Safe stair negotiation is an everyday task that children with developmental coordination disorder are commonly thought to struggle with. Yet, there is currently a paucity of research supporting these claims. We investigated the visuomotor control strategies underpinning stair negotiation in children with and without DCD by measuring kinematics, gaze behavior and state anxiety as they ascended and descended a staircase. A questionnaire was administered to determine parents' confidence in their child's ability to safely navigate stairs and their child's fall history. (...) Kinematics were measured using three-dimensional motion capture, whilst gaze was measured using mobile eye-tracking equipment. The parents of DCD children reported significantly lower confidence in their child's ability to maintain balance on the stairs and significantly more stair-related falls in the previous year compared to the parents of typically developing children. During both stair ascent and stair descent, the children with DCD took longer to ascend/descend the staircase and displayed greater handrail use, reflecting a more cautious stair negotiation strategy. No differences were observed between groups in their margin of stability, but the DCD children exhibited significantly greater variability in their foot-clearances over the step edge, which may increase the risk of a fall. For stair descent only, the DCD children reported significantly higher levels of state anxiety than the TD children and looked significantly further along the staircase during the initial entry phase, suggesting an anxiety-related response that may bias gaze toward the planning of future stepping actions over the accurate execution of an ongoing step. Taken together, our findings provide the first quantifiable evidence that safe stair negotiation is a significant challenge for children with DCD, and that this challenge is reflected by marked differences in their visuomotor control strategies and state anxiety levels. Whilst it is currently unclear whether these differences are contributing to the frequency of stair-related falls in children with DCD, our findings pave the way for future research to answer these important questions. (shrink)

Archaea are microorganisms that are distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes. They are prevalent in extreme environments, and yet found in most ecosystems. They are a natural component of the microbiota of most, if not all, humans and other animals. Despite their ubiquity and close association with humans, animals and plants, no pathogenic archaea have been identified. Because no archaeal pathogens have yet been identified, there is a general assumption that archaeal pathogens do not exist. This review examines whether this is (...) a good assumption by investigating the potential for archaea to be or become pathogens. This is achieved by addressing: the diversity of archaea versus known pathogens, opportunities for archaea to demonstrate pathogenicity and be detected as pathogens, reports linking archaea with disease, and immune responses to archaea. In addition, molecular and genomic data are examined for the presence of systems utilised in pathogenesis. The view of this report is that, although archaea can presently be described as non‐pathogenic, they have the potential to be (discovered as) pathogens. The present optimistic view that there are no archaeal pathogens is tainted by a severe lack of relevant knowledge, which may have important consequences in the future. BioEssays 25:1119–1128, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NAMING GOD: MOSES MAIMONIDES AND THOMAS AQUINAS NEIL A. 8TUBBENS The Methodist Ohurch Barnsley Oircuit, South Yorkshire MOSES MAIMONIDES (1135-U04) and Thomas Aquinas (c. U~5-1274), two of the greatest theologians of the Jewish and Christian faiths, had much in oommon.1 Like other Ohristian.writers, Aquinas made several criticisms of Maimonides' views on divine predication. In this article l will discuss these criticisms and evaluate them by means (...) of a detailed e:iq>0sition of Maimonides' position. I will ithen offer an account of Aquinas's justification of analogical predication and make some suggestions ais to the :role of causality in naming God. 1. Introduetion Moses Maimonides was the middle-man in the interaction of the three monotheistic faiths with Aristotelian philosophy. He was a great admirer of the ancient philosopher, claiming that Aristotle':s intellect reached the highest perfection attainable hy humanity-e:reept by the prophets and they WeTe divinely inspired. Maimonides :firrst work, the short Treatise on Logic, clewly reflects ihis own interest in logic and language and shows the influence of Afistotle mediated through the Ambs.2 It was The Guide or the Perplexed, his last major work, that introduced the mostly Christian West to the thought of the Islamic philosophers Alf.arabi, Avicenna, and 1 On some matters Aquinas refers to Maimonides as a:ii. authority, e.g., De potentia, q.7, a.4, c; Summa theologiae (ST), I, q.68, a.2 ad 1. 2 Treatise on Logic, translated by I. Efros, Proceedmgs of the American Academy for Jewish Research 8 (1938): 1-65. 230 NEIL A. STUBBENS Avermes.3 The Guide, however, is not so much a philosophical work as a iphilosoprucal interpretation of the Bible. Like the thinkers of the Christian monastic anrd later cathedral schools of the eleventh and rbwelfth centuries, Maimonides began his reflections with the wo;vds of Scripture. Soon after its publication in 1190, two Hebrew triansla:tions of the Guide were produced from,the original Arabic by Samuel Ibn Tibbon and Jehudah al-Harizi; Aquinas wo:rked with_ a Latin translation of the Harizi version.4 Feldman has complained that some of the scholastics misinterpreted Maimonides, foisting upon him views which were clearly not his own. According :to Feldman, Giles of Rome.(c. 1247-1316), in his ErrofJ'es Philosophorum, misformulates Maimonides' theory of negative ·attributes and suggests that he employs attributes ".by wa.y of causality." 5 Duns Scotus (c. 1264-1308) cites Maimonides and Avicenna ws ·advocating attributes of efficient causality. Henry of Ghent (d. 1293), in his Summa theologiae, moorrrectly construes actions as relations : "Indeed", writes Feldman, "he characterises them as ruttributes 'hy way of causality.'" Aquinas's translators and interp:veters come in d)or as much criticism from Feldman as :Aquinas himself, e.g., R. Garrigou-Lagrange,6 M. Penido,7 and R. Mulligan:8 all mistakenly say that a.ooording to Maimonides "God is good" means "God is the ca;use of good things.'' a See S. Pines, "Translator's Introduction: the Philosophic Sources of The Guide of the Perplwed," in The Guide of the Perplewed, trans. S. Pines (Chicago, 1963). 4 The chapters of the Harizi and Latin versions are enumerated one less than those of the Ibn Tibbon version. I shall use the latter scheme as is common practice. 5.S. Feldman, " A Scholastic Misinterpretation of Maimonides' Doctrine of Divine Attributes," in Studies in, Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. J. Dienstag (New York, 1975), pp. 58-59. 6 See The One God, (St. Louis, 1944), p. 404. 1 See "Le role d'analogie en theologie dogmatique," Bibliotheque Thomiste 15 (1931) : 149 and 169. s See his translation of De veritate, q.2, a.I, in The Disputed Question on Truth (Chicago, 1952). MAIMONIDES AND AQUINAS 2. Aquinas's Criticism of Maimonides There are five points of disagreement between Aquinas and Maimonides. First, Aquinas argues that if expressions such as " God is wise " and " God is angry " are used to indicate only a likeness of effect, i.e., we say " God is wise" or " God is angry " because in his effoots he acts lilre a wise or angry person, there would he no difference in the... (shrink)

Examines the subject of moral behavior, discussing the biological basis of morality, the issue of rights, and the thoughts of such individuals as Thoreau and Kant.

This is the 8th edition of the book, with eight new essays to the volume. Table of contents: Are We Having Sex Now or What? (Greta Christina); Sexual Perversion (Thomas Nagel); Plain Sex (Alan Goldman); Sex and Sexual Perversion (Robert Gray); Masturbation and the Continