It has been proposed that inferring personal authorship for an event gives rise to intentional binding, a perceptual illusion in which one’s action and inferred effect seem closer in time than they otherwise would . Using a novel, naturalistic paradigm, we conducted two experiments to test this hypothesis and examine the relationship between binding and self-reported authorship. In both experiments, an important authorship indicator – consistency between one’s action and a subsequent event – was manipulated, and its effects on binding (...) and self-reported authorship were measured. Results showed that action-event consistency enhanced both binding and self-reported authorship, supporting the hypothesis that binding arises from an inference of authorship. At the same time, evidence for a dissociation emerged, with consistency having a more robust effect on self-reports than on binding. Taken together, these results suggest that binding and self-reports reveal different aspects of the sense of authorship. (shrink)

Technology tends toward perpetual innovation. Technology, enabled by both political and economic structures, propels society forward in a kind of technological evolution. The moment a novel piece of technology is in place, immediately innovations are attempted in a process of unending betterment. Bernard Stiegler suggests that, contra Heidegger, it is not being-toward-death that shapes human perception of time, life, death, and meaning. Rather, it is technological innovation that shapes human perception of time, life, death, and meaning. In fact, for Stiegler, (...) human evolution has always been part of technological evolution. While one can quibble with the notion of human-technology co-evolution, there is something to be said for the way in which human perception of time, of ageing, and of death seems to be judged against the horizon of perpetual evolution of technological innovation. In this technological imaginary, of which modern medicine is constituent, ageing and death seemingly may be infinitely deferred, and it is this innovating deferral that shapes the contemporary social imaginary around ageing and death in modern medicine. Yet, the reality of living (which is to say ageing) and dying always manifests itself differently than the scripts given to us by the technological imaginary with its myth of endless innovation. In fact, I shall argue that, where the Church created an ars moriendi, the technological imaginary gives us an ars ad mortem when it becomes clear that ageing and death cannot be infinitely deferred. And further, I shall argue that the Church must revivify its ars vivendi—that is to say, its liturgies, its arts, its technics—as a counter narrative to the myth of perpetual innovation that shapes the technological imaginary. (shrink)

Christians are not immune to psychological and psychiatric illness. Yet, Christians should also be careful not to permit popular cultural trends to shape the way that they think about the use of psychiatric treatment with medication. In this essay, I suggest that the tendencies for default usage of psychiatric medication can be problematic for Christians in contemporary culture where a technological imaginary exists. Modern scientific studies of psychiatric medication are partly constructive of how we imagine ourselves. The typical justification for (...) the usage of technology in contemporary culture is the theme of cocreation with God, where Christians see any usage of technology as equivalent to our participating in God’s ongoing creative activity. I challenge these ideas in the foregoing paper, noting that the modern technological imaginary that animates modern psychiatry is as constricting as it is enabling. I conclude with a different take on what it might mean for Christians to be cocreators with God. (shrink)

Technology is evolving at a rate faster than human evolution, especially human moral evolution. There are those who claim that we must morally bioenhance the human due to existential threats (such as climate change and the looming possibility of cognitive enhancement) and due to the fact that the human animal has a weak moral will. To address these existential threats, we must design human morality into human beings technologically. By moral bioenhancement, these authors mean that we must intervene technologically in (...) the biology of the human animal in order to get it to behave morally to address these existential threats. I will bring the idea of moral bioenhancement into conversation with two philosophers of technology. Bernard Stiegler has argued that technology and culture, and thus technology and human beings, have always evolved hand in hand. Peter-Paul Verbeek notes that we have always designed morality into technology, and thus he sees technology as mediating human morality. When we offload human intentionality onto technology, Verbeek argues, technological objects and systems participate in shaping the moral subjectivity of the human actor. I will show that modern technological bioenhancement obliterates human being. Whereas in the past, human culture was handed from generation to generation through the mediation of technology, in the modern era, the human becomes the raw material upon which a technological will (imperative) rides. (shrink)

This book investigates the chaotic end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean through the lens of Homeric poetry, with an emphasis on the description of piratical activities described in the Odyssey’s “Second Cretan Lie,” and on the impact of revolutionary seafaring technology in this watershed period in Mediterranean history.

