This paper is concerned with the English Court of Appeal's decision in Yearworth v North Bristol NHS Trust that six men had, for the purposes of their claims against the trust, ownership of the sperm they had produced. The case has been discussed by many commentators and most, if not all, of those who have discussed the case have claimed or assumed that the court held that the claimants had property rights in the sperm they had produced. In this paper, (...) I advance an interpretation of the case that does not regard the court as deciding that the men had property rights in the sperm they had produced. On this view, the ‘ownership’ that the Court of Appeal purported to vest in each of the men was not a right in rem, a right ‘binding the world’. If this is so, it is perhaps unsurprising that some scholars, evaluating the success of the court's reasoning as a justification for vesting the claimants with property rights, have found it to be unsatisfactory. (shrink)

Essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, from Breaking Convention 2017.

The latest collection of essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, based on talks given by their authors at Breaking Convention 2019, held at The University of Greenwich, London. The largest symposium of its kind, Breaking Convention features more than 120 academic presentations biennially, and is widely regarded as the foremost global platform for serious research into psychedelic science and culture. Within these pages are essays demonstrating a shift in psychedelia. Topics include sustainability, death, the shadow, archetypes, conservation, history, (...) phenomenology, war, power, madness, and the marriage of energy and matter. An eclectic collection that reflects the diverse array of speakers that present at Breaking Convention, and echoes the shifts currently occurring in psychedelia: a build up of tension before new ground is created. (shrink)

This article is concerned with two elementary propositions of English property law: in general, a person acquires a title in respect of a tangible chattel if and when he or she obtains possession of it; and titles are relative. Neither claim is as straightforward as it seems. Much hinges on the answer to one question: is a title a property right, or is it something else? A number of prominent property law scholars have claimed that, for the purposes of and, (...) a title is indeed a property right. This article claims that there is a plausible alternative, one that is committed to the view that in English law, having possession of a chattel is a condition of the law deeming a person to be its owner. It argues that this assertion is supported by an important line of cases. And it maintains that, if that assertion is kept in mind, one can make better sense of the otherwise obscure view that having possession of a chattel is a condition of a person acquiring a ‘claim’ to the ownership of it and hence a title that is not a property right. (shrink)

Two main types of philosophical arguments have been given in support of the claim that the citizens of affluent societies have stringent moral duties to aid the global poor: “positive duty” arguments based on the notion of beneficence and “negative duty” arguments based on noninterference. Peter Singer’s positive duty argument (Singer 1972) and Thomas Pogge’s negative duty argument (Pogge 2002) are among the most prominent examples. Philosophers have made speculative claims about the relative effectiveness of these arguments in promoting attitudes (...) and behaviors that could lead to the alleviation of poverty. In this article we present the results of two empirical studies that evaluate these claims, and suggest that both arguments have a modest effect on people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding global poverty. In a replication of the second study, the negative duty argument, in particular, had a statistically significant effect on donations. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these results and suggest directions for further research on the role that philosophical arguments can play in engendering concern and action on pressing moral problems. (shrink)

David DeGrazia’s stated purposes for Taking Animals Seriously are to apply a coherentist methodology to animal ethics, to do the philosophical work necessary for discussing animal minds, and to fill in some of the gaps in the existing literature on animal ethics.

The nature and worth of Michael Oakeshott’s contribution as a political thinker have long been the subject of deep disagreement within the community of Anglophone political theory. This is partly the product of a partial familiarity with Oakeshott’s corpus. During his lifetime, his body of published work had a rather slender appearance, comprising two major monographs, separated by some forty years, and two rather more accessible collections of essays on politics and history. Following his death in 1990, however, a much (...) larger body of writings has become available. In particular, with the publication of his Notebooks, we are afforded the chance to form a nuanced and informed understanding of how the thinking in his texts interconnected, and to appreciate the range of intellectual influences and political preoccupations that characterised his work. (shrink)

