In the late 1970s, while working in my laboratory at the American Health Foundation, I received a phone call from Henry Spira. Not one for small talk, he did not even bother introducing himself beyond his name. He immediately began questioning me about my studies using the protozoan Tetrahymenathermophila, which I hoped would serve as an alternative to the Draize ocular irritation test. While flattered that someone cared about my work, I was soon lost in confusion and skepticism about the (...) true purpose of his call. Who was Henry Spira? Why did he want to visit my animal facility and why did he want to bring a physician colleague with him? Not only was I naive about the budding opposition to the Draize test, I was equally naive that it was Spira, an ardent animal protectionist, who was leading the fight. This seminal interaction began a friendship that spanned nearly twenty years; a friendship that indelibly changed my perception of nonhuman animals and how I relate to them. (shrink)

The present article attempts to evaluate various tenets of moral philosophy by reviewing empirical data from the field of organizational justice bearing on: (a) people''s concerns about fairness in organizations, and (b) the consequences of following or not following rules of justice. With respect to concerns about fairness in organizations, utilitarian claims that people believe that fairness requires distributions of reward based on merit were assessed. Similarly, evidence was reviewed bearing on the claim of psychological egoists that judgments of fairness (...) reflect a self-interested bias. Finally, Kant''s view that people should never lie was evaluated in light of evidence describing people''s actual attitudes toward lying. In all three cases, the underlying philosophical premises were concluded to be overly simplistic in view of complexities about human nature revealed in empirical research. In addition, evidence was reviewed that shed light on the teleological claims of utilitarians regarding the purported benefits of following two common organizational practices — using merit-based pay, and punishing harmdoers. Here, too, the empirical evidence (findings that these techniques do not consistently yield the greatest good for the greatest number) suggests that the premise underlying utilitarian thought is based on unfounded, overly simplistic assumptions about the effects of following various allegedly moral ideas. It is concluded that our analyses provide a useful first step toward the desired goal of business ethicists of integrating prescriptive and descriptive approaches to justice. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 5, Page 32-42, September–October 2022.

This title, first published in 1991, opens with an account by Gadamer of his own life and work and their relation to the achievements of hermeneutics. Building upon the key theme of dialogue, Gadamer and Hermeneutics provides a series of essays, either linked Gadamer to other major contemporary philosophers or focusing on a given Gadamerian theme. This book will be of interest to students of literary theory.

Rolls uses evolutionary theory and behavioral learning theory in his analysis of emotion. We believe that both theories are greatly underutilized, leaving an incomplete description of the nature of emotion and its neural foundation.

In a series of three experiments, we explored the nature of implicit representations in change blindness . Using 3 × 3 letter arrays, we asked subjects to locate changes in paired arrays separated by 80 ms ISIs, in which one, two or three letters of a row in the second array changed. In one testing version, a tone followed the second array, signaling a row for partial report . In the other version, no PR was required. After Ss reported whether (...) a change had been detected and the PR had been completed , they were asked to identify a degraded letter trigram that was either novel, or from a previously shown row . Our findings indicate that when CB occurs, both the pre-change and post-change stimulus information primes despite its unavailability to consciousness. Surprisingly, findings also indicate that when change detection occurs only the post-change information primes. (shrink)

John Alderson, Principled Policing: Protecting the Public with Integrity Winchester, U.K.: Waterside Press, 1998, 185 pp.

In reviewing five edited collections and one monograph from the 1990s, the article summarizes the present status of the "human rights revolution" that was signaled by the adoption in 1948 of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". It goes on to elaborate and evaluate some of the attempts contained in these books to deal with theoretical and practical controversies surrounding the subject of human rights, particularly the discussion of what to make of "cultural relativism" as far as human rights are (...) concerned. Finally, the article summarizes some recent thinking and research on a neglected area, namely compliance with human rights standards protecting "freedom of religion or belief.". (shrink)

On Yongjo, King of Korea, 1694-1776, Confucianism and kingship. Examines the individual's sense of achievement, drawing the current thinking of anthropology and psychology into the framework constructed by contemporary philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. Also considers other modern thought in delineating the relationship between self and history. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Examines the impact of the loss of expectations of permanent employment and enduring family relationships on individuals today and explores how changes in the collective endeavor to provide security could help.

