This thesis argues for a new understanding of criticism in Foucauldian genealogy based on the role played by the values of Michel Foucault’s audience in motivating suspicion. Secondary literature on Foucault has been concerned with understanding how Foucault’s works can be critical of cultural practices in the contemporary West when his accounts take the form of descriptive history. Commentaries offered heretofore have been insufficient for explaining the basis of Foucault’s criticism of cultural practices because they have failed to articulate the (...) relation of the genealogist to her present normative context—the social and political values and goals that, in part, define the position of the genealogist within her culture. This thesis shows why previous accounts are insufficient for explaining Foucauldian genealogical critique, and it argues for a simple alternative warranted by Foucault’s writing. (shrink)

There has been much debate regarding the 'double-effect' of sedatives and analgesics administered at the end-of-life, and the possibility that health professionals using these drugs are performing 'slow euthanasia.' On the one hand analgesics and sedatives can do much to relieve suffering in the terminally ill. On the other hand, they can hasten death. According to a standard view, the administration of analgesics and sedatives amounts to euthanasia when the drugs are given with an intention to hasten death. In this (...) paper we report a small qualitative study based on interviews with 8 Australian general physicians regarding their understanding of intention in the context of questions about voluntary euthanasia, assisted suicide and particularly the use of analgesic and sedative infusions (including the possibility of voluntary or non-voluntary 'slow euthanasia'). We found a striking ambiguity and uncertainty regarding intentions amongst doctors interviewed. Some were explicit in describing a 'grey' area between palliation and euthanasia, or a continuum between the two. Not one of the respondents was consistent in distinguishing between a foreseen death and an intended death. A major theme was that 'slow euthanasia' may be more psychologically acceptable to doctors than active voluntary euthanasia by bolus injection, partly because the former would usually only result in a small loss of 'time' for patients already very close to death, but also because of the desirable ambiguities surrounding causation and intention when an infusion of analgesics and sedatives is used. The empirical and philosophical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Is the resurrection of an extinct species genuinely possible, or not? Will organisms produced by de-extinction technology be authentic new members of the species that died out, or just convincing fakes? We seek to answer these questions in this chapter. Critics of de-extinction have offered many reasons for thinking that the products of de-extinction will be inauthentic. The bulk of the chapter is taken up with surveying their arguments. We attempt to show that none are convincing. We end the chapter (...) by offering and defending two arguments in favour of the view that authentic de-extinctions are possible. (shrink)

In an article somewhat ironically entitled “Disambiguating Clinical Intentions,” Lynn Jansen promotes an idea that should be bewildering to anyone familiar with the literature on the intention/foresight distinction. According to Jansen, “intention” has two commonsense meanings, one of which is equivalent to “foresight.” Consequently, questions about intention are “infected” with ambiguity—people cannot tell what they mean and do not know how to answer them. This hypothesis is unsupported by evidence, but Jansen states it as if it were accepted fact. In (...) this reply, we make explicit the multiple misrepresentations she has employed to make her hypothesis seem plausible. We also point out the ways in which it defies common sense. In particular, Jansen applies her thesis only to recent empirical research on the intentions of doctors, totally ignoring the widespread confusion that her assertion would imply in everyday life, in law, and indeed in religious and philosophical writings concerning the intention/foresight distinction and the Principle of Double Effect. (shrink)

The moral importance of the ‘intention–foresight’ distinction has long been a matter of philosophical controversy, particularly in the context of end-of-life care. Previous empirical research in Australia has suggested that general physicians and surgeons may use analgesic or sedative infusions with ambiguous intentions, their actions sometimes approximating ‘slow euthanasia’. In this paper, we report findings from a qualitative study of 18 Australian palliative care medical specialists, using in-depth interviews to address the use of sedation at the end of life. The (...) majority of subjects were agnostic or atheistic. In contrast to their colleagues in acute medical practice, these Australian palliative care specialists were almost unanimously committed to distinguishing their actions from euthanasia. This commitment appeared to arise principally from the need to maintain a clear professional role, and not obviously from an ideological opposition to euthanasia. While some respondents acknowledged that there are difficult cases that require considered reflection upon one's intention, and where there may be some ‘mental gymnastics,’ the nearly unanimous view was that it is important, even in these difficult cases, to cultivate an intention that focuses exclusively on the relief of symptoms. We present four narratives of ‘terminal’ sedation – cases where sedation was administered in significant doses just before death, and may well have hastened death. Considerable ambiguities of intention were evident in some instances, but the discussion around these clearly exceptional cases illustrates the importance of intention to palliative care specialists in maintaining their professional roles. (shrink)

Katz denies that organisms created in a lab as part of a de-extinction attempt will be authentic members of the extinct species, on the basis that they will lack the original species’ defining biological and evolutionary history. Against Katz, I note that an evolutionary lineage is conferred on an organism through its inheriting genes from forebears already possessed of such a lineage, and that de-extinction amounts to a delayed, human-assisted reproductive process, in which genes are inherited from forebears long dead. (...) My conclusion is that de-extinct organisms can perfectly well have an ancient evolutionary history, contrary to what Katz claims. (shrink)

This book is about the philosophy of de-extinction. -/- CHAPTER 1 introduces the two main philosophical questions that are raised by the prospect of extinct species being brought back from the dead—namely, the ‘Authenticity Question’ and the ‘Ethical Question’. It distinguishes the many different types and methods of de-extinction. Finally, it examines the aims of wildlife conservation with a view to whether they are compatible with de-extinction, or not. -/- CHAPTER 2 examines three prime candidates for de-extinction—namely, the aurochs, the (...) woolly mammoth, and the passenger pigeon. It is about what these animals were like, why people want to resurrect them, and the methods by which their resurrections could be accomplished. -/- CHAPTER 3 is about the authenticity of de-extinct animals. Critics of de-extinction have offered many reasons for thinking that the products of de-extinction will be inauthentic. The bulk of the chapter is taken up with surveying their arguments. We attempt to show that none are convincing, and end the chapter by offering and defending two arguments in favour of the view that authentic de-extinctions are possible. -/- CHAPTER 4 surveys and critically evaluates all the main arguments both for and against de-extinction. It presents a qualified defence of the claim that conservationists should embrace de-extinction. It ends with a list of do’s and don’ts for conservationist de-extinction projects. (shrink)

David Lewis describes, then attempts to refute, a simple anti-Humean theory of desire he calls ‘Desire as Belief’. Lewis’ critics generally accept that his argument is sound and focus instead on trying to show that its implications are less severe than appearances suggest. In this paper I argue that Lewis’ argument is unsound. I show that it rests on an essential assumption that can be straightforwardly proven false using ideas and principles to which Lewis is himself committed.

Cell and tissue-based products, such as autologous adult stem cells, are being prescribed by physicians across the world for diseases and illnesses that they have neither been approved for or been demonstrated as safe and effective in formal clinical trials. These doctors often form part of informal transnational networks that exploit differences and similarities in the regulatory systems across geographical contexts. In this paper, we examine the regulatory infrastructure of five geographically diverse but socio-economically comparable countries with the aim of (...) identifying similarities and differences in how these products are regulated and governed within clinical contexts. We find that while there are many subtle technical differences in how these regulations are implemented, they are sufficiently similar that it is difficult to explain why these practices appear more prevalent in some countries and not in others. We conclude with suggestions for how international governance frameworks might be improved to discourage the exploitation of vulnerable patient populations while enabling innovation in the clinical application of cellular therapies. (shrink)

Sexually‐selected exaggerated traits tend to be unusually reliable signals of individual condition, as their expression tends to be more sensitive to nutritional history and physiological circumstance than that of other phenotypes. As such, these traits are the foundation for many models of sexual selection and animal communication, such as “handicap” and “good genes” models. Exactly how expression of these traits is linked to the bearer's condition has been a central yet unresolved question, in part because the underlying physiological mechanisms regulating (...) their development have remained largely unknown. Recent discoveries across animals as diverse as deer, beetles, and flies now implicate the widely conserved insulin‐like signaling pathway, as a common physiological mechanism regulating condition‐sensitive structures with extreme growth. This raises the exciting possibility that one highly conserved pathway may underlie the evolution of trait exaggeration in a multitude of sexually‐selected signal traits across the animal kingdom. (shrink)

This paper concerns the three great modal dichotomies: (i) the necessary/contingent dichotomy; (ii) the a priori/empirical dichotomy; and (iii) the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. These can be combined to produce a tri-dichotomy of eight modal categories. The question as to which of the eight categories house statements and which do not is a pivotal battleground in the history of analytic philosophy, with key protagonists including Descartes, Hume, Kant, Kripke, Putnam and Kaplan. All parties to the debate have accepted that some categories are (...) void. This paper defends the contrary view that all eight categories house statements—a position I dub ‘octopropositionalism’. Examples of statements belonging to all eight categories are given. (shrink)

