To what extent organized employers and trade unions support social policies is contested. This article examines the case of work-family policies, which have surged to become a central part of the welfare state. In that expansion, the joint role of employers and unions has largely been disregarded in the comparative political economy literature. The article posits that the shift from Fordist to knowledge economies is the impetus for the social partners’ support for WFPs. If women make up an increasing share (...) of high-skilled employees, employers start favoring WFPs to increase their labor supply. Similarly, unions favor WFPs if women constitute a significant part of their membership base. Yet the extent to which changes in preferences translate into policy depends on the presence of corporatist institutions. These claims are supported with statistical analyses of WFPs in eighteen advanced democracies across five decades and an in-depth case study of Norway. The article thus demonstrates that the trajectory of the new welfare state is decisively affected by the preferences and power of unions and employers. (shrink)

From an aging research and life-course perspective, the transition to retirement marks a significant life-event and provides a unique opportunity to study psychological health and coping during a period of substantial change in everyday life. The aim of the present paper is to: (a) outline the rationale of the HEalth, Ageing and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study, (b) describe the study sample, and (c) to present some initial results from the two first waves regarding the association between retirement status (...) and psychological health. The HEARTS study is designed to annually study psychological health in the years before and following retirement, and to examine change and stability patterns related to the retirement event. Among a representative Swedish population-based sample of 14 990 individuals aged 60 to 66 years, 5 913 completed the baseline questionnaire in 2015. The majority of the participants (69%) completed a web-based survey, and the rest (31%) completed a paper version. The baseline HEARTS sample represents the general population well in terms of gender and age, but is more highly educated. Cross-sectional findings from the first wave showed that retired individuals demonstrated better psychological health compared to those who were still working. Longitudinal results from the first and second waves showed that individuals who retired between waves showed more positive changes in psychological health compared with those still working or previously retired. (shrink)

A growing awareness of a subsurface fossil record of mostly hyphal fungi organisms stretching back through the Phanerozoic to ≈400 megaannum (Ma) and possibly earlier, provides an alternative view on hyphal development. Parallel with the emergence of hyphal fungi during Ordovician–Devonian times when plants colonized the land, which is the traditional notion of hyphal evolution, hyphae‐based fungi existed in the deep biosphere. New insights suggest that the fundamental functions of hyphae may have evolved in response to an ancient subsurface endolithic (...) life style and might have been in place before the colonization of land. To address the gaps in the current understanding of hyphal evolution a strategy based on research prospects involving investigations of uncharted geological material, new diagnostics, and comparisons to live species is proposed. (shrink)

BackgroundAntipsychotic-induced weight gain is a contributing factor in the reduced life expectancy reported amongst people with psychotic disorders. CYP2D6 is a liver enzyme involved in the metabolism of many commonly used antipsychotic medications. We investigated if CYP2D6 genetic variation influenced weight or BMI among people taking antipsychotic treatment.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review and a random effects meta-analysis of publications in Pubmed, Embase, PsychInfo, and CENTRAAL that had BMI and/or weight measurements of patients on long-term antipsychotics by their CYP2D6-defined metabolic groups.ResultsTwelve (...) studies were included in the systematic review. All cohort studies suggested that the presence of reduced-function or non-functional alleles for CYP2D6 was associated with greater antipsychotic-induced weight gain, whereas most cross-sectional studies did not find any significant associations. Seventeen studies were included in the meta-analysis with clinical data of 2,041 patients, including 93 poor metabolizers, 633 intermediate metabolizers, 1,272 normal metabolizers, and 30 UMs. Overall, we did not find associations in any of the comparisons made. The estimated pooled standardized differences for the following comparisons were PM versus NM; weight = –0.07, BMI = 0.40. IM versus NM; weight = 0.09 and BMI = 0.09. UM versus EM; weight = 0.01 and BMI = –0.08.ConclusionOur systematic review of cohort studies suggested that CYP2D6 poor metabolizers have higher BMI than normal metabolizers, but the data of cross-sectional studies and the meta-analysis did not show this association. Although our review and meta-analysis constitutes one of the largest studies with comprehensively genotyped samples, the literature is still limited by small numbers of participants with genetic variants resulting in poor or UMs status. We need further studies with larger numbers of extreme metabolizers to establish its clinical utility in antipsychotic treatment. CYP2D6 is a key gene for personalized prescribing in mental health. (shrink)

