Properties sometimes attributed to the “particle” aspect of a neutron, e.g., mass and magnetic moment, cannot straightforwardly be regarded in the Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics as localized at the hypothetical position of the particle. This is shown by examining a series of effects in neutron interferometry. A related thought-experiment also provides a variation of a recent demonstration that which-way detectors can appear to behave anomolously in the Bohm theory.

J. S. Bell's classic 1966 review paper on the foundations of quantum mechanics led directly to the Bell nonlocality theorem. It is not widely appreciated that the review paper contained the basic ingredients needed for a nonlocality result which holds in certain situations where the Bell inequality is not violated. We present in this paper a systematic formulation and evaluation of an argument due to Stairs in 1983, which establishes a nonlocality result based on the Bell-Kochen-Specker “paradox” in quantum mechanics.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: I discuss the foundations of what I have said in my work as a biologist on autopoiesis, molecular autopoietic systems and social systems. I argue that the theme of sociology should be to understand how is it that we come out of the social manner of living that is the foundation of our origin as languaging and reflecting human beings.

We start this issue of Journal of Military Ethics with a recent address on military ethics given by one of the US ARMY's leading officers.Brigadier General H. R. McMaster graduated from the United...

The paper uses questionnaire responses provided by a sample of ethical investors to investigate willingness to sacrifice ethical considerations for financial reward. The paper examines the amount of financial reward necessary to cause an ethical investor to accept a switch from good ethical performance to poor ethical performance. Conjoint analysis is used to allow quantification of the utilities derived from different combinations of ethical and financial performance. Ethical investors are shown to vary in their willingness to sacrifice ethical for financial (...) performance, and hence to display more heterogeneity than the all-encompassing ‘ethical’ label implies. Because of the existence of sub-groups of ethical investors with different attitudes towards financial reward, an attempt has been made to associate observable investors’ characteristics with their level of willingness to trade-off morality for cash. One sub-group of investors in particular appears highly resistant to the idea of accepting higher financial return as compensation for poor ethical performance. This unwillingness casts doubt on Jensen and Meckling’s widely reported claim that trade-off behaviour is ubiquitous in all areas of life. (shrink)

Festschrift volume in honour of Mohd. Sabir Hussain, b. 1935.

IN a review of Excavations at Phylakopí, Class. Rev. 1905, p. 80, I find I have misquoted Dr. Arthur Evans. In Ms article on the ‘Pottery-marks’ Dr. Evans writes that ‘the method of writing from right to left, instead of from left to right, is not found in the Cnossian linear inscriptions.’ By a slip which I much regret I wrote ‘Cretan’ for ‘Cnossian’ in quoting this sentence. I of course understood Dr. Evans to be referring to the Cnossian inscriptions (...) only, not to the whole ‘Minoan’ system of picture-writing generally. He shews that right-to-left writing could be used in the Minoan system by the Melian example, which reads in the reverse direction to that of an otherwise identical Cnosaian sign-group. This being so, I still doubt whether all the Cnossian inscriptions will eventually prove to read from left to right. (shrink)

The book called The Consolation of Philosophy was throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the sixteenth century, the scholars familiar companion. Few books have exercised a wider influence in their time. It has been translated into every European tongue, and into English nearly a dozen times, from King Alfreds paraphrase to the translations of Lord Preston, Causton, Ridpath, and Duncan, in the eighteenth century.

When a serious crime—say a murder—is committed by someone who has been discharged or has absconded from prison the public reaction is extreme. And public anger is not appeased by psychiatrists and sociologists who argue in the media the case either for all mental disorders being capable of treatment leading at least to partial cure or that all crime springs from unfortunate social circumstances. In the two papers which follow the situation is described how psychopathic and other mentally abnormal offenders (...) are dealt with at the present time, and how the Aarvold and Butler Committees were set up. The Aarvold Committee (Chairman, Mr Justice Aarvold) was to be concerned with tightening the provisions of the law as it now stands whereas the Butler Committee (Chairman, Lord Butler) was asked to look into and recommend changes in the law relating to these offenders. The Aarvold Committee reported swiftly and the Butler Committee made its final report in 1975. (An interim report was produced in 1974.) It is with the Butler Report that Dr Rollin and Dr Norton are principally concerned here. The fundamental aim of both committees was to maintain a balance between `what is best for those guilty of dangerous offences and the right of the public to be protected'. Both writers describe the various forms of detention for psychopathic offenders in operation and proposed, and both conclude that the Butler Report offers wise and realistic guidance but fear that continuing official inertia will preclude the recommendations ever being implemented. Dr Norton deals particularly with the concept of `dangerousness', and the controversial issue of the Butler `reviewable sentences' for mentally abnormal offenders. (shrink)