Cook et al. argue that mirror neurons originate from associative learning processes, without evolutionary influence from social-cognitive mechanisms. We disagree with this claim and present arguments based upon cross-species comparisons, EEG findings, and developmental neuroscience that the evolution of mirror neurons is most likely driven simultaneously and interactively by evolutionarily adaptive psychological mechanisms and lower-level biological mechanisms that support them.

The best-interests standard is a widely used ethical, legal, and social basis for policy and decision-making involving children and other incompetent persons. It is under attack, however, as self-defeating, individualistic, unknowable, vague, dangerous, and open to abuse. The author defends this standard by identifying its employment, first, as a threshold for intervention and judgment (as in child abuse and neglect rulings), second, as an ideal to establish policies or prima facie duties, and, third, as a standard of reasonableness. Criticisms of (...) the best-interests standard are reconsidered after clarifying these different meanings. (shrink)

This paper describes the change of emphasis that occurred in the teaching of ethics to small groups of clinical students. Although the original focus of the course was on the analysis of ethical dilemmas associated with individual patients known to the students, it soon became evident that there were, for the students themselves, more fundamental ethical dilemmas in their new role as clinical students. These included worries about how to respond when patients asked questions which their consultants had previously deceived (...) them about, worries about inflicting pain on patients, as with intravenous cannulation, and the role of the medical student in the clinical team. We emphasise the need to explore student experiences as part of the process of ethics teaching. (shrink)

Une éthique de la bio-médecine s'élabore depuis plus de vingt ans dans des institutions hospitalières, professionnelles ou politiques. Elle vise à protéger les droits de la personne face aux progrès de la techno-science. Elle est pluridisciplinaire et mêle aux chercheurs des penseurs de diverses familles d'esprit. Une aide à la décision est proposée aux praticiens par plusieurs méthodes : les « conférences de consensus » entre experts, les « protocoles » de soins, les « arbres décisionnels » qui connectent toutes (...) les hypothèses possibles et leurs issues prévisibles, l'évaluation médico-économique des coûts et de l'utilité des soins. L'éthique clinique qui commence à être intégrée aux études médicales s'intéresse aux décisions prises, ou à prendre, au chevet du malade. Des méthodes d'analyse de ces cas ont été mises au point, pour tenir compte, notamment, de la situation singulière, physique, mentale, sociale du patient et des modalités de l'expression de sa volonté. Ces analyses et prospectives font appel, entre autres spécialistes, au concours d’«- éthiciens », représentants des diverses « valeurs » spirituelles reconnues dans la société, qui sont souvent interrogés sur le fondement des décisions éthiques, et c'est alors que la théologie a son mot à dire.A biomedical ethics bas been developing for over twenty years in hospitals, professional groups and political committies. It’s goal is to protect an individual’s rights in face of techno-scientific progress. It is pluri-disciplinary and mixes groups of different intellectual tendencies with those wbo do research. Help in making decisions is given to practitioners by many metbods : “consensus conferences”between experts, treatment “protoco1s”, “decision trees” that connect all possible hypotheses and their foreseeable results, medico economical evaluation of the costs and utility of the treatments. Clinical ethics, which is beginning to be integrated into medical studies, concerns decisions already made or to be made by the bedside of the patient. Analytical methods of these cases bave been perfected to take into account the patient's special physical, mental, and social conditions, as well as his metbods of expressing his will. These analyses and their trends call upon representatives of diverse spiritual “values” recognized in society, among other specialists, at the gatherings of “ethicians“ wbo are often questioned about the basis of ethical decisions. This is wben theology has something to say. (shrink)

Preliminary Material /Louis M. Epstein --Polygamy /Louis M. Epstein --Concubinage /Louis M. Epstein --Levirate Marriage /Louis M. Epstein --Intermarriage /Louis M. Epstein --Incest /Louis M. Epstein --Other Marriage Prohibitions /Louis M. Epstein --Abbreviations /Louis M. Epstein --Register of Foreign Terms /Louis M. Epstein --Bibliography /Louis M. Epstein --Index of Subjects and Names /Louis M. Epstein.

Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good. (...) What if you want something only because you have a false belief? What if the time at which you want that p is fifty or five hundred years before the time to which p itself refers? To meet these difficulties, qualifications have to be introduced, and much has been written about how exactly these qualifications are to be framed.1 There is however what may be a rather more serious objection to the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good, or rather to the combination of that view with the principle that it is sufficient for your want that p to be satisfied simply that p is true. The objection is that this combination forces you to give undue weight to the mere acquisition of desires when you come to make judgements about changes in the value of things. It forces you to say that for any true proposition p, which initially you do not want to be true, your mere acquisition of a desire that p will, other things being equal, make the world better. Non-instrumental value can be increased merely by multiplying desires, even though everything else remains the same. Surely, however, improving the world is not as easy as that. (shrink)