Contributing Authors: Lilli Alanen & Frans Svensson, David Alm, Gustaf Arrhenius, Gunnar Björnsson, Luc Bovens, Richard Bradley, Geoffrey Brennan & Nicholas Southwood, John Broome, Linus Broström & Mats Johansson, Johan Brännmark, Krister Bykvist, John Cantwell, Erik Carlson, David Copp, Roger Crisp, Sven Danielsson, Dan Egonsson, Fred Feldman, Roger Fjellström, Marc Fleurbaey, Margaret Gilbert, Olav Gjelsvik, Kathrin Glüer & Peter Pagin, Ebba Gullberg & Sten Lindström, Peter Gärdenfors, Sven Ove Hansson, Jana Holsanova, Nils Holtug, Victoria Höög, Magnus Jiborn, Karsten Klint (...) Jensen, Sigurður Kristinsson, Isaac Levi, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, David Makinson, Anna-Sofia Maurin, Philippe Mongin, Kevin Mulligan, Lennart Nordenfelt, Jonas Olson, Erik J. Olsson, Ingmar Persson, Johannes Persson, Björn Petersson, Philip Pettit, Hans Rott, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Krister Segerberg, John Skorupski, Howard Sobel, Fredrik Stjernberg, Fred Stoutland, Caj Strandberg, Pär Sundström, Folke Tersman, Torbjörn Tännsjö, Peter Vallentyne, Bruno Verbeek, Stella Villarmea, and Michael J. Zimmerman. (shrink)

The paper presents main conceptual distinctions underlying much of modern philosophical thinking about value. The introductory Section 1 is followed in Section 2 by an outline of the contrast between non-relational value and relational value. In Section 3, the focus is on the distinction between final and non-final value as well as on different kinds of final value. In Section 4, we consider value relations, such as being better/worse/equally good/on a par. Recent discussions suggest that we might need to considerably (...) extend traditional taxonomies of value relations. (shrink)

The contributors to the volume are: Richard Arneson, Linda Barclay, Thomas Christiano, Nils Holtug, Susan Hurley, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Dennis McKerlie, ...

When we ask what natural kinds are, there are two different things we might have in mind. The first, which I’ll call the taxonomy question, is what distinguishes a category which is a natural kind from an arbitrary class. The second, which I’ll call the ontology question, is what manner of stuff there is that realizes the category. Many philosophers have systematically conflated the two questions. The confusion is exhibited both by essentialists and by philosophers who pose their accounts in (...) terms of similarity. It also leads to misreading philosophers who do make the distinction. Distinguishing the questions allows for a more subtle understanding of both natural kinds and their underlying metaphysics. (shrink)

The Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) account of natural kinds has become popular since it was proposed by Richard Boyd in the late 1980s. Although it is often taken as a defining natural kinds as such, it is easy enough to see that something's being a natural kind is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being an HPC. This paper argues that it is better not to understand HPCs as defining what it is to be a natural kind but instead as (...) providing the ontological realization of (some) natural kinds. (shrink)

Many legal, social, and medical theorists and practitioners, as well as lay people, seem to be concerned with the harmfulness of discriminative practices. However, the philosophical literature on the moral wrongness of discrimination, with a few exceptions, does not focus on harm. In this paper, I examine, and improve, a recent account of wrongful discrimination, which divides into a definition of group discrimination, and a characterisation of its moral wrong-making feature in terms of harm. The resulting account analyses the wrongness (...) of discrimination in terms of intrapersonal comparisons of the discriminatee’s actual, and relevantly counterfactual, well-being levels. I show that the account faces problems from counterfactuals, which can be traced back specifically to the orthodox - comparative, counterfactual, welfarist - concept of harm. I argue that non-counterfactual and non-comparative harm concepts face problems of their own, and don’t fit easily with our best understanding of discrimination; hence they are unsuitable to replace the orthodox concept here. I then propose a non-orthodox - comparative, counterfactual, hybrid - concept of harm, which relies on counterfactual comparisons of ways of being treated. I suggest how such a concept can help us handle the problems from counterfactuals, at least for my account of discrimination. I also show that there are similar proposals in other harm-related debates. An upshot of the paper is thus to corroborate the case for a non-orthodox, hybrid concept of harm, which seems better able to fulfil its functional roles in a variety of contexts. (shrink)