I argue that we should rethink the nature and scope of Spinoza’s “one and the same” relation. Contrary to the standard reading, the nature of this relation is not identity but a union, and its scope includes all idea-object pairs, even God and the idea of God. A crucial reason we should adopt this dual picture is that the idea of God must be one and the same as something found when Nature is conceived under each of the other attributes. (...) If “one and the same” is interpreted as a relation of identity, this requirement cannot be met. However, maintaining that God and the idea of God are one and the same not only fulfills this requirement, but also is independently motivated. I also briefly consider how the thesis that God and the idea of God are one and the same affords us with positive insights concerning the nature of this relation. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of perceptual experience claims that perception is constituted by bodily interaction with the environment, drawing on practical knowledge of the systematic ways that sensory inputs are disposed to change as a result of movement. Despite the theory’s associations with enactivism, it is sometimes claimed that the appeal to ‘knowledge’ means that the theory is committed to giving an essential theoretical role to internal representation, and therefore to a form of orthodox cognitive science. This paper defends the role (...) ascribed to knowledge by the theory, but argues that this knowledge can and should be identified with bodily skill rather than representation. Making the further argument that the notion of ‘representation hunger’ can be replaced with ‘prima facie representation hunger’, it concludes that although the theory could optionally be developed scientifically in part by reference to internal representation, it makes a strong and natural fit with anti-representationalist embodied or enactive cognitive science. (shrink)

The Dialectic of Essence offers a systematic new account of Plato's metaphysics. Allan Silverman argues that the best way to make sense of the metaphysics as a whole is to examine carefully what Plato says about ousia (essence) from the Meno through the middle period dialogues, the Phaedo and the Republic, and into several late dialogues including the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Timaeus. This book focuses on three fundamental facets of the metaphysics: the theory of Forms; (...) the nature of particulars; and Plato's understanding of the nature of metaphysical inquiry. Silverman seeks to show how Plato conceives of "Being" as a unique way in which an essence is related to a Form. Conversely, partaking ("having") is the way in which a material particular is related to its properties: Particulars, thus, in an important sense lack essence. Additionally, the author closely analyzes Plato's idea that the relation between Forms and particulars is mediated by form-copies. Even when some late dialogues provide a richer account of particulars, Silverman maintains that particulars are still denied essence. Indeed, with the Timaeus's introduction of the receptacle, there are no particulars of the traditional variety. This book cogently demonstrates that when we understand that Plato's concern with essence lies at the root of his metaphysics, we are better equipped to find our way through the labyrinth of his dialogues and to better appreciate how they form a coherent theory. (shrink)

Kripke's paradigm rigid designator directly refers without describing, Yet carries some type of content or import over and above its reference to a particular referent. Pursuant to my discussion of linguistic convention, I argue that all referring expressions must be either descriptions or what I call "labels," and that under neither rubric can a referring expression fill both the above roles.

Attention is necessary for the conscious perception of any object. Objects not attended to are not seen. What is it that captures attention when we are engaged in some attention-absorbing task? Earlier research has shown that there are only a very few stimuli which have this power and therefore are reliably detected under these conditions . The two most reliable are the observer’s own name and a happy face icon which seem to capture attention by virtue of their meaning. Three (...) experiments are described which explore whether these stimuli are detected under conditions, heretofore unexamined, which either cause inattentional blindness or are associated with a perceptual failure associated with the limits of attention. The evidence obtained indicates that these stimuli have a unique capacity to capture and extend the limits of attention under conditions in which this has been deemed highly unlikely. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory is an influential account of perception and phenomenal qualities that builds, in an empirically supported way, on the basic claim that conscious experience is best construed as an attribute of the whole embodied agent's skill-driven interactions with the environment. This paper, in addition to situating the theory as a response to certain well-known problems of consciousness, develops a sensorimotor account of why we are perceptually conscious rather than not.

