Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We (...) also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

This paper considers an approach to teaching ethics in bioengineering based on the How People Learn (HPL) framework. Curricula based on this framework have been effective in mathematics and science instruction from the kindergarten to the college levels. This framework is well suited to teaching bioengineering ethics because it helps learners develop “adaptive expertise”. Adaptive expertise refers to the ability to use knowledge and experience in a domain to learn in unanticipated situations. It differs from routine expertise, which requires using (...) knowledge appropriately to solve routine problems. Adaptive expertise is an important educational objective for bioengineers because the regulations and knowledge base in the discipline are likely to change significantly over the course of their careers. This study compares the performance of undergraduate bioengineering students who learned about ethics for stem cell research using the HPL method of instruction to the performance of students who learned following a standard lecture sequence. Both groups learned the factual material equally well, but the HPL group was more prepared to act adaptively when presented with a novel situation. (shrink)

While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has traditionally been the domain of the corporate sector, recognition of the growing significance of the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) sector has led to an emphasis on their social and environmental impact, illustrated by an increasing number of initiatives aimed at engaging SMEs in the CSR agenda. CSR has been well researched in large companies, but SMEs have received less attention in this area. This paper presents the findings from a U.K. wide study (...) of socially responsible SMEs. The 24 companies studied were chosen as “exemplars” of␣CSR in SMEs. The aim of this study therefore is to progress understanding of both the limitations on and opportunities for CSR in SMEs through the exploration of exemplary characteristics in the study companies. Key areas of investigation were CSR terminology, the influence of managerial values, the nature of SME CSR activities, motivation for and benefits from engaging in CSR, and the challenges faced. The results of this study demonstrate some of the exemplary goals and principles needed to achieve social responsibility in SMEs, and begin to provide knowledge that could be used to engender learning in other SMEs. In particular, there is evidence that stakeholder theory may provide a framework in which SMEs and CSR can be understood. SMEs prefer to learn through networking and from their peers, so this is a possible avenue for greater SME engagement in CSR. This would require strong leadership or “championing” from individuals such as highly motivated owner–managers and from exemplary companies as a whole. (shrink)

We prove that the classes of UHF algebras and AF algebras, while not axiomatizable, can be characterized as those C*-algebras that omit certain types in the logic of metric structures.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

Reflective function is defined as an individual’s ability to understand human behavior in terms of underlying mental states including thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, and intentions. More specifically, the capacity of parents to keep their child’s mental states in mind is referred to as parental RF. RF has been linked to adult mental health and parental RF to children’s mental health and development. The gold standard measure of RF is the interview-based Reflective Functioning Scale applied to the Parent Development Interview or (...) Adult Attachment Interview, which while well validated, is time-and labor-intensive to administer. Given the increasing need for reliable, valid, and rapid RF assessment in wide-ranging settings, two alternative measures were considered including the Reflective Function Questionnaire and Parental Reflective Function Questionnaire. We determined the convergent validity of these measures in comparison with the PDI-rated RFS. A sample of mothers and fathers was drawn from a sub-study of the ongoing Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition longitudinal cohort when their children were 42–60 months of age. Pearson correlations and multiple linear regression was conducted, followed by splitting the sample to compute Cohen’s kappas measures of agreement. Two subscales of the PRFQ correlated significantly with the gold standard PDI-rated RFS, providing evidence for convergent validity. As a brief multidimensional measure of parental RF, the PRFQ offers an alternative for measurement of RF in large-scale studies of parental development and child health. (shrink)

In their book ‘Corporate Social Opportunity’, Grayson and Hodges maintain that ‘the driver for business success is entrepreneurialism, a competitive instinct and a willingness to look for innovation from non‐traditional areas such as those increasingly found within the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda’. Such opportunities are described as ‘commercially viable activities which also advance environmental and social sustainability’. There are three dimensions to corporate social opportunity (CSO) – innovation in products and services, serving unserved markets and building new business models. (...) While small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) have traditionally been presented as non‐entrepreneurial in this area, this paper demonstrates how SMEs can take advantage of the opportunities presented by CSR. Using data from 24 detailed case studies of UK SMEs from a range of sectors, the paper explores the numerous CSR opportunities that present themselves to SMEs, such as developing innovative products and services and exploiting niche markets. There are inevitable challenges for SMEs undertaking CSR, but by their very nature they have many characteristics that can aid the adoption of CSR; the paper explores these characteristics and how the utilisation of positive qualities will help SMEs make the most of CSOs. Integrating CSR into the core of a company is crucial to its success. Using the case studies to illustrate key points, the paper suggests how CSR can be built into a company's systems and become ‘just the way we do things’. There are a number of factors that characterise the CSO ‘mentality’ in an organisation, and Grayson and Hodges's book describes seven steps that will move a company in the direction of a ‘want to do’ CSO mentality. This paper adapts these steps for SMEs, and by transferring and building on knowledge from the 24 detailed case studies, it develops a ‘business opportunity’ model of CSR for SMEs. (shrink)

We show that the universal theory of the hyperfinite II $_1$ factor is not computable. The proof uses the recent result that MIP*=RE. Combined with an earlier observation of the authors, this yields a proof that the Connes Embedding Problem has a negative solution that avoids the equivalences with Kirchberg’s QWEP Conjecture and Tsirelson’s Problem.