The problem of underdetermination is thought to hold important lessons for philosophy of science. Yet, as Kyle Stanford has recently argued, typical treatments of it offer only restatements of familiar philosophical problems. Following suggestions in Duhem and Sklar, Stanford calls for a New Induction from the history of science. It will provide proof, he thinks, of “the kind of underdetermination that the history of science reveals to be a distinctive and genuine threat to even our best scientific theories” (Stanford 2001, (...) p. S12). This paper examines Stanford’s New Induction and argues that it – like the other forms of underdetermination that he criticizes – merely recapitulates familiar philosophical conundra. (shrink)

Epistemic logics based on the possible worlds semantics suffer from the problem of logical omniscience, whereby agents are described as knowing all logical consequences of what they know, including all tautologies. This problem is doubly challenging: on the one hand, agents should be treated as logically non-omniscient, and on the other hand, as moderately logically competent. Many responses to logical omniscience fail to meet this double challenge because the concepts of knowledge and reasoning are not properly separated. In this paper, (...) I present a dynamic logic of knowledge that models an agent’s epistemic state as it evolves over the course of reasoning. I show that the logic does not sacrifice logical competence on the altar of logical non- omniscience. (shrink)

Not a lot of work on theistic arguments has been devoted to drawing connections between a necessary being and theistic properties. In this paper, I identify novel paths from a necessary being to certain theistic properties: volition, infinite power, infinite knowledge, and infinite goodness. The steps in those paths are an outline for future work on what William Rowe (The Cosmological Argument, 1975, p. 6) has called “stage II” of the cosmological argument.

Species conservation activities are gaining more attention in the context of environmental degradation. This article proposes to tackle different semiotic aspects of reintroduction as one possible way of furthering species conservation. More specifically, we aim to bring forth the strength of ecosemiotic perspective when dealing with such a complex matter with many different human and non-human subjects. We concentrate on animal agency, search and function tone, semiotic fitting and changes in umwelten when analysing the reintroduction process from the perspective of (...) the animal. When considering the locals’ perspective, we take into account the appeal and cultural placement of the species, as well as human and non-human umwelt overlap when it comes to resources. As our case study we use the European mink (Mustela lutreola) and its reintroduction to the island of Hiiumaa and planned reintroduction to the island of Saaremaa in Estonia. By employing semiotic analysis, we discover that reintroduced animals need to exhibit innovation and plasticity to establish novel semiotic relations but also restore relations characteristic to the historical environments of the species. We argue that human views and expectations towards the species and (re)introduction efforts account for animals’ appearance and agency. Additionally, contrast with other wild species, the perceived overlap of human and non-human umwelten, and broader conservation discourse are decisive for the formation of interspecific relations in situ. Thus, ecosemiotcs proves to be a valuable research platform for an analysis of conservation practices that targets both, sociocultural context and animal umwelten. (shrink)

Philosophers of time say that if presentism is true (i.e. if reality is comprised solely of presently existing things), then a complete description of reality must contain tensed terms, such as ‘was’, ‘presently is’ and ‘will be’. I counter this viewpoint by explaining how the presentist may de-tense our talk about times. I argue, furthermore, that, since the A-theory of time denies the success of any such de-tensing strategy, presentism is not a version of the A-theory – contrary to the (...) popular opinion. (shrink)

Discussion of the “dead donor rule” is challenging because it implicates views about a wide range of issues, including whether and when patients are appropriately declared dead, the validity of the doctrine of double effect, and the moral difference between or equivalence of active euthanasia and withdrawal of life‐sustaining treatment. The DDR will be defined here as the prohibition against removal of organs necessary for the life of the patient—that is, the prohibition of intentionally ending the life of a patient (...) through organ removal. At a minimum, it is difficult not to see the DDR as grounded in a set of laws, norms, values, and practices that are firmly entrenched and have a great deal of philosophical, religious, and legal support. Obviously, the primary argument against the DDR is that it is highly desirable that we continue to procure organs for transplantation, combined with the belief that those from whom we often and possibly typically procure organs are not “really” dead. If donors are not really dead, then we are left with a dilemma: either we abandon organ procurement, or we abandon the DDR. Such a move should be taken only if the way we currently delineate the dead (those from whom it is acceptable to remove organs) cannot be maintained or defended. I will suggest that this is not the case. (shrink)