“The Zadeh Scenario,” when taken together with the subsequent layers of peer review and commentary on that peer review, highlights two crucial insights regarding peer review for clinical ethics. The first is one that most of Finder’s peer reviewers miss: peer-reviewers who would give attestation to quality need to be critically attentive to, and reflective about, the evidence supplied to them by candidates. The second is a more significant point: the kind of doing that is clinical ethics consultation is a (...) local form of moral enquiry, seeking not just to achieve medical – or clinical ethical – goals, but to enact human goods. Good peer review thus turns on being clear regarding the goods of ethics consultation. Buried inside “The Zadeh Scenario” one can find several goods of clinical ethics. These goods are subjective, idiosyncratically named and defined by patients, and embedded in an institution of healthcare that purports to be of service to the goods of health. The clinical ethics consultant, at her best, acts as a careful mid-wife, attempting to bring forth the goods desired, the goods possible, and perhaps even the goods that, while desired, are not possible. After all, some goods pursued by patients are not possible due to the limits of medicine. On the other hand, some goods pursued by medicine are not desired by patients. And equally, some goods pursued by clinical ethicists might be limited, provisional, and local. “The Zadeh Scenario” thus acts to problematize the goals of clinical ethics consultation, asking it to focus on the goods that the practice might bring forth. (shrink)

Belief in free will is widespread. The present research considered one reason why people may believe that actions are freely chosen rather than determined: they attribute randomness in behavior to free will. Experiment 1 found that participants who were prompted to perform a random sequence of actions experienced their behavior as more freely chosen than those who were prompted to perform a deterministic sequence. Likewise, Experiment 2 found that, all else equal, the behavior of animated agents was perceived to be (...) more freely chosen if it consisted of a random sequence of actions than if it consisted of a deterministic sequence; this was true even when the degree of randomness in agents’ behavior was largely a product of their environments. Together, these findings suggest that randomness in behavior—one’s own or another’s—can be mistaken for free will. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the nature, varieties, causes and meanings of comebacks related to sport. I argue that comebacks have an axiological dimension, and that the best comebacks involve personal growth. I attempt to show that a major reason that comebacks connected to sport are often inspiring is that we are all in need of a comeback at some point in our lives. When improbable comebacks occur in the world of sport, they expand our sense of possibility.

Transhumanism traces its roots to Enlightenment humanism and claims to be the harbinger of the next phase of humanistic activity through designer evolution. In this essay, I briefly trace medicine’s relationship with transhumanist philosophy to the philosophy of medicine and show that each accepts a kind of ambiguity of the body at the heart of its metaphysical assumptions. I show that these metaphysical assumptions are committed to a power ontology, and that this power ontology is fundamentally at odds with the (...) traditional Christian lifeworld. (shrink)

Many ethics faculty in medical schools do not include abortion in their required curriculum. On the face of it, this is a singular failure since abortion is certainly an important ethical issue. Th...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of our social, cultural and commercial lives, including the world of sport. This book examines the ethical and philosophical dimensions of the intersection of COVID-19 and sport. The book goes beyond simple description of the impact of the pandemic on sport to offer normative judgments about how the sporting world responded to challenges posed by COVID-19, as well as philosophical speculation as to how COVID-19 will change our understanding and appreciation (...) of sport in the long term. It examines the considerations that either influenced - or arguably should have influenced - decisions to continue or to resume the playing of organized sport in the midst of a pandemic. As a part of this analysis, a spotlight is shone on how sport intersected with political issues surrounding COVID-19. It also explores the configuration and meaning of sport in the COVID-19 era, touching on themes such as the nature of sport, and its integrity, and sport's relationship to technology. Other themes include the changed nature of spectatorship, suffering in sport during pandemic times, and the impact of COVID-19 on the Olympic and Paralympic Games. A final chapter looks ahead and asks what sport might look like in a post-COVID world. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the ethics and philosophy of sport, the sociology of sport, event studies, politics or public health. (shrink)

Abstract:Epode 16, Horace's famous decline poem about Rome before Actium, has long been viewed as a cynical response to Vergil's prophecy of a returning Golden Age in Eclogue 4. In this article, I argue that there is another, unrecognized intertext for Epode 16—Pindar's Olympian 2—to which Horace's bleak poem alludes in a "window reference" refracted through Vergil's bucolic. As such, Horace's cynicism represents, in fact, a lament over the lost simplicity and timelessness of Greek oral poetry, and an attempt to (...) reclaim for his listeners/readers the originary experience of listening. In so doing, Horace takes up the Pindaric mantle of poet-prophet. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 8, Page 13-15, August 2012.