Rationale Treatment guidelines recommend a more conservative surgical approach than mastectomy for early stage breast cancer and a stronger emphasis on adjuvant therapy. Registry data at South Australian teaching hospitals have been used to monitor survivals and treatment in relation to these guidelines.Aims and objectives To use registry data to: (1) investigate trends in survival and treatment; and (2) compare treatment with guidelines.Methods Registry data from three teaching hospitals were used to analyse trends in primary courses of treatment of breast (...) cancers during 1977–2003 (n = 4671), using univariate analyses and multiple logistic regression. Disease-specific survivals were analysed using Kaplan–Meier product limit estimates and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression.Results The 5-year survival was 79.9%, but with a secular increase, reaching 83.6% in 1997–2003. The relative risk of death (95% confidence limits) was 0.74 (0.62, 0.88) for 1997–2003, compared with previous diagnoses, after adjusting for tumour node metastasis stage, grade, age and place of residence. Treatment changes included an increase in conservative surgery (as opposed to mastectomy) from 51.7% in 1977–1990 to 76.8% in 1997–2003 for stage I (P < 0.001) and from 31.1% to 52.2% across these periods for stage II (P < 0.001). Adjuvant radiotherapy also became more common (P < 0.001), with 20.6% of patients receiving this treatment in 1977–1990 compared with 60.7% in 1997–2003. Radiotherapy generally was more prevalent when conservative surgery was provided, although also relatively common in mastectomy patients when tumour diameters exceeded 50 mm or when there were four or more involved nodes. The proportion of patients receiving chemotherapy increased (P < 0.001), from 19.6% in 1977–1990 to 36.9% in 1997–2003, and the proportion having hormone therapy also increased (P < 0.001), from 34.3% to 59.4% between these periods.Conclusions Survivals appear to be increasing and treatment trends are broadly consistent with guideline directions, and the earlier research on which these recommendations were based. (shrink)

Institutional review boards, tasked with facilitating ethical research, are often pulled in competing directions. In what we call the protection-inclusion dilemma, we acknowledge the tensions IRBs face in aiming to both protect potential research participants from harm and include under-represented populations in research. In this manuscript, we examine the history of protectionism that has dominated research ethics oversight in the United States, as well as two responses to such protectionism: inclusion initiatives and critiques of the term vulnerability. We look at (...) what we know about IRB decision-making in relation to protecting and including “vulnerable” groups in research and examine the lack of regulatory guidance related to this dilemma, which encourages protection over inclusion within IRB practice. Finally, we offer recommendations related to how IRBs might strike a better balance between inclusion and protection in research ethics oversight. (shrink)

Although the seasons have been a perennial theme in literature and art, their significance for philosophy and environmental theory has remained largely unexplored. This pioneering book demonstrates the ways in which inquiry into the seasons reveals new and illuminating perspectives for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism. The Seasons opens up new avenues for research in these fields and provides a valuable resource for teachers and students of the environmental humanities. The innovative essays herein address (...) a wide range of seasonal cultures and geographies, from the traditional Western model of the four seasons––spring, summer, fall, and winter––to the Indigenous seasons of Australia and the Arctic. Exemplifying the crucial importance of interdisciplinary research, The Seasons makes a compelling case for the relevance of the seasons to our daily lives, scientific understanding, diverse cultural practices, and politics. (shrink)

Negative self-schemas are fundamental to social anxiety disorder and contribute to its persistence, thus understanding how to change schemas is of critical importance. Memory-based interventions and associated theories propose that reconstructing autobiographical memories tethered to schemas with conceptual details that challenge the associated expectations will lead to schema change. Here, we test this proposal in a between-subjects behavioural experiment with undergraduate participants with social anxiety. All participants were asked to recall aversive social memories, evaluated these memories on a series of (...) scales, including estimates of reoccurrence, and provided ratings of negative and positive schema beliefs. Next, half the participants reconstructed (rescripted) these aversive memories with conceptual details that challenged the active schema (conceptual condition) and the other half reconstructed the memories with additional experiential details (perceptual condition). All participants provided again evaluations of the original memory and their schema beliefs. Our analysis revealed that the conceptual condition led to significant reductions in negative self-schemas, increases in positive self-schemas, and decreases in estimates of future negative event reoccurrence. Thus, effective schema-change, both a weakening of negative schemas and a strengthening of more positive, adaptive schemas, is dependent on altering the underlying meaning of associated autobiographical memories. (shrink)

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to offer such insightful comments with regard to the protection–inclusion dilemma in research oversight. Nearly all respondents agreed that this dilemm...

