Medical literature on the protective effects of salpingectomy against ovarian cancer has challenged Catholic health care institutions to reexamine policies that prohibit tubal sterilization at the time of cesarean section. Salpingectomy performed for a woman whose fallopian tubes are known or suspected to have a serious and present pathology—risk-reducing salpingectomy—is morally justifiable as a therapeutic intervention. However, salpingectomy performed at the time of another medically indicated procedure, such as cesarean section, on an otherwise fertile woman whose fallopian tubes are presumed (...) to be healthy—opportunistic salpingectomy—constitutes direct sterilization and fails to meet the conditions of double effect. Moreover, until magisterial guidance clarifies the right application of Catholic teaching to the specific question of opportunistic salpingectomy, Catholic health care institutions should, out of prudential judgment and to avoid scandal, avoid establishing institution policies that permit the practice. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary work is a collection of major essays on reasoning: deductive, inductive, abductive, belief revision, defeasible, cross cultural, conversational, and argumentative. They are each oriented toward contemporary empirical studies. The book focuses on foundational issues, including paradoxes, fallacies, and debates about the nature of rationality, the traditional modes of reasoning, as well as counterfactual and causal reasoning. It also includes chapters on the interface between reasoning and other forms of thought. In general, this last set of essays represents growth (...) points in reasoning research, drawing connections to pragmatics, cross-cultural studies, emotion and evolution. (shrink)

The knowledge norm of assertion is mainly in competition with a high probability or rational credibility norm. The argument for the knowledge norm that I offer turns on cases in which a hearer responds to a speaker's assertion by asserting another sentence that would lower the probability of the speaker's assertion, were its probability less than one. In cases like this, though with qualifications, is the hearer's contribution a challenge to the speaker's assertion or complementary to it? My answer is (...) the latter, and that only the knowledge norm yields that answer.The cases that I rely on follow from an elementary probability relation, though one that is inconsistent with the still influential relevance criterion for confirmation and evidence . Assume, for illustrative purposes, that p is in your belief corpus, as a consequence of your believing ∨ ∨ . 1 You learn that ∼ & ∼ , which would lessen the probability of p, were its probability less than one, 2 since it eliminates two rows of the truth-table in which p holds. What conclusion do you reach about p?Rather than withdrawing p, you acquire the belief that p & ∼ s & ∼ r, even though Formula where pr would be the subjective or epistemic probability of p on a probabilistic view of the knowledge norm before learning ∼ & ∼ . Instead of withdrawal …. (shrink)

This paper explores Emmanuel Levinas' Jewish writings, and in particular, his Talmudic commentaries and essays on Judaism. The aim is to elicit some salient features of his methodological approach to the Jewish sacred texts. In general, Levinas' specific reflections on method (in terms of reading the Jewish Scriptures) are confined to sporadic, fragmentary comments interspersed throughout his writings. In extracting these reflections, a specifically Levinasian approach emerges. In particular, his approach shows how one may ethically encounter the Other(s) in these (...) sacred texts. (shrink)

Introduction : ethical economics? -- The sovereign consumer -- Two myths about economic growth -- The politics of pay -- Happiness -- Pricing life and nature -- New worlds of money : public services and beyond -- Conclusion.

Ken Binmore argues that justice consists in a proportional bargaining equilibrium of a ‘game of morals’, which corresponds to a Nash bargaining equilibrium of a ‘game of life’. His argument seems unassailable if rational agents are predominantly self-interested, an assumption that he is apparently willing to make on the grounds that human behaviour is ultimately constrained in accord with the selfish gene paradigm. But there is no compelling scientific evidence for that paradigm. Rather, human nature appears to be highly plastic. (...) If so, rational agents might eventually be moulded by cultural forces into social and moral actors who effectively believe that they are the same person-no different from anyone else−when it comes to certain vital personal interests which ought to be treated as rights. In this context, a utilitarian outcome is an efficient and fair equilibrium of the game of life. Compliance with the rules is enforced by the actor’s own conscience, a powerful internal ‘judicious spectator’ which threatens to inflict harsh punishment in the form of intense feelings of guilt for cheating. (shrink)