The counterfactual account of physical computation is simple and, for the most part, very attractive. However, it is usually thought to trivialize the notion of physical computation insofar as it implies ‘limited pancomputationalism’, this being the doctrine that every deterministic physical system computes some function. Should we bite the bullet and accept limited pancomputationalism, or reject the counterfactual account as untenable? Jack Copeland would have us do neither of the above. He attempts to thread a path between the two horns (...) of the dilemma by buttressing the counterfactual account with extra conditions intended to block certain classes of deterministic physical systems from qualifying as physical computers. His theory is called the ‘algorithm execution account’. Here we show that the algorithm execution account entails limited pancomputationalism, despite Copeland’s argument to the contrary. We suggest, partly on this basis, that the counterfactual account should be accepted as it stands, pancomputationalist warts and all. (shrink)

This chapter surveys and critically evaluates all the main arguments both for and against de-extinction. It presents a qualified defence of the claim that conservationists should embrace de-extinction. It ends with a list of do’s and don’ts for conservationist de-extinction projects.

This chapter introduces the two main philosophical questions that are raised by the prospect of extinct species being brought back from the dead—namely, the ‘Authenticity Question’ and the ‘Ethical Question’. It distinguishes different types of de-extinction, and different methods by which de-extinction can be accomplished. Finally, it examines the aims of wildlife conservation with a view to whether they are compatible with de-extinction, or not.

This chapter examines three prime candidates for de-extinction—namely, the aurochs, the woolly mammoth, and the passenger pigeon. It will be about what these animals were like, why people want to resurrect them, and the methods by which their resurrections could be accomplished.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 7, Page 38-39, July 2012.

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

The emotional strength of his mother, Margaret Douglas, and close kinship bonds, to some degree, compensated Adam Smith for the loss of his father. In addition, he was well prepared at the Kirkcaldy burgh school for his student years, and found his vocation as a moral philosopher, in an era marked by a strong drive for advance in agriculture and other economic sectors. Most important of all, his Presbyterian inheritance, together with training in the Latin and Greek classics, instilled (...) in him the values of self‐command of a Stoic cast, frugality, diligence in his calling, and strict justice towards others tempered with benevolence, which characterized his actions and his teaching. At the same time, he seemed to have developed an independence of mind, which led him to rebel against the strict controls of Calvinism meant to check human depravity, and to set store by human goodness, and the will to enjoy natural liberty. (shrink)

Adam Smith was baptized on 5 June 1723 in the Fife seaport of Kirkcaldy, where his father, who died on 9 January 1723, had served as Comptroller of Customs. Father Adam Smith studied the liberal arts in Aberdeen, took legal training in Edinburgh qualifying him for estate management, and became secretary to a Campbell magnate. He hesitated about taking up a Customs post in Kirkcaldy, because his income there depended on volume of trade, which was falling off. However, he handled (...) his money well, and married the daughter of a substantial Fife laird. His Will specified that his widow, Margaret Douglas, would get help in raising young Adam from guardians associated with intellectual and economic improvement in Scotland. (shrink)

