A familiar feature of our moral responsibility practices are pleas: considerations, such as “That was an accident”, or “I didn’t know what else to do”, that attempt to get agents accused of wrongdoing off the hook. But why do these pleas have the normative force they do in fact have? Why does physical constraint excuse one from responsibility, while forgetfulness or laziness does not? I begin by laying out R. Jay Wallace’s (Responsibility and the moral sentiments, 1994 ) theory of (...) the normative force of excuses and exemptions. For each category of plea, Wallace offers a single governing moral principle that explains their normative force. The principle he identifies as governing excuses is the Principle of No Blameworthiness without Fault: an agent is blameworthy only if he has done something wrong. The principle he identifies as governing exemptions is the Principle of Reasonableness: an agent is morally accountable only if he is normatively competent. I argue that Wallace’s theory of exemptions is sound, but that his account of the normative force of excuses is problematic, in that it fails to explain the full range of excuses we offer in our practices, especially the excuses of addiction and extreme stress. I then develop a novel account of the normative force of excuses, which employs what I call the “Principle of Reasonable Opportunity,” that can explain the full range of excuses we offer and that is deeply unified with Wallace’s theory of the normative force of exemptions. An important implication of the theory I develop is that moral responsibility requires free will. (shrink)

Some ethical issues facing contemporary medicine cannot be fully understood without addressing medicine's internal morality. Medicine as a profession is characterized by certain moral goals and morally acceptable means for achieving those goals. The list of appropriate goals and means allows some medical actions to be classified as clear violations of the internal morality, and others as borderline or controversial cases. Replies are available for common objections, including the superfluity of internal morality for ethical analysis, the argument that internal morality (...) is merely an apology for medicine's traditional power and authority, and the claim that there is no single, "core" internal morality. The value of addressing the internal morality of medicine may be illustrated by a detailed investigation of ethical issues posed by managed care. Managed care poses some fundamental challenges for medicine's internal morality, but also calls for thoughtful reflection and reconsideration of some traditionally held moral views on patient fidelity in particular. (shrink)

In 1947 Donald Cary Williams claimed in The Ground of Induction to have solved the Humean problem of induction, by means of an adaptation of reasoning first advanced by Bernoulli in 1713. Later on David Stove defended and improved upon Williams’ argument in The Rational- ity of Induction (1986). We call this proposed solution of induction the ‘Williams-Stove sampling thesis’. There has been no lack of objections raised to the sampling thesis, and it has not been widely accepted. In our (...) opinion, though, none of these objections has the slightest force, and, moreover, the sampling thesis is undoubtedly true. What we will argue in this paper is that one particular objection that has been raised on numerous occasions is misguided. This concerns the randomness of the sample on which the inductive extrapolation is based. (shrink)

The debate over whether Frankfurt-style cases are counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities has taken an interesting turn in recent years. Frankfurt originally envisaged his attack as an attempting to show that PAP is false—that the ability to do otherwise is not necessary for moral responsibility. To many this attack has failed. But Frankfurtians have not conceded defeat. Neo-Frankfurtians, as I will call them, argue that the upshot of Frankfurt-style cases is not that PAP is false, but that it (...) is explanatorily irrelevant. Derk Pereboom and David Hunt’s buffer cases are tailor made to establish this conclusion. In this paper I come to the aid of PAP, showing that buffer cases provide no reason for doubting either its truth or relevance with respect to explaining an agent’s moral responsibility. (shrink)

In The Healer's Power, Howard Brody placed the concept of power at the heart of medicine's moral discourse. Struck by the absence of “power” in the prevailing vocabulary of medical ethics, yet aware of peripheral allusions to power in the writings of some medical ethicists, he intuited the importance of power from the silence surrounding it. He formulated the problem of the healer's power and its responsible use as “the central ethical problem in medicine.” Through the prism of power he (...) refracted a wide range of ethical problems, from informed consent to truth-telling, from confidentiality to futility, from the physician's fantasies to the physician's virtues. At times this prism shed new light on old problems, enabling us to see from an unexpected angle the elements of which the problem was composed. At other times it exposed issues of ethical significance that had been neglected in the bioethics literature. (shrink)

Given the long‐standing controversy about whether the brain‐dead should be considered alive in an irreversible coma or dead despite displaying apparent signs of life, the ethical and policy issues posed when family members insist on continued treatment are not as simple as commentators have claimed. In this article, we consider the kind of policy that should be adopted to manage a family's insistence that their brain‐dead loved one continues to receive supportive care. We argue that while it would be ethically (...) inappropriate to continue to devote scarce acute care resources to such patients in a hospital setting, it may not be ethically inappropriate for patients to receive these resources in certain other settings. Thus, if a family insists on continuing to care for their brain‐dead loved at their home, we should not, from a policy perspective, interfere with the family's wishes. We also argue that healthcare professionals should make some effort to facilitate the transfer of brain‐dead patients to these other settings when families insist on continued treatment despite being informed about the lack of any potential for recovery of consciousness. Our arguments are strengthened by the fact that patients in a persistent vegetative state, who, when correctly diagnosed, also have no potential for recovery of consciousness, are routinely transferred from hospitals to nursing homes or long‐term care facilities where they continue to be ventilated, tube fed and to receive other supportive care. We also briefly explore the question of who should be responsible for the costs of such treatment at the long‐term care facility. (shrink)