Chronic pain is associated with high levels of mental health issues and alterations in cognitive processing. Cognitive-behavioral models illustrate the role of memory alterations in the development and maintenance of chronic pain as well as in mental health disorders which frequently co-occur with chronic pain. This study aims to expand our understanding of specific cognitive mechanisms underlying chronic pain which may in turn shed light on cognitive processes underlying pain-related psychological distress. Individuals who reported a history of chronic pain and (...) individuals who reported no history of chronic pain were recruited from MTurk to complete an online survey including standardized measures of anxiety and depression and two sentence completion tasks that assessed autobiographical memory and future thinking specificity and content. Chi square analyses revealed that participants who endorsed experiencing chronic pain were significantly more likely to recall at least one painful and negative event and to imagine at least one anticipated painful event in their future. Two ANCOVAs were performed to examine the degree to which chronic pain endorsement influenced specificity in memory and future imagining. Individuals with a history of chronic pain and higher levels of depression symptom severity generated autobiographical memories with significantly less specificity; whereas, individuals with a history of chronic pain also generated future autobiographical events with significantly less specificity. In addition, individuals with a history of chronic pain were more likely to generate episodes related to pain when asked to recall the past or imagine the future. Further research is needed to improve our understanding of the etiology of autobiographical memory and future thinking specificity and content in the pathogenesis of mental health conditions in the context of chronic pain. (shrink)

The UK government has recently committed to adopting a new policy—dubbed ‘Martha’s Rule’—which has been characterised as providing patients the right to rapidly access a second clinical opinion in urgent or contested cases. Support for the rule emerged following the death of Martha Mills in 2021, after doctors failed to admit her to intensive care despite concerns raised by her parents. We argue that framing this issue in terms of patient rights is not productive, and should be avoided. Insofar as (...) the ultimate goal of Martha’s Rule is the provision of a clinical service that protects patient safety, an approach that focuses on the obligations of the health system—rather than the individual rights of patients—will better serve this goal. We outline an alternative approach that situates rapid clinical review as part of a suite of services aimed at enhancing and protecting patient care. This approach would make greater progress towards addressing the difficult systemic issues that Martha’s Rule does not, while also better engaging with the constraints of clinical practice. (shrink)

In our recent article, together with more than 60 of our colleagues, we outlined a proposal for drug policy reform consisting of four specific yet interrelated strategies: (1) de jure decriminalization of all psychoactive substances currently deemed illicit for personal use or possession (so-called “recreational” drugs), accompanied by harm reduction policies and initiatives akin to the Portugal model; (2) expunging criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs (and releasing those serving (...) time for these offenses), while delivering retroactive ameliorative relief; (3) the ultimate legalization and careful regulation of currently illicit drugs; and (4) the delivery of a new “Marshall Plan” focused on community-building initiatives, expanded harm reduction programs, and social and health care support efforts (Earp et al. 2021). We were gratified to see so many thoughtful commentaries on our proposal, and we respond to them in part in this reply. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: An Economic Model of Carroll Towing Relaxing the Model's Initial Assumptions Efficiency as a Norm Some Limitations of Law and Economics Conclusion References.

This book collects essays considering the full range of Robert Sokolowski's philosophical works: his vew of philosophy; his phenomenology of language and his account of the relation between language and being; his phenomenology of moral action; and his phenomenological theology of disclosure.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID; called multiple personality disorder in DSMIII-R) is a psychiatric condition in which two or more identity states recurrently take control of the person's behavior. A characteristic feature of DID is the occurrence of apparently severe amnestic symptoms. This paper is concerned with experimental research of memory function in DID and focuses on between-identity transfer of newly learned neutral material. Previous studies on this subject are reviewed and a pilot study with four subjects is described. This study (...) is specifically concerned with the question whether self-reported asymmetries in between-identity transfer can be replicated on experimental memory tests. A secondary aim was to examine whether, in the absence of explicit transfer, implicit transfer of information would occur. The results showed that the apparent amnestic asymmetry for explicit information was substantiated in the laboratory, although at least some leakage was present between the apparently amnestic identities. No evidence was found for better performance on implicit than on explicit memory tests in the apparently amnestic identities. In the discussion, parallels between apparent amnesia in DID and state-dependent memory are drawn, and the question of simulated amnesia is addressed. (shrink)