The nature, possibility, and implications of ethics expertise in general and of bioethics expertise in particular has been the focus of extensive debate for over thirty years. What is ethics expertise and what does it enable experts to do? Knowing what ethics expertise is can help answer another important question: What, if anything, makes a claim of expertise legitimate? In other words, how does someone earn the appellation “ethics expert?” There remains deep disagreement on whether ethics expertise is possible, and (...) if so, what constitutes such expertise and what it entails and legitimates. Discussion of bioethics expertise has become particularly important given the growing presence of bioethicists in the clinical setting as well as efforts to professionalize bioethics through codes of ethics and certification efforts. Unlike in the law or in engineering, where there may be a body of knowledge that professional organizations or others have articulated as important for education and training of experts, ethics expertise admits of no such body of knowledge or required experience. Nor is there an entity seen as having the authority to articulate the necessary scope of knowledge. Questions about whether there is such a body of knowledge for particular areas within bioethics have emerged and played a central role in professionalization efforts in recent years, especially in the area of clinical ethics. (shrink)

Abram Brummett and Christopher Ostertag offer critiques of my argument that clinical ethics consultants have expertise but are not “ethics experts”. My argument begins within our less-than-ideal world and asks what a justification of a clinical ethics consultation recommendation might look like under those conditions. It is a challenge to what could be called an “inflationary” position on ethics expertise that requires agreement on or rational proof of metaethical facts about the values at stake in clinical ethics consultation. Brummett and (...) Ostertag critique three distinct steps in the argument. Two of those I have a brief answer for, and an assessment of the third demonstrates that Brummett and Ostertag do not consider the premise upon which I based my account. Instead, they assert a counter-premise without argument, which at best results in a stalemate between our two accounts. However, the reasons supporting my premise still seem to me to be stronger, so I am in the end unconvinced by their critiques. (shrink)

When reason leads to doubt -- The bridge of reason -- The foundation theory -- Testing ground -- Eternal power -- Purely actual -- Foundation of mind -- Foundation of matter -- Foundation of morals -- Foundation of reason -- Perfect foundation -- Challenging the bridge -- Removing barriers -- On the other side of the bridge.

What is the purpose of a large academic meeting attended by hundreds or thousands of participants? What are the reasons, given current virtual conferencing technology, to hold such meetings in pers...

When facing a choice between saving one person and saving many, some people have argued that fairness requires us to decide without aggregating numbers; rather we should decide by coin toss or some form of lottery, or alternatively we should straightforwardly save the greater number but justify this in a non-aggregating contractualist way. This paper expands the debate beyond well-known number cases to previously under-considered probability cases, in which not (only) the numbers of people, but (also) the probabilities of success (...) for saving people vary. It is shown that, in these latter cases, both the coin toss and the lottery lead to what is called an awkward conclusion, which makes probabilities count in a problematic way. Attempts to avoid this conclusion are shown to lead into difficulties as well. Finally, it is shown that while the greater number method cannot be justified on contractualist grounds for probability cases, it may be replaced by another decision method which is so justified. This decision method is extensionally equivalent to maximising expected value and seems to be the least problematic way of dealing with probability cases in a non-aggregating manner. (shrink)

This is the second article in a series of review articles addressing biosemiotic terminology. The biosemiotic glossary project is designed to integrate views of members within the biosemiotic community based on a standard survey and related publications. The methodology section describes the format of the survey conducted July–August 2014 in preparation of the current review and targeted on Jakob von Uexküll’s term ‘Umwelt’. Next, we summarize denotation, synonyms and antonyms, with special emphasis on the denotation of this term in current (...) biosemiotic usage. The survey findings include ratings of eight citations defining or making use of the term Umwelt. We provide a summary of respondents’ own definitions and suggested term usage. Further sections address etymology, relevant contexts of use, and related terms in English and other languages. A section on the notion’s Uexküllian meaning and later biosemiotic meaning is followed by attempt at synthesis and conclusion. We conclude that the Umwelt is a centerpiece phenomenon, a phenomenon that other phenomena in the living realm are organized around. To sum up Uexküll’s view, we can characterize an Umwelt as the subjective world of an organism, enveloping a perceptual world and an effector world, which is always part of the organism itself and a key component of nature, which is held together by functional cycles connecting different Umwelten. In order to pay respect to Uexküll’s work, we must move from notion to model, from mention of Uexküll’s Umwelt term to actual application of it. (shrink)