: Recent controversial decisions to terminate several large clinical trials have called attention to the need for developing a sound ethical framework to determine when trials should be stopped in light of emerging efficacy data. Currently, the fundamental rationale for stopping trials early is based on the principle that equipoise has been disturbed. We present an analysis of the ethical and practical problems with the "equipoise disturbed" position and describe an alternative ethical framework based on the principle of nonexploitation. This (...) framework acknowledges the need for balancing the dual ethical obligations of clinical research, the protection of human subjects and the generation of new medical knowledge. Based on this framework, we put forward a proposal to make early stopping guidelines more stringent under specified conditions. The temporary withholding of apparent benefits in certain circumstances is justified by achieving a fair contract with the research participants, one that protects them from undue harm and exploitation while reducing the many uncertainties surrounding new investigational treatments that arise when trials are stopped prematurely. (shrink)

Baars (1988, 1997) has proposed a psychological theory of consciousness, called global workspace theory. The present study describes a software agent implementation of that theory, called ''Conscious'' Mattie (CMattie). CMattie operates in a clerical domain from within a UNIX operating system, sending messages and interpreting messages in natural language that organize seminars at a university. CMattie fleshes out global workspace theory with a detailed computational model that integrates contemporary architectures in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Baars (1997) lists the psychological (...) ''facts that any complete theory of consciousness must explain'' in his appendix to In the Theater of Consciousness; global workspace theory was designed to explain these ''facts.'' The present article discusses how the design of CMattie accounts for these facts and thereby the extent to which it implements global workspace theory. (shrink)

The possibilities of a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics are investigated by means of a statistical analysis of experiments performed on the simplest type of quantum systems carrying spin or helicity. To this end, fundamental experiments, some new, for measuring polarization are reviewed and (re)analyzed. Theunsharp reality of spin is essential in the interpretation of some of these experiments and represents a natural motivation for recent generalizations of quantum mechanics to a theory incorporating effect-valued measures as unsharp observables and generalized (...) systems of imprimitivity. (shrink)

On the basis of an analysis of a single paper on plate tectonics, a paper whose actual content is nowhere in evidence, Frederick Suppe concludes that no standard model of confirmation—hypothetico-deductive, Bayesian-inductive, or inference to the best explanation—can account for the structure of a scientific paper that reports an experimental result. He further argues on the basis of a survey of scientific papers, a survey whose data and results are also absent, that papers which have a rather stringent length limit, (...) such as the one on plate tectonics, are typical of science. Thus, he concludes that no standard confirmation scheme is capable of dealing with scientific practice. Suppe also requires that an adequate model of philosophical testing should be able to account for everything in such scientific papers, in which space is at a premium. (shrink)

Reductionists about agency maintain that an agent’s causing something is reducible to states and events involving the agent causing something. Some worry that reductionism cannot accommodate robust forms of agency, such as self-determination. One reductionist answer to this worry, which I call ‘identification reductionism,’ contends that self-governing agents are identified with certain attitudes, and so these attitudes’ causing a decision count as the agent’s self-determining the decision. I argue that a prominent species of identification reductionism developed by Harry Frankfurt, Agnieszka (...) Jaworska, Jeffrey Seidman, and David Shoemaker—according to which an agent is identified with his (deepest) cares—is inadequate. (shrink)

We show that every countable ideal of degrees that are low for isomorphism is contained in a principal ideal of degrees that are low for isomorphism by adapting an exact pair construction. We further show that within the hyperimmune free degrees, lowness for isomorphism is entirely independent of computable traceability.

We investigate the relationship between lowness for Schnorr randomness and Schnorr triviality. We show that a real is low for Schnorr randomness if and only if it is Schnorr trivial and hyperimmune free.

In this paper I argue, using two case studies of episodes from recent physics against the contingency view advocated by social constructionists. In this view, physics, or science in general, is, in Ian Hacking’s words, not determined by anything. Much of the previous discussion has centered on examples of scientific success. In this paper I argue that experimental evidence and reasoned and critical discussion played the crucial role in the refutation of a previously strongly believed hypothesis, and in the decision (...) that a proposed new elementary particle did not exist, leaving no reasonable doubt. I suggest that the argument against contingency does not require the absence of all possible doubt, but rather the absence of reasonable doubt.Keywords: Contingency; Refutation; 17-keV neutrino; Parity nonconservation. (shrink)

In the target article, Baars has offered both a theory of consciousness and a strategy for scientifically testing the theory. This commentary is intended as an addendum. I'd like to suggest implementing global workspace agents as both an additional strategy toward scientific testing, and as a means of fleshing out the theory.