In this case study, I address the procedural ethics of conversation analysis (CA) and the collection of naturally occurring mundane interactions. I draw from the challenges that emerged from the institutional ethics review of the HIV, health and interaction study (the H2I Study), a CA project that sought to identify the practices through which normative assumptions of HIV and other health conditions are produced in conversations. Consistent with CA’s preference for naturally occurring interactions, the H2I Study collected and analysed everyday (...) telephone calls involving people living with HIV. This article offers practical strategies CA researchers might use to navigate two ethical concerns raised about the collection of naturally occurring mundane interactions. The first questions the merits of collecting naturally occurring mundane interactions. For those unfamiliar with CA, the specific advantages of analysing naturally occurring mundane interactions may not be self-evident. This places an evidentiary burden on CA researchers to warrant the collection of this type of data. To address this concern, I suggest demonstrating in ethics applications the analytic value of CA using publicly available interactions. The second concern questions the use of verbal consent necessary for the collection of naturally occurring mundane interactions. Like most CA research, the H2I Study required flexible informed consent protocols appropriate for spontaneous and unpredictable interactions. Drawing from within and outside the CA literature, I offer three rationales for the use of verbal consent. This article is written as a practical resource for conversation analysts seeking approval from their research ethics board (REB) and for REBs who might be unfamiliar with CA research. This article contributes to a small but growing body of literature that documents not only the kinds of challenges CA researchers encounter from institutional ethics review, but the specific procedural ethics they may employ to secure ethics approval. (shrink)

Beyond Consent examines the concept of justice, and its application to human subject research, through the different lenses of various research populations: children, the vulnerable sick, captive and convenient populations, women, people of colour, and subjects in international settings. Separate chapters address the evolution of research policies, implications of the concept of justice for the future of human subject research, and the ramifications of this concept throughout the research enterprise.

In this paper, a new method of quantitatively assessing continuity and discontinuity of visual attention is developed. The method is based on representing narrative information using graph theory. It is applicable to any type of narrative report. Since dream reports are often described as bizarre, and since bizarreness is partially characterized by discontinuities in plot, we chose to test our method on a set of dream data. Using specific criteria for identifying and arranging objects of visual attention, dream narratives from (...) 10 subjects were obtained and mapped onto graphs. The interrater reliabilities were 76% and 91% . Discontinuities in visual attention were quantified by plotting transitions from one part of a graph to another, which provided a spatiotemporal map of attention shifts within a narrative. This procedure was compared with other approaches to discontinuity and also applied to a set of 10 fantasy reports from the same subjects. The results showed that our method includes but transcends other approaches and has the capability to distinguish dream and fantasy reports. To our knowledge, the method provides the most rigorous and reliable measure to date of continuity and discontinuity of attention in narrative reports. (shrink)

After years of skepticism and denials regarding the significance of concussions in sport, the issue is now front and center. This is fitting, given that the impact of concussions in sport is profound. Thus, it is with trepidation that one ventures to direct some attention onto brain injuries other than concussions incurred through sport. Given a closer look, however, it may be that considering various kinds of brain injuries, with different causes, will help us better understand the range and seriousness (...) of brain injuries in sport. My focus is on emotional trauma in sport. I argue that severe emotional pathology is evidence of underlying brain injury. Any attempt to minimize the significance of emotional disturbance that results from emotional trauma as ‘merely’ psychological in nature is thus misguided. (shrink)

A fourteen year old is diagnosed with aplastic anemia. The teen and his parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses. An ethics consult is called on the day of admission by an ethically sophisticated social worker and attending. The patient and his parents see this diagnosis as “a test of their faith.” The ethical analysis focuses on the mature minor doctrine, i.e. whether the teen has the capacity to make this decision. The hospital chooses to take the case to court, with a result (...) that is at odds with the ethics consultation recommendations. Ethics was never deposed or otherwise invited to be involved with the hearing. Thus the larger question of the relation of ethics and law was brought into stark relief. (shrink)

This comment focuses on the informational distinction Brian Skyrms makes between rational choice theories of the social contract and theories based on evolutionary dynamics. The basic point is that to dismiss the rational choice method because of the restrictive informational assumptions may discount interesting work done in the area of bounded rationality. Further, the comment argues that combining the best elements of both approaches into an evolutionary theory of boundedly rational agents can improve the power of social contract theories. To (...) illustrate the point, we work through an example of analysing the data from a bargaining experiment. (shrink)

