiry that blends art and science, a vision in which the subtly intertwining not-quite-conscious questions of analysand and analyst, gradually discerned, open to ever-widening vistas of shared meaning. Gardner is wonderfully illuminating in exploring the associations, images, and dreams that have fueled his own analytic inquiries, but (...) he is no less compelling in writing about the different perceptual modalities and endlessly variegated strategies that can be summoned to bring hidden questions to light. This masterfully assembled collection exemplifies the lived experience of psychoanalysis of one of its most gifted and reflective practitioners. In his vivid depictions of analysis oscillating between the poles of art and science, word and image, inquiry and self-inquiry, Gardner offers precious insights into tensions that are basic to the analytic endeavor. Evincing rare virtuosity of form and content, these essays are evocative clinical gems, radiating the humility, gentle skepticism, and abiding wonder of this lifelong self-inquirer. Gardner's most uncommon musings are a gift to the reader. (shrink)

An interesting question, in both the moral and the legal context, is whether babies born of an infertility treatment-induced supernumerary pregnancy are properly considered to have been harmed. One might wonder how such a question could even arise in the face of data that clearly demonstrate that ITISP leaves an unduly large number of babies blind, deaf, and palsied, and facing lifelong disabilities. In fact, however, a number of arguments, based on the problem of collective form and two forms of (...) the so-called “nonidentity problem,” challenge the claim of harm in the ITISP context. The purpose of the present paper is to establish, as against these arguments, that harm has been imposed on the ITISP-damaged offspring. (shrink)

Emotional intelligence (EI) stands at the nexus between intelligence and emotion disciplines, and we outline how EI research might be better integrated within both theoretical frameworks. From the former discipline, empirical research focused upon whether EI is an intelligence and what type of intelligence it constitutes. It is clear that ability-based tests of EI form a group factor of cognitive abilities that may be integrated into the Cattell–Horn–Carroll framework; less clear is the lower order factor structure of EI. From the (...) latter discipline, research linking EI with theoretical frameworks from emotion research remain relatively sparse. Emotion regulation and appraisal theory may be key to explain how EI may reflect different processes. We propose a research agenda to advance the EI study. (shrink)

This introductory essay frames our special issue by discussing how attention to the history of research integrity and fraud can stimulate new historical and methodological insights of broader import to historians of science.

6 - Human Cockfighting in the Squared Circle -- 7 - Perfect Praxis in Aikido -- Section III - Reflexivity, Self, and Other -- 8 - Tension, Reflection, and Agency in the Life of a Hausa Grain Trader -- 9 - Reflexivity in Intersubjective and Intercultural Borderlinking -- Section IV - Reflexivity, Democracy, and Government -- 10 - The Latent Effects of the Distribution of Political Reflexivity in Contemporary Democracies -- Postscript - Reflexivity and Social Science -- Index.

Background: Genetic research involving racial/ethnic populations has novel ethical implications for various stakeholders, but ethical acceptability among stakeholders regarding such research is not clear. Methods: As part of a multifaceted National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)/National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) funded survey, we used repeated-measures factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to compare the perspectives of institutional review board (IRB) chairs (n = 203), investigators (n = 183), and community members (n = 192) on the ethical acceptability of participating (...) in and reporting of psychiatric genetic research focused on racial/ethnic minority groups. Stakeholder views were assessed with two sets of three questions. Results: All stakeholder groups perceived participation in genetic studies focused on racial/ethnic groups as ethically acceptable and endorsed as ethical any decisions by racial/ethnic minorities to decline to participate in such studies if concerned about possible discrimination/stigmatization based on the study findings. Stakeholders disagreed considerably on the ethical acceptability of researchers or journal editors choosing not to publish genetic study results focused on racial/ethnic minority groups based on potential harm of the study findings. Conclusion: Findings show community and professional stakeholders support participation in genetic research focused on specific racial/ethnic groups but recognize that the results of such studies may contribute to discrimination or stigmatization. Stakeholders differed in their perspectives of investigators and editors in balancing ethical issues intrinsic to advancing science versus minimizing harm to potentially vulnerable populations. (shrink)

Why and under what conditions are individuals altruistic to family and friends in their social networks? Evolutionary psychology suggests that such behaviour is primarily the product of adaptations for kin- and reciprocal altruism, dependent on the degree of genetic relatedness and exchange of benefits, respectively. For this reason, individuals are expected to be more altruistic to family members than to friends: whereas family members can be the recipients of kin and reciprocal altruism, friends can be the recipients of reciprocal altruism (...) only. However, there is a question about how the effect of kinship is implemented at the proximate psychological level. One possibility is that kinship contributes to some general measure of relationship quality (such as ‘emotional closeness’), which in turn explains altruism. Another possibility is that the effect of kinship is independent of relationship quality. The present study tests between these two possibilities. Participants (N= 111) completed a self-report questionnaire about their willingness to be altruistic, and their emotional closeness, to 12 family members and friends at different positions in their extended social networks. As expected, altruism was greater for family than friends, and greater for more central layers of the network. Crucially, the results showed that kinship made a significant unique contribution to altruism, even when controlling for the effects of emotional closeness. Thus, participants were more altruistic towards kin than would be expected if altruism was dependent on emotional closeness alone – a phenomenon we label a ‘kinship premium’. These results have implications for the ongoing debate about the extent to which kin relations and friendships are distinct kinds of social relationships, and how to measure the ‘strength of ties’ in social networks. (shrink)

This is the first of four papers to be published in Research Ethics Review in 2009 that address methodological issues of relevance to research ethics committees. These will be practical papers, intended to assist ethics committee members to determine whether a research method is both ethically justified and likely to lead to high quality research. This paper prepares the way for the series through a consideration of the relationship between research ethics and methodology.

The definitive book on ethics for chemical dependency treatment professionals.

The recent upsurge in “brain-training and perceptual-cognitive-training", proposing to improve isolated processes such as brain function, visual perception and decision-making, has created significant interest in elite sports practitioners, seeking to create an ‘edge’ for athletes. The claims of these related 'performance-enhancing industries' can be considered together as part of a process training approach proposing enhanced cognitive and perceptual skills and brain capacity, to support performance in everyday life activities, including sport. For example, the 'process-training industry' promotes the idea that playing (...) games not only makes you a better player, but also smarter, more alert, and a faster learner. In this position paper we critically evaluate the effectiveness of both types of process-training programmes in generalizing transfer to sport performance. These issues are addressed in three stages. First, we evaluate empirical evidence in support of perceptual-cognitive process training, and its application to enhancing sport performance. Second, we critically review putative modularised mechanisms underpinning this kind of training, addressing limitations and subsequent problems. Specifically, we consider merits of this highly specific form of training, which focuses on training of isolated processes such as cognitive processes (attention, memory, thinking) and visual perception processes, separately from performance behaviors and actions. We conclude that these approaches may, at best, may provide some 'general transfer' of underlying processes to specific sport environments, but lack 'specificity of transfer' to contextualize actual performance behaviors. A major weakness of process training methods is their focus on enhancing performance in body “modules” (e.g., eye, brain, memory, anticipatory sub-systems). What is lacking is evidence on how these isolated components are modified and subsequently interact with other process “modules”, which are considered to underlie sport performance. Finally, we propose how an ecological dynamics approach, aligned with an embodied framework of cognition undermines the rationale that modularised processes can enhance performance in competitive sport. An ecological dynamics perspective proposes that the body is a complex adaptive system, interacting with performance environments in a functionally integrated manner, emphasising that the inter-relation between motor processes, cognitive and perceptual functions and the constraints of a sport task is best understood at the performer-environment scale of analysis. (shrink)