Inductive reasoning is a fundamental and complex aspect of human intelligence. In particular, how do subjects, given a set of particular examples, generate general descriptions of the rules governing that set? We present a biologically plausible method for accomplishing this task and implement it in a spiking neuron model. We demonstrate the success of this model by applying it to the problem domain of Raven's Progressive Matrices, a widely used tool in the field of intelligence testing. The model is able (...) to generate the rules necessary to correctly solve Raven's items, as well as recreate many of the experimental effects observed in human subjects. (shrink)

“Chiaroscuro” is a art technique that makes use of light and shade to suggest depth and solidity on a flat surface. I argue that the standards regarding accountability in the second edition of the Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation , are chiaroscuro, because, despite the offered lists of competencies, it is very difficult to imagine how consultants might be held accountable to such standards. It is not clear to which of the many suggested standards a consultant should be held (...) accountable, and even if one stipulates that only the tabulated competencies are meant as standards, the vague wording makes it hard to know how a consultant might fail to meet the standards or perform excellently. In addition, because terms such as “ethics” and “ethical” are not defined in the document, we are left with no way to determine whether consultants have made appropriate recommendations. The document is useful as a point of discussion, but not yet ready to serve as a tool for holding practitioners accountable. (shrink)

This is a stimulating and vivid area of philosophical research, but it has tended to monopolize the notion of 'good-for', linking it necessarily to welfare or ...

Relational egalitarianism says that moral equals should relate as equals. We explore how moral unequals should relate.

Volume 20, Issue 9, September 2020, Page 1-3.

According to the counterfactual comparative account, an event harms a person if and only if it makes things worse for her. Cases of overdetermination and preemption pose a serious challenge to CCA since, in these cases, although it is evident that people are harmed, there are no individual events that harm them. However, while there are no individual events that make people worse off in cases of overdetermination and preemption, there are pluralities of events that do so. In light of (...) this feature of these cases, several philosophers have suggested that it is these pluralities that do the harming. In this article, I will argue that although the most prominent accounts of plural harm – e.g., Neil Feit’s account – fare better than one might initially think, they fail to deal adequately with a number of intriguing cases of preemption first introduced by Alastair Norcross. I will also introduce a new view on plural harm and argue that this view, apart from dealing with the cases of overdetermination and preemption that the other accounts of plural harm handle, also deals adequately with Norcross’s cases. (shrink)

The correspondence theory of truth is a precise and innovative account of how the truth of a proposition depends upon that proposition's connection to a piece of reality. Joshua Rasmussen refines and defends the correspondence theory of truth, proposing new accounts of facts, propositions, and the correspondence between them. With these theories in hand, he then offers original solutions to the toughest objections facing correspondence theorists. Addressing the Problem of Funny Facts, Liar Paradoxes, and traditional epistemological questions concerning how (...) our minds can access reality, he challenges recent objections, and defends what has traditionally been the most popular theory of truth. Written with clarity, precision, and sensitivity to a range of philosophical backgrounds, his book will appeal to advanced students and scholars seeking a deeper understanding of the relationship between truth and reality. (shrink)

I apply developments in modal reasoning to the question of whether God has necessary existence. My larger task is to assess the main reasons to think that God is not a metaphysically necessary being. I consider Hume’s conceivability-based argument, and then I pay attention to more recent arguments, including Swinburne’s neo-Humean argument and the subtraction argument. I show that such arguments face a ‘parity’ problem, since the very reasoning that gets them off the ground also launches parallel arguments for an (...) opposite conclusion. In my closing section, I sketch an argument schema designed to illustrate a new, general strategy for deducing the necessary existence of God by building upon recent modal cosmological arguments. (shrink)