The first ethics casebook that integrates clinical ethics (medical, nursing, and dental) and research ethics with public health and informatics. The book opens with five chapters on ethics, the development of interprofessional ethics, and brief instructional materials for students on how to analyze ethical cases and for teachers on how to teach ethics. In today's rapidly evolving healthcare system, the cases in this book are far more realistic than previous efforts that isolate the decision-making process by professions as if each (...) is not embedded in a larger context that involves healthcare teams, hospital policies, and technology. The central claim of this book is that ethics is an important common ground for all of the health professions. Furthermore, when we recognize that our professions converge upon a common goal we will find less conflict and more pleasure in working together. (shrink)

The influence of neuroscience looms large today. In this introductory essay, we provide some context for the volume by acknowledging the expansion of applied neuroscience to everyday life and the proliferation of neuroscientific disciplines. We also observe that some individuals have sounded cautionary notes in light of perceived overreach of some claims for neuroscience. Then we briefly summarize the articles that comprise this volume. This diverse collection of papers represents the beginning of a conversation focused on the intersection of sport, (...) ethics and neurophilosophy. As such, the essays also represent a new mode of interaction between philosophy and science with sport in the center of the discussion. (shrink)

Of Goals and Goods and Floundering About: A Dissensus Report on Clinical Ethics Consultation Content Type Journal Article Pages 275-291 DOI 10.1007/s10730-009-9101-1 Authors Jeffrey P. Bishop, Vanderbilt University Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society 2525 West End Avenue, Suite 400 Nashville Tennessee 37203 USA Joseph B. Fanning, Vanderbilt University Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society 2525 West End Avenue, Suite 400 Nashville Tennessee 37203 USA Mark J. Bliton, Vanderbilt University Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society 2525 West End Avenue, (...) Suite 400 Nashville Tennessee 37203 USA Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737 Journal Volume Volume 21 Journal Issue Volume 21, Number 3. (shrink)

: The supply of organs for transplant remains inadequate to meet the needs of waiting patients, in spite of many programs and approaches to increase rates of donation. Over the years there have been numerous proposals to introduce schemes that would move toward the outright sale of organs. Three articles in this issue of the Journal propose methods for increasing organ supply—two by moving toward a market approach and the third by advocating a change in social culture. All three suffer (...) from shortcomings, including the endorsement and encouragement of the exploitation of those who may offer organs. Although the shortage of organs must be addressed, the social price of a market in organs is too high, and proposals to encourage a rethinking of social responsibility are unlikely to be effective. (shrink)

Despite a century of progress in medical knowledge, many diagnostic odysseys end in disappointment, especially when the child has a developmental disorder. In cases of autism and intellectual disability, relatively few children receive a specific diagnosis, and virtually none of those diagnoses lead to a specific medical treatment. Whole‐genome or ‐exome sequencing offers a quantum leap in the diagnostic odyssey, in that we will always learn something from sequencing—sometimes much more than families bargained for, as discussed elsewhere in this special (...) report. The trick is whether the knowledge gained will help the child and family. A family‐centered approach gives families permission to choose but does not lay all of the responsibility on them. The goal is to pursue the degree of medical diagnostic evaluation that matches the family's values. (shrink)

The process-dissociation procedure was used to estimate the influence of spatial and form-based processing in the Simon task. Subjects made manual responses to the direction of arrows . The results provide evidence that the form and spatial location of a single stimulus can have functionally independent effects on performance. They also indicate the existence of two kinds of automaticity—an associative component that reflects prior S-R mappings and a nonassociative component that reflects the correspondence between stimulus and response codes.