In the face of declining strength in the 1780s and grief over the death of his nearest relatives, his mother and his cousin Janet Douglas, Smith strove to leave behind him the works he had already published in the ‘best and most perfect state.’ It fell out that he completed the additions that went into the standard third edition of WN in a time of political distress. These included the rise and fall of Shelburne as the Prime Minister whose (...) drive to make peace with the Americans was based in part on Smith's free trade teaching; the subsequent collapse of the Fox–North coalition over efforts to reform the East India Company, which is severely criticized in the third edition of WN; and the onset of the administration of Pitt the Younger, who heeded WN's policy advice with regard to smuggling and trade with France. Smith also intensified his fight against the absurdity of the government's mercantile system of encouragements and prohibitions, which thwarted competition in the market place and favoured clamorous producers over consumers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aristophanes BirdsIan C. StoreyNan Dunbar, ed. Aristophanes Birds. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. xviii + 792 pp. $105.00.Douglas Young's wonderful translation (The Burdies) is dedicated "to Miss Nan Dunbar with all good wishes for her learned edition of the original Greek." That was in 1959, and while Catullus waited nine years for Cinna's Zmyrna, we Aristophanic ornithophiles have had to wait four times that for this wonderfully thorough (...) commentary on Aristophanes' masterpiece. Birds has not fared as well as either Clouds or Frogs which have long dominated the field (and more recently Acharnians and Lysistrata). D. has now given us the "standard commentary."Although she has provided students with "more help with understanding Greek idiom" (v), it is clearly the professional scholar who will be the principal user of this commentary, especially those who are brought here by a reference to Birds and who will find D.'s notes of immense value. I noted excellent studies of peacocks (165), the agon and its roles (315-18), roosters and the early morning (338f.), the influence of Herodotos (374 et al.), the Orestes-problem (451f.), the meaning of in line 789 where D. lands a telling blow against comedy following tragedy (481), levels of meaning in (535f.), the episkopos as comic figure (562f.), dochmiacs in comedy (611), the figure of Iris (616), the sykophantes (674), the role of Prometheus (693f.), and necromancy in drama (710-12). Such notes are the very real strength of D.'s work.Three areas get special attention. First this is a new text, badly needed since neither the OCT nor the Budé is at all secure in text or critical apparatus. The introduction is dominated (thirty-two of fifty-one pages) by a discussion of the history of the text to the end of the eighteenth century, which she had considered issuing separately, but in the end kept with the rest. It does tend to overbalance the introduction, but is immensely informative and useful reading; I would have liked a list of modern editions of the sort that Rogers provided in his various commentaries. Textual evaluation I leave to the experts, but I observe that D. provides well over a dozen of her own readings ( [1064] and [1229] are attractive) and that many changes concern the attribution of lines to Peisetairos (her spelling, based on seeing the Triballian's [1615] as an attempt to say "yes, Peisetairos") and Euelpides, on the assumption that the clever leading lines belong to P. and the following lines to Eu. I am not sure this works in v. 11 where this clever capping fits P. better than Eu.Places where D.'s text makes a difference in sense include: the archon's name (Charias, not Chabrias); 16, deleting the line and its textual problem; 167, where even D.'s text may not solve the problem; 202, Tereus perches on the roof of the skene; 240, deleting both τε; 484, where is wrong; 533-38, rewriting a corrupt paradosis; 698, where μύχιος adds an edge lacking in νύχιος; 994, keeping the paradosis ("a monstrosity"-Sommerstein); 1212, reading and giving it to Iris; 1441, for the 'impossible' [End Page 336] while including some attractive alternatives in the notes; 1681, βα βάζει γ' where others either obelize or defend βαδίζει; 1757, δαπεδον with an allusion to the uncompleted temple of Zeus.Second D. gives very full accounts of the extraordinary variety of metres used in this play. Each lyric section is prefaced by a metrical analysis and consideration of the overall effect. In 227-62 it is that "of a bird repeating the same unit of rhythm over and over" (210), while the various patterns reflect bird movements. The "astrophic monody" reflects but does not parody the "new music" with which Ar. is clearly familiar (212). In 327-35/343-51-a passage seared into this reviewer's memory from the MPhil examinations of 1971-D. now prefers a change of metre rather than a highly irregular responsion, each metre reflecting the mental attitude of the birds. In 737-52/769-84 there is "no simple metrical description" (462), and D. wonders if Phrynichean tragic lyrics have been adapted "to produce a lighter bird-rhythm." There... (shrink)

In 2016, this Journal published an article by Rob Lawlor1 on what we might call the acceptance-refusal asymmetry in competence requirements. This is the view that there can be cases in which a patient is sufficiently competent to accept a treatment, but not sufficiently competent to refuse it. Though the main purpose of Lawlor’s paper was to distinguish this asymmetry from various other asymmetries with which it has sometimes been confused,1 Lawlor also presented a brief case in favour of it. (...) Developing an earlier argument of Ian Wilks’,2 3 Lawlor argued that, when the risks associated with refusing a treatment are graver than those associated with accepting it, a higher level of competence may be required to refuse a treatment than to accept it. This claim could have important implications for the law, since determinations of competence often play a central role in determining the lawfulness of refusing or imposing a treatment. Indeed, the acceptance-refusal asymmetry in competence requirements, or something close to it, has played an important role in court judgments.2 However, Lawlor himself suggests that his conclusion will have practical implications only in a narrow range of cases.3 In this issue, Pickering, Giles Newton-Howes and Simon Walker respond to Lawlor’s piece.4 They deny that competence requirements should depend on the level of risk associated with a decision, and thus that there is any basis for the acceptance-refusal asymmetry in competence requirements. Part of the authors’ argument involves contesting the way in which Lawlor uses cases to support his view. In one case cited by Lawlor—and drawn from Wilks—we are invited to consider a whether …. (shrink)

Anthropology at the Edge: Essays on Culture, Symbol, and Consciousness. J. Ian Prattis. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996. $27.50 (paper), xviii. 311 pp.