If a company’s share price rises when it sacks workers, or when it makes money from polluting the environment, it would seem that the accounting is not being done correctly. Real costs are not being paid. People’s ethical claims, which in a smaller-scale case would be legally enforceable, are not being measured in such circumstances. This results from a mismatch between the applied ethics tradition and the practice of the accounting profession. Applied ethics has mostly avoided quantification of rights, while (...) accounting practice has embraced quantification, but has been excessively conservative about what may be counted. The two traditions can be combined, by using some of the ideas economists have devised to quantify difficult-to-measure costs and benefits in environmental accounting. (shrink)

Some courses achieve existence, some have existence thrust upon them. It is normally a struggle to create in a scientific academic community a course on the philosophical or social aspects of science, but just occasionally a confluence of outside circumstances causes one to exist, irrespective of the wishes of the scientists. It is an opportunity, and taking advantage of it requires a slightly different approach from what is appropriate to the normal course of events, where a “social” course needs a (...) fight to establish it, and faces a struggle for more than marginal existence. (shrink)

The Scientific Revolution was far from the anti-Aristotelian movement traditionally pictured. Its applied mathematics pursued by new means the Aristotelian ideal of science as knowledge by insight into necessary causes. Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s elliptical planetary orbits from the inverse square law of gravity is a central example.

This work on index-number construction focuses on production indexes, including output and input deflators that can be used for constructing real output and real input. Fisher and Shell treat separately the different production units: the firm, the industry, and the economy, as well as the different forms of industrial organization: monopoly, monopsony, and competition. Only in the simplest cases is the appropriate theory isomorphic to that of the cost-of-living index because of the interlinkages among the various production units. A firm (...) cannot always assume that the behavior of its competitors, suppliers, and customers will be unaffected by price changes and only in special cases can an industry take supply and demand conditions as given. (shrink)

Leadership and governance structures for any organisations involved in God’s mission need to come under review because of the growing influences of the inter-connected globalised world. As Christianity moved farther away from the Christendom model of centralised control to other models of leadership and governance, other paradigms have been proposed along the way. One is called polycentric leadership and governance and is based upon principles of polycentrism. Using a case study approach assists in giving contexts for assisting the understanding of (...) polycentrism in a world where Christian mission is adapting in a rapidly changing polycentric world. The case study explores leadership, governance and specific focus of one geographic region all within the context of the Wycliffe Global Alliance. (shrink)

Statistical analysis has been a common method for determining progress in missional activity. In the case of Bible translation, measurable statistics have been readily available showing progress. However, there have been gaps such as biblical, sociological, theological and missiological factors. The aim of this study is to consider broader factors than just quantifiable measurements that could be used to develop a missiological foundation for missional progress, especially for Bible translation. The setting was to analyse inputs from leaders within the Bible (...) translation movement in terms of their understanding of the factors to be considered for a missiology of progress. Using a qualitative study based upon a questionnaire, the researcher grouped the responses by common categories and then analysed the key findings. The qualitative nature of how Bible translation was conducted reveals important factors such as signs of increased collaboration between Bible translation agencies, improved quality of relationships between Bible translation agencies and the local church, and also theologically significant milestones. The study concludes that progress in the Bible translation movement has to be considered within the broader context of God’s mission. Church history has revealed how progress in one era could be regress in another era. Consequently, reflecting and learning together within the Bible translation movement has been a key to progress, and therefore, all participants in the Bible translation movement have been called to work and learn together. (shrink)

This commentary connects some of Glenberg's ideas to similar ideas from artificial intelligence. Second, it briefly discusses hidden assumptions relating to meaning, representations, and projectable properties. Finally, questions about mechanisms, mental imagery, and conceptualization in animals are posed.

Cognition, writ broadly to include motivation and emotion, is best conceived of as control structure for autonomous agents . Autonomous agents are situated in a environment. They both sense and act on that environment, over time, so as to effect subsequent sensing. Examples of such agents include humans, animals, some mobile robots, some artificial life creatures (who "live" in a simulated environment on a computer) and some software agents (who "live" in a file system, a database, or on a network). (...) Their actions are in pursuit of their own agendas, as designed in by their maker or programmer, or as evolved and shaped by culture. Each such agent employs some control mechanism whose continual duty is to select the next action. The term "cognition," in its broad sense, refers to the workings of such control mechanisms. (shrink)