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

Tobias Jones’s Utopian Dreams and David Bramwell’s The No. 9 Bus to Utopia provide two travelogues that pull us from our theoretical social dreaming into the practical implementation of utopianism through alternative societies, or intentional communities. The authors narrate their experiences and insights as they travel through communities and interrogate claims that there might be better ways of living. The impetus behind their pilgrimage: the endemic anomie that both authors argue permeates our society. Armed with the facts, they both (...) describe the mass of problems of modern life: soaring rates of independent living, the breakdown of community, and the epidemic of depression. In positing the question of.. (shrink)

The collected essays and consensus statements of the second round of the National Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue, and the second book of the series on Evangelicals and Catholics in dialogue. The essays address the Christian ideal of life lived in pursuit of the good that is God, and the witness and imitation of God's action in Christ, as a pathway to fruitful dialogue between Catholics and Evangelicals.

In Making Things Happen, James Woodward influentially combines a causal modeling analysis of actual causation with an interventionist semantics for the counterfactuals encoded in causal models. This leads to circularities, since interventions are defined in terms of both actual causation and interventionist counterfactuals. Circularity can be avoided by instead combining a causal modeling analysis with a semantics along the lines of that given by David Lewis, on which counterfactuals are to be evaluated with respect to worlds in which their (...) antecedents are realized by miracles. I argue, pace Woodward, that causal modeling analyses perform just as well when combined with the Lewisian semantics as when combined with the interventionist semantics. Reductivity therefore remains a reasonable hope. (shrink)

Many regard Henry David Thoreau as an apolitical or even antipolitical thinker, concerned above all with his personal moral purity, and thus unresponsive and irresponsible towards the society in which he lived. Contrary to this received interpretation, I argue that Thoreau’s life and work articulates a robust and complex doctrine of intersubjective responsibility and political agency. Although he denies individual responsibility to institutions and other persons, he soberly embraces individual responsibility for one’s role in shaping and maintaining the arrangements (...) of society, including those that compromise the self and lend support to vicious practices and institutions. In respect of his understanding of responsibility, both his strident critique of modern society and his committed individualism appear as political postures especially apt for late modern times. (shrink)

What are the principles that ground our moral obligations? One obvious answer is that they are prescriptive rules that govern conduct by imposing obligations much like (certain) legal rules govern conduct by imposing legal obligations. This "rule conception of moral principles" merits our attention for at least three reasons. It's the obvious and most straightforward way to develop the analogy between morality and law, and between moral principles and legal rules. It appears to fit some prominent theories of morality and (...) justice (e.g., Brad Hooker's rule-consequentialism, David Gauthier's contractarianism, and John Rawls's contractualism), and thus to possibly derive support from its fit with them. And it promises to account for the ability of moral principles to do the explanatory, counterfactual-supporting, and necessity-grounding work that they do. Moreover, it seems to be an integral part of some prominent theories (e.g., those of Gauthier, Kant, and Christine Korsgaard). However, I will argue that we should reject it. Moreover, by warranting the rejection of an obvious rival, the arguments presented herein strengthen the case for a dispositional (or powers) conception of moral principles, and perhaps for certain other conceptions, as well. (shrink)

We investigate whether standard counterfactual analyses of causation imply that the outcomes of space-like separated measurements on entangled particles are causally related. Although it has sometimes been claimed that standard CACs imply such a causal relation, we argue that a careful examination of David Lewis’s influential counterfactual semantics casts doubt on this. We discuss ways in which Lewis’s semantics and standard CACs might be extended to the case of space-like correlations.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 51-58, January/February 2022.

Book review of David Sobel's "From Valuing to Value: A Defense of Subjectivism".

Title: Regarding Nature, Industrialism and Deep EcologyPublisher: State University of New York PressISBN: 0791413845Author: Andrew McLaughlinTitle: Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human SpiritPublisher: Houghton Mifflin HarcourtISBN: 0618056645Author: Al GoreTitle: Earth Rising: Ecological Belief in an Age of SciencePublisher: Oregon State University PressISBN: 0870713574Author: David Oates.

Some fans have suggested that the titles of the Skywalker Saga films are in the wrong order. Episode VIII: The Last Jedi should've been “A New Hope” ‐since Luke's sacrifice in his battle with Kylo gives Rey and The Resistance a new hope in their struggle against the First Order. In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke argues for a better solution: a separation of religious and political power. Religion should be a private affair; politics and government should be (...) a secular matter. To understand Luke's position, it's important to understand that pacifism is not a call to inaction; when something wrong occurs that could be stopped by violence, the pacifist is not obligated to stand around and do nothing. Especially when it's an act of violence, the pacifist is obligated to stop it. (shrink)