For more than fifty years, Sterling M. McMurrin served as one of the preeminent intellectual voices of the LDS community. From his beginnings as an Institute of Religion instructor to U.S. Commissioner of Education, and from a professor of philosophy to U.S. Envoy to Iran, he showed by example how personal and institutional morality can be defended.In a series of candid discussions with Jack Newell, McMurrin reveals his ability to reconcile freedom and conscience. In a spirit of repartee and friendship, (...) writes Boyer Jarvis in the foreword, Newell probes, challenges, and constantly draws McMurrin out as he... reflects upon his wide-ranging ideas and experiences. Rich in insight and humor, this remarkable dialogue captures the sweep and depth of McMurrin's thoughts as Newell engages him in discussing his approaches to philosophy, education, and religion.Among the qualities that characterized McMurrin's life and mind, explains Newell, perhaps the most notable is the freedom with which he has spoken his views on both the sacred and the profane. His intellectual integrity -- coupled as it almost always is with his humane instincts and innate fairness -- has simultaneously confounded and earned the respect of critics. (shrink)

The traditional “realist” conception of physics, according to which human concepts, laws and theories can grasp the essence of a reality in our absence , seems incompatible with quantum formalism and it most fruitful interpretation. The proof rests on the violation by quantum mechanical formalism of some fundamental principles of the classical ontology. We discuss if the conception behind Einstein’s idea of a reality in our absence, could be still maintained and at which price. We conclude that quantum mechanical formalism (...) is not formulated on those terms, leaving for a separated paper the discussion about the terms in which it could be formulated and the onto-epistemological implications it might have. (shrink)

Background: The search for genetic variants between racial/ethnic groups to explain differential disease susceptibility and drug response has provoked sharp criticisms, challenging the appropriateness of using race/ethnicity as a variable in genetics research, because such categories are social constructs and not biological classifications.Objectives: To gain insight into how a group of genetic scientists conceptualise and use racial/ethnic variables in their work and their strategies for managing the ethical issues and consequences of this practice.Methods: In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a (...) purposive sample of 30 genetic researchers who use racial/ethnic variables in their research. Standard qualitative methods of content analysis were used.Results: Most of the genetic researchers viewed racial/ethnic variables as arbitrary and very poorly defined, and in turn as scientifically inadequate. However, most defended their use, describing them as useful proxy variables on a road to “imminent medical progress”. None had developed overt strategies for addressing these inadequacies, with many instead asserting that science will inevitably correct itself and saying that meanwhile researchers should “be careful” in the language chosen for reporting findings.Conclusions: While the legitimacy and consequences of using racial/ethnic variables in genetics research has been widely criticised, ethical oversight is left to genetic researchers themselves. Given the general vagueness and imprecision we found amongst these researchers regarding their use of these variables, they do not seem well equipped for such an undertaking. It would seem imperative that research ethicist move forward to develop specific policies and practices to assure the scientific integrity of genetic research on biological differences between population groups. (shrink)

This volume of the Amsterdam edition of the Latin texts of Erasmus contains several works intended for scholarship in Classics. It includes discourse on the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek, rhetoric, and Classical Latin, in a compendium of the handbook by Lorenzo Valla, as well as a declamation in praise of medicine.

Le but de cet article est une critique de la philosophie politique de M. Eric Weil. Par opposition à M. Weil, l'auteur définit la „politique" ici comme l'art du réalisable, à préciser comme : l'art d'arriver à court terme à une organisation de la société qu'on estime meilleure, et cela en employant tous les moyens permis. L'homme politique n'est pas, ainsi que l'affirme M. Weil, un „saint de Vtmiversel”, qui, en ce qui concerne l'emploi de la violence, se trouve au-dessus (...) de la loi. Ce „politicien-éducateur” est en vérité l'appui des régimes totalitaires et est d'ailleurs inconcevable en dehors de ceux-ci. En outre la théorie de M. Weil contient un certain nombre de contradictions internes et, si on la mesure à la pratique, elle se trouve être déficiente à beaucoup d'égards. Contre la conception platonicienne de M. Weil l'auteur défend la thèse que la politique n'est pas une infraction, regrettable mais inévitable, à „la morale”. C'est la tâche de l'homme politique de supprimer toutes les absurdités, inconséquences et injustices qui entachent les structures de la société. Ce qui, concrètement, est absurde, inconséquent ou injuste n'est pas déterminé par „la morale”, mais par la conscience du droit et par le sentiment moral d'une époque donnée. Les „certitudes” d'où part l'homme politique ne sont pas des Idées platoniciennes, mais des hypothèses de travail, qui dérivent leur contenu non pas de la contemplation des Idées, mais d'une notion de ce qui est juste et désirable, notion qui est déterminée par les conditions matérielles et spirituelles et qui se trouve dans un changement continuel. (shrink)