Book 8 of Lucan's Bellum Civile opens with Pompey in desperate flight from Caesar after the disaster of Pharsalus, and in equally desperate search for a reliable ally. Before the fateful decision is taken that Pompey should make for Egypt, where he will be murdered upon arrival by minions of the treacherous Ptolemy XIII, Pompey dispatches his Galatian client-tetrarch Deiotarus to sound out the distant Parthians and summon their armed hordes to wage war on his behalf ; the king promptly (...) embarks on his arduous errand, never to reappear in Lucan's text. Although Pompey is said by several historical sources to have expressed an interest in exploring the prospect of an alliance with Parthia, the mission of Deiotarus is almost certainly a complete fiction, as Duff has convincingly demonstrated. What could Lucan's motive have been for inventing this episode out of whole cloth? (shrink)

Despite highlighting the role of the attribution system and proposing a coherent large-scale architecture of declarative memory, the integrative memory model would be more “integrative” if the temporal dynamics of the interactions between its components was clarified. This is necessary to make predictions in patients with brain injury and hypothesize dissociations.

In this amazingly prophetic work, done late in his career, Herbert Spencer offers an approach to ethics that anticipates developments throughout the twentieth century. He moves away from the twin evils of ethical doctrines bequeathed to us by an ancient past that are simply no longer feasible but also avoids modern standards of ethical conduct that are simply impossible to attain. "By association with rules that cannot be obeyed," Spencer writes, "rules that can be obeyed lose their authority." The volume (...) opens with three chapters on conduct: its evolution, good and bad, and ways of judgment. This is followed by a series of chapters that examine ethics from a variety of scientific perspectives: physics, biology, psychology, and sociology. The work then moves on to specific issues of deep human concern: the relativity of pleasures and pain, egoism versus altruism in explaining actions, and trial and compromise in decision-making about ethical concerns. Spencer's work anticipates the movement toward pragmatic, naturalistic, and even positivist approaches to ethics. He emphasizes that a relativist approach while in keeping with the spirit of the industrial age, also poses a variety of problems that admit only of empirical solutions. He understands that his critical stance on absolutism should not blind researchers to the ideals assumed by the ancients that assist people in their everyday living. In short, this is a remarkable work, entirely modern, and yet containing a sharp evaluation of how ethical data serve to enhance ethical conduct. (shrink)

This volume collects all of Firth’s major published writings, two sets of unpublished lectures, and three essays from his unfinished book on epistemology. John Troyer provides a very helpful overview of the essays, as well as a short biography of a person of deep convictions and a devoted teacher and colleague. : 109-18, should also be consulted.).

La formación doctoral representa en sí misma un itinerario educativo particular y complejo. Su singularidad radica no solo en aspectos institucionales, sistémicos o curriculares de cada programa de formación, sino que éste atraviesa al sujeto desde coordenadas biográficas, temporales y afectivas que solo pueden dimensionarse a través de su propia textualización y narración. Posicionados desde perspectivas pos cualitativas de investigación social, el enfoque biográfico, auto-biográfico y narrativo, emerge como posibilidad para recuperar las experiencias vividas por aquellos docentes universitarios que han (...) atravesado la formación doctoral, resemantizarlas a partir de sus relatos de vida y reinterpretarlas desde nuevos sentidos y significados. En el presente artículo, a partir de los testimonios de docentes universitarios, nos centramos en el valor biográfico de sus narraciones en donde se ponen de manifiesto las tramas cronotópicas que acontecen el devenir de la formación, su carácter formativo, y la compleja amalgama entre vida, profesión y formación evidenciada en el despliegue de sus relatos. Los hallazgos narrativos se configuran en intersticios íntimos desde los cuales construir de un modo alternativo el campo de la investigación educativa, visibilizar el rostro más humano de la formación de posgrado y, producir desplazamientos y debates futuros en torno al objeto de estudio. (shrink)

My critical comments focus mainly on premises,, and. However, in treating these I will address other of James’s assumptions—particularly, the presupposition of his argument that it is possible to will to believe. Later I will try to accommodate existential aspects of James’s argument that retain value, even if my objections to his argument stand.