In order the combat the growing apathy, cynicism, and indifference observed among students, the author developed a course designed to make the study of philosophy relevant, applicable, and personal for students. This paper is a detailed exposition of the structure and content of this course. Build around the theme “Exploring Moral Character,” this course focuses on the role of moral character in ethical decision making and the nature of students’ own moral character. The course is divided into four units. Designed (...) as a voyage of personal discovery for students, each unit concludes with a non-traditional writing assignment (the moral reasoning unit, for example, concludes with students writing letters to the Admiralty as witnesses to the conviction and sentencing of Billy Budd). The author discusses why the course structure and paper assignments facilitate students’ ability to make explicit and to reflect on their own moral values. Appended to the article is a list of the course’s non-traditional paper assignments. (shrink)

How can one be trained to enter the evolving field of clinical ethics consultation? The classroom is not the proper place to teach clinical ethics consultation; it is best done in a clinical setting. The author maps the elements that might be included in an apprenticeship, and sets out propositions for debate regarding the training needed for clinical ethics consultants and directors of clinical ethics consultation services.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosophy of George Engel and the Philosophy of MedicineJeffrey P. Spike (bio)KeywordsGeorge Engel, psychosocial medicine, medical education, medical humanities, interviewing skills, philosophy of medicine, scientific methodDoctor Brad Lewis has encouraged us to consider George Engel’s philosophy with his excellent essay on Engel and Pragmatism. As a philosopher teaching full time in a medical school, it is refreshing to have an opportunity to analyze the work of two physicians (...) at this level of reflection and abstraction. It is even more of a pleasure because I knew Dr. Engel personally while I was teaching at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. I will make some observations of the philosophy behind Dr. Engel’s work, both published and practical, that is, as reflected in his writing but also in his influence in the medical curriculum at the institution that he called home for some thirty years (as seems appropriate when considering someone’s bona fides as a pragmatist).Engel’s Philosophy and Medicine’s PhilosophyGeorge Engel’s primary philosophical concern was to fight the powerful belief (or perhaps delusion) that medicine was evolving into a pure physical science, an extension of biochemistry and cell biology, or as we would now call them, proteomics and genomics. There is little evidence that he espoused any one methodology for basic science, so much as he opposed any one methodology for medicine. So to say he was a pragmatist seems underdetermined by his words, if that is taken to mean he advocated for changing the methodological model for scientific research. Rather the question is whether his preferred medical methodology is best characterized as pragmatic, or by some other description. On that score I agree with Lewis wholeheartedly.Of course, it might be that the claim of pragmatism is not meant to suggest a change in method for basic science, but to advocate for retaining an appreciation for the whole range of approaches to knowledge, from experimental science to epidemiology, and from epidemiology to acculturation. By that definition of pragmatism, Engel was indeed a pragmatist. Interpreted this way, he wanted medicine to stop worshipping the scientific method and appreciate that there are many paths to knowledge besides through the wet lab.It might be said that there are different scientific methods for different sciences, and Engel wanted us to appreciate that the reductionist methods [End Page 315] appropriate to the sciences of the small are not necessarily methods that can be applied to all sizes of objects we study, or all levels of reality (like the psychological and social). This is the truth about the world, although I am not sure that this is what Engel meant. As Lewis notes, Engel’s writing does sometimes sound as if he worshipped at the alter of science, as if all subjects of importance can be studied scientifically. But if he believed that, he was not correct. It might be, if all the subjects of the university that Lewis mentions are important, that some will turn out to be able to be studied in academically rigorous methods that are not scientific in any of the usual meanings of the word. Consider philosophy itself, for example.To the degree that it may stretch the evidence to say that Engel would have advocated for a pragmatic scientific method, it is still the case that pragmatism as outlined by Lewis and Engel’s biopsychosocial model can both be used to help medicine understand itself and overcome the temptation to idolize science. Medicine is not a science, or at least it is not just a science; in fact, I would suggest that it never was a science, and it will never be a science. Medicine is about health and illness, and uses whatever science it can to promote health and to treat (ameliorate or cure) illness.None of this should necessarily lead us to idolize pragmatism either. If each subject has its own ideal methodology for study, then it may be that pragmatism is the preferred method for, say, clinical judgment, whereas the scientific method is the best for the ‘hard’ sciences, and logic for philosophy. Or perhaps pragmatism and inductive logic are competing models for clinical... (shrink)

: During the nearly 10 years since its introduction, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been used predominantly to avoid giving birth to a child with identified genetic disease. Recently, PGD was used by a couple not only to test IVF-created embryos for genetic disease, but also to test for a nondisease trait related to immune compatibility with a child in the family in need of an hematopoetic stem cell transplant. This article describes the case, raises some ethical and policy issues, (...) highlights gaps in U.S. policy, and finally makes some recommendations for addressing advancing genetic and reproductive technologies. (shrink)

The year 2013 may someday be seen as the year a new profession was born. Clinical ethics consultation has been practiced in different ways for roughly 30 years, originally initiated by a group of h...