Upshot: Paul Silverman is Professor in the Psychology Department of the University of Montana. He completed his doctorate at the University of Georgia in 1977 with Ernst von Glasersfeld as mentor. His essay focuses on his personal encounters with him during that period.

Lloyd Gerson has a vision of what Platonism is. Those who see things differently may find his vision bewildering. In Platonism and Naturalism, to his credit, his vision is synoptic and impressively focused on critical passages and issues, especially in Plato's metaphysics and epistemology, though ethics also receives much attention. Leaving aside the introduction and chapter 1, chapters 2–6 are devoted to Plato and comprise two-thirds of the work. Chapters 7, "Aristotle the Platonist," 8, "Plotinus the Platonist," and 9, "Proclus (...) and Trouble in Paradise," along with brief concluding remarks, comprise the remainder. Naturally they take up only certain issues in the Platonism of these successors.... (shrink)

Spectacular treatment disasters in recent years have made it clear that informal "let's-try-it-and-see" methods of testing new proposals are more risky now than ever before, and have led many to call for a halt to experimentation in clinical medicine. In this easy-tp-read, philosophical guide to human experimentation, William Silverman pleads for wider use of randomized clinical trials, citing many examples that show how careful trials can overturn preconceived or ill-conceived notions of a therapy's effectiveness and lead to a clearer (...) understanding of clinical anomalies. Because it gives careful guidance on setting up trials and avoiding conceptual pitfalls, this book will be of great interest to all epidemiologists and clinical statisticians, and to a wide varitey of clinicians, pharmacologists, and nurses. Since it requires no medical or statistical knowledge, it will also appeal to ethicists, lawyers, and the general public. (shrink)

In this response, I examine the ambiguity about the status of Membership Categorization Device Analysis in the work of Harvey Sacks. The ‘five guiding principles’ of MCDA that Stokoe enunciates serve as a crucial guide to future research. In what follows, I give some further examples of data analysis which, I believe, supports both her strong and weaker claims.

A commentary on “SUPPORT: Risks, Harms, and Equipoise,” by Robert M. Nelson; “The Controversy over SUPPORT Continues and the Hyperbole Increases,” by Alan R. Fleischman; and “SUPPORT and the Ethics of Study Implementation,” by John D. Lantos and Chris Feudtner, all in the January‐February 2015 issue.

Background: Moral distress occurs when constraints prevent healthcare providers from acting in accordance with their core moral values to provide good patient care. The experience of moral distress in nurses might be magnified during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Objective: To explore causes of moral distress in nurses caring for Covid-19 patients and identify strategies to enhance their moral resiliency. Research design: A qualitative study using a qualitative content analysis of focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. We purposively sampled 31 nurses (...) caring for Covid-19 patients in the acute care units within large academic medical systems in Maryland and New York City during April to June 2020. Ethical considerations: We obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Results: We identified themes and sub-themes representative of major causes of moral distress in nurses caring Covid-19 patients. These included (a) lack of knowledge and uncertainty regarding how to treat a new illness; (b) being overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of the Covid-19 illness; (c) fear of exposure to the virus leading to suboptimal care; (d) adopting a team model of nursing care that caused intra-professional tensions and miscommunications; (e) policies to reduce viral transmission (visitation policy and PPE policy) that prevented nurses to assume their caring role; (f) practicing within crisis standards of care; and (g) dealing with medical resource scarcity. Participants discussed their coping mechanisms and suggested future strategies. Discussion/Conclusion: Our study affirms new causes of moral distress related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Institutions need to develop a supportive ethical climate that can restore nurses’ moral resiliency. Such a climate should include non-hierarchical interdisciplinary spaces where all providers can meet together as moral peers to discuss their experiences. (shrink)