In this book, nine thought-leaders engage with some of the hottest moral issues in science and ethics. Based on talks originally given at the annual "Purdue Lectures in Ethics, Policy, and Science," the chapters explore interconnections between the three areas in an engaging and accessible way. Addressing a mixed public audience, the authors go beyond dry theory to explore some of the difficult moral questions that face scientists and policy-makers every day. The introduction presents a theoretical framework for the book, (...) defining the term "bioethics" as extending well beyond human well-being to wider relations between humans, nonhuman animals, the environment, and biotechnologies. Three sections then explore the complex relationship between moral value, scientific knowledge, and policy making. The first section starts with thoughts on nonhuman animal pain and moves to a discussion of animal understanding. The second section explores climate change and the impact of "green" nanotechnology on environmental concerns. The final section begins with dialog about ethical issues in nanotechnology, moves to an exploration of bio-banks (a technology with broad potential medical and environmental impact), and ends with a survey of the impact of biotechnologies on (synthetic) life itself. (shrink)

The extreme length of chromosomal DNA requires organizing mechanisms to both promote functional genetic interactions and ensure faithful chromosome segregation when cells divide. Microscopy and genome‐wide contact frequency analyses indicate that intra‐chromosomal looping of DNA is a primary pathway of chromosomal organization during all stages of the cell cycle. DNA loop extrusion has emerged as a unifying model for how chromosome loops are formed in cis in different genomic contexts and cell cycle stages. The highly conserved family of SMC complexes (...) have been found to be required for DNA cis‐looping and have been suggested to be the enzymatic core of loop extruding machines. Here, the current body of evidence available for the in vivo and in vitro action of SMC complexes is discussed and compared to the predictions made by the loop extrusion model. How SMC complexes may differentially act on chromatin to generate DNA loops and how they could work to generate the dynamic and functionally appropriate organization of DNA in cells is explored. -/- . (shrink)

An error has crept into my article ‘The Status of Determinism ’,1 making nonsence of a crucial sentence. On p. 117, tenth line from the bottom, die word not at the end of the line should be deleted.

A case is made for focusing less on acts than on facts about behaviour. This fits with the use of fact‐causation, which is conceptually superior to event causation; it fits with the ‘by’‐locution, on the only viable analysis of that given so far, and it avoids needless difficulties that arise when one tries to make the act concept do work for which it is not fitted.

The making/allowing distinction tends to be accompanied by three other considerations that do have moral significance: ease of avoidance, motive, and knowability of consequences. Much discussion of making/allowing is based on intuitions about contrasted pairs of cases—a procedure that has dangers against which this chapter warns. Any thesis to the effect that making/allowing sometimes makes a moral difference is a sign of uncompleted work; the result is not interesting until we know the differentia.

In an increasingly complex and interconnected world, with a seemingly endless supply of examples of corporate scandal and organizational exploitation and abuses of employees, consumers, and the environment represented daily in the media, there is an ever increasing need for our organizational leaders to be more firmly grounded in sound ethical principles and practices. Furthermore, the business students of today will be the business leaders of tomorrow and need to be adequately trained in how to deal with the complexity and (...) the ambiguity inherent in the ethical dilemmas they will face. With the far reaching societal impacts of organizational and business ethics missteps, we need business leaders with pragmatic ethical knowledge and dispositions and sensitivities to work to find creative and innovative solutions to society's most perplexing challenges. (shrink)