Plural quantification, often used to evade Russell paradoxes, will lead back to them, given certain assumptions about propositions. This chapter provides a more generalized version of the path to paradox by showing that any theory that makes possible the construction of an appropriate packaging relation falls prey to a Russell paradox. It gives examples of widely-held metaphysical theories that require such a relation. It shows that the paradoxes that can result from plural quantification are more widely damaging, and harder to (...) tame, than has been recognized. It also displays formal requirements that any metaphysical framework with a packaging relation must meet if it is to have a chance of escaping self-contradiction. The chapter first gives the general paradox-generating setup, and then shows how three families of metaphysical assumptions allow one to instantiate it. It concludes by assessing the aftermath of the arguments presented. (shrink)

We argue that there exists a necessary causally potent being. We then argue that that being is God.

The term “time-plan” is introduced in the article to sum up the diversity of temporal processes described by Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) in the frameworkof the general Planmässigkeit of nature. Although Uexküll hardly had any connections with his contemporary philosophies of time, the theme of the subjectivetimes and timing of the organisms forms an essential part of his umwelt theory. As an alternative to the dominance of evolutionary time in biological discussions, Uexküll took perceptual and developmental times of organisms as (...) his natural scientific priorities. While discussing the characteristics of the latter, Uexküll departs from an epigenetic position. Discussion about perceptual time entails detecting the primary units of time (moments) as well as how the succession of moments results in the perception of movement. The last part of the article will explicate the significance of the “time plan” concept for biophilosophical discussions. It is suggested that the bioethical question rising from Uexküll’s works may take the following form: do other biological subjects besides humans have a right to their own timing? (shrink)

This book provides an up to date, high-level exchange on God in a uniquely productive style. Readers witness a contemporary version of a classic debate, as two professional philosophers seek to learn from each other while making their cases for their distinct positions. In their dialogue, Joshua Rasmussen and Felipe Leon examine classical and cutting-edge arguments for and against a theistic explanation of general features of reality. The book also provides original lines of thought based on the authors’ own (...) contributions to the field, and offers a productive and innovative inquiry into on one of the biggest questions people ask: what is the ultimate explanation of things? (shrink)

Employers sometimes use personality tests in hiring or specifically look for candidates with certain personality traits such as being social, outgoing, active, and extraverted. Therefore, they hire based on personality, specifically extraversion in part at least. The question arises whether this practice is morally permissible. We argue that, in a range of cases, it is not. The common belief is that, generally, it is not permissible to hire based on sex or race, and the wrongness of such hiring practices is (...) based on two widely accepted principles: the Relevance Principle and the Fairness Principle. The Relevance Principle states that hiring should be based on what is relevant to job performance, while the Fairness Principle states that hiring should be based on features that individuals can control. Since hiring based on sex or race violates these principles, it is wrong. However, we argue that, in a range of cases, hiring based on extraversion also violates these principles, and assuming the validity of the Relevance and the Fairness Principles, it follows that personality discrimination is morally wrong in those cases. (shrink)

There are many kinds of clinical trials. The regulatory framework within which most drug development takes place appears to be the one that is to be applied to the development of novel stem cell-based clinical trials. In the standard drug development model, appropriate pre-clinical research is conducted, and investigators or research sponsors submit an investigational new drug application to the Food and Drug Administration.If approved, typical clinical trials start with Phase I, which is usually a trial to determine the maximum (...) tolerable dose of a drug. Phase I trials are often referred to as “safety studies” because the primary goal of Phase I research is to determine if an intervention is safe. (shrink)

PROBEX (PROBabilities from EXemplars), a model of probabilistic inference and probability judgment based on generic knowledge is presented. Its properties are that: (a) it provides an exemplar model satisfying bounded rationality; (b) it is a “lazy” algorithm that presumes no pre‐computed abstractions; (c) it implements a hybrid‐representation, similarity‐graded probability. We investigate the ecological rationality of PROBEX and find that it compares favorably with Take‐The‐Best and multiple regression (Gigerenzer, Todd, & the ABC Research Group, 1999). PROBEX is fitted to the point (...) estimates, decisions, and probability assessments by human participants. The best fit is obtained for a version that weights frequency heavily and retrieves only two exemplars. It is proposed that PROBEX implements speed and frugality in a psychologically plausible way. (shrink)