Canadian and American population-based research concerning sexual and/or gender minority populations provides evidence of persistent breast and gynecologic cancer-related health disparities and knowledge divides. The Cancer's Margins research investigates the complex intersections of sexual and/or gender marginality and incommensurabilities and improvisation in engagements with biographical and biomedical cancer knowledge. The study examines how sexuality and gender are intersectionally constitutive of complex biopolitical mappings of cancer health knowledge that shape knowledge access and its mobilization in health and treatment decision-making. Interviews were (...) conducted with a diverse group of sexual and/or gender minority breast or gynecologic cancer patients. The LGBQ//T2 cancer patient narratives we have analyzed document in fine grain detail how it is that sexual and/or gender minority cancer patients punctuate the otherwise lockstep assemblage of their cancer treatment decision-making with a persistent engagement in creative attempts to resist, thwart and otherwise manage the possibility of discrimination and likewise, the probability of institutional erasure in care settings. Our findings illustrate the demands that cancer places on LGBQ//T2 patients to choreograph access to, and mobilization of knowledge and care, across significantly distinct and sometimes incommensurable systems of knowledge. (shrink)

Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex moral decision-making have a deep connection? What are the moral responsibilities of the artist, critic, and reader? What can religious perspectives—from Catholic to Protestant to Mormon—contribute to literary criticism? Thirty well known contributors reflect on these questions, including iterary theorists Marshall Gregory, James Phelan, (...) and Wayne Booth; philosophers Martha Nussbaum, Richard Hart, and Nina Rosenstand; and authors John Updike, Charles Johnson, Flannery O'Connor, and Bernard Malamud. Divided into four sections, with introductory matter and questions for discussion, this accessible anthology represents the most crucial work today exploring the interdisciplinary connections between literature, religion and philosophy. (shrink)

We believe that clinical ethics consultants (CECs) should offer advice, options, and recommendations to attending physicians and their teams. In their article in this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, however, Kornfeld and Prager give CECs a somewhat different role. The CEC they describe may at times be more aptly understood as a medical interventionist who appropriates the roles of the attending physician and the medical team than as a traditional CEC. In these remarks, we distinguish the role of (...) the CEC from that of the physician, in contrast to some of these authors’ recommendations, which confuse the two roles. (shrink)

Fourteen philosophers share their experience teaching Peirce to undergraduates in a variety of settings and a variety of courses. The latter include introductory philosophy courses as well as upper-level courses in American philosophy, philosophy of religion, logic, philosophy of science, medieval philosophy, semiotics, metaphysics, etc., and even an upper-level course devoted entirely to Peirce. The project originates in a session devoted to teaching Peirce held at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. The session, (...) organized by James Campbell and Richard Hart, was co-sponsored by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers. (shrink)

Acoustic signals serving intraspecific communication by predators are perceived by potential prey as warning signals. We analysed the acoustic characteristics of howling of wolves and found a striking similarity to the warning sounds of technical sirens. We hypothesize that the effectivity of sirens as warning signals has been enhanced by natural sensory predisposition of humans to get alerted by howling of wolves, with which they have a long history of coexistence. Psychoacoustic similarity of both stimuli seems to be supported by (...) the fact that wolves and dogs perceive the sound of technical sirens as a relevant releasing supernormal stimulus and reply to it with howling. Inspiration by naturally occurring acoustic aposematic signals might become an interesting example of biomimetics in designing new warning sound systems. (shrink)

The Concept of Law is one of the most influential texts in English-language jurisprudence. 50 years after its first publication its relevance has not diminished and in this third edition, Leslie Green adds an introduction that places the book in a contemporary context, highlighting key questions about Hart's arguments and outlining the main debates it has prompted in the field. The complete text of the second edition is replicated here, including Hart's Postscript, with fully updated notes to include (...) modern references and further reading. (shrink)

The way many human rights advocates frame the international norm against child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM) has shifted in the past decade. While CEFM has historically been framed as driven by poverty and underdevelopment, advocates have more recently discussed the problem with a feminist sexuality frame. What leads advocates to change their framing about an international norm? We build an argument that stresses how (a) the nature of the frame, (b) the characteristics of the advocates, and (c) the characteristics (...) of the discursive environment interact to determine whether and to what extent advocates will adopt an alternative frame. We use a multi-methods approach (machine-learning text analysis, process tracing, and interviews) to examine the process of frame adoption around an international norm. Our theoretical understanding of international norms requires a better grasp on the role of framing, especially framing among the very norm entrepreneurs that are critical to international norm diffusion. (shrink)

Although compelling and insightful, the proposal by Uchiyama et al. largely neglects within-person change over time, arguably the central topic of interest within their framework. Longitudinal behavioural genetics modelling suggests that the heritability of trajectories is low, in contrast to high and increasing cross-sectional heritability across development. Better understanding of the mechanisms of trajectories remains a crucial outstanding challenge.