In 2014, American doctor Ian Crozier chose to travel to Sierra Leone to help fight the West African Ebola epidemic. He contracted Ebola himself and was evacuated to the US, where he received hospital treatment for 40 days. Crozier knowingly chose to expose himself to a risk of contracting Ebola, and thus appears to be at least somewhat morally responsible for his infection. Did this responsibility weaken his justice-based claim to publicly funded treatment? On one influential view—luck egalitarianism—the answer is (...) ‘yes’. Or so Albertsen and Thaysen suggest in this issue.1 According to luck egalitarianism, justice requires the elimination of inequalities between people, but only when the relative harm borne by those on the wrong end of the inequality is a matter of luck. Albertsen and Thaysen understand luck egalitarianism to entail that, when one is responsible for befalling a harm, one has no claim in justice to the mitigation of that harm. On this view, they suggest, Crozier’s claim to treatment would be similar to that of a reckless Alpine skier who is injured in a skiing accident, and would be weaker than that of those with a normal claim to treatment—those who bear no responsibility for their illness. Both of these implications seem implausible, however. Intuitively, Crozier’s claim to treatment is no weaker than those with normal claims, and certainly stronger than the reckless skier’s. Can luck egalitarianism be ‘adjusted or interpreted’ so as to avoid these implausible implications? The authors suggest that it can. Their innovation is to distinguish heroic doctors like Crozier from reckless skiers by invoking a distinction between being responsible for creating harm and for incurring harm. Their thought is that one creates harm when one brings harm on oneself without also preventing at least as much harm to others. Thus, the harm that …. (shrink)

Review of a book Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul. Polemon's Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam by S. Swain, George Boys-Stones, Jas Eisner, Antonella Ghersetti, Robert Hoyland, Ian Repath.

Human geography, as a subject, has become widely recognized since its connections with the social sciences have widened and deepended the study of people, places and social structures. Horizons in Human Geography provides a clear and accessible sketch map of some of the latest and most promising developments in the subject. The book starts by assessing the role and limitations of techniques, models and theories and proceeds to provide a broad-ranging overview of the major social, cultural, urban, regional, political, economic (...) and environmental issues confronting geographers today. Contents: Introduction; Part I: Beyond The Quantitative Revolution; Part II: People and Places, Societies and Spaces; Part III: Explorations in the City; IV: Landscapes of Production; Part V: Regional Geographies and Global Perspectives; Part VI: Politicising The Environment. Contributors: Derek Gregory, Rex Walford, Michael J. Clark, Alan Wilson, R. J. Johnston, John Eyles, Denis Cosgrove, Linda McDowell, Roger Lee, Keith Bassett, John Short, Richard Dennis, Ian Douglas, Doreen Massey, Richard Meegan, John Harriss, Barbara Hariss, Nigel Thrift, Michael Taylor, Peter Taylor, Graham E. Smith, Stuart Cobridge, Judith Rees, Timothy O'Riordan and Bill Mead. (shrink)

Contemporary psychologists seem to pull in two theoretical directions, namely the reduction of mind to brain and the dissolution of mind in society. Against these dominant trends, this article employs the tools of critical realism to argue for the resuscitation in the discipline, psychology, of an ontologically distinct, psychological concept of mind. This ‘mind’ is conceived here as a real, ontologically emergent property. Its distinctive property is consciousness, generated in the first instance by unconscious, non-conscious and conscious psychological mechanisms. Nonetheless, (...) it is emergent not only from psychological mechanisms, but also biological and social mechanisms, all of which act together in open systems. The article builds on various accounts of the hierarchy of the sciences and their objects to suggest that there is such a real psychological object. It seeks to refute trends in psychological theory that reduce mind either to neuro-physiological and neurobiological properties on the one hand or to social relational and discursive properties on the other. (shrink)

Explores various facets of the Islamic search for knowledge, with essays on aspects of Thought or Travel.

A characterisation of a type of weak-operator continuous linear functional on certain linear subsets of B, where H is a Hilbert space, is derived within Bishop-style constructive mathematics.

This essay considers and rejects the hypothesis of Fackenheim, Wiesel and others that the Jewish Holocaust contains some qualitatively or quantitatively distinct moral evil. The Holocaust was not qualitatively distinct because the intentions and vices of the mass murderer are qualitatively indistinguishable from the intentions and vices of the common murderer. The Holocaust was not quantitatively distinct either because the sum of the evils of the Holocaust is quantitatively indistinguishable from six million randomly selected individual murders or because the notion (...) of a ‘sum’ of moral evils is conceptually incoherent. (shrink)

Abner Shimony called it coherence; John Kemeny called it strict fairness; today many people speak of strict coherence. According to Shimony's definition, a set of betting rates on a series of propositions hi and ei is strictly incoherent, when “there exists a choice of stakes Si such that, if X accepts the series of bets at these stakes, then no matter what the actual truth values of hi, and ei may be, X can at best lose nothing, and in at (...) least one possible eventuality he will suffer a positive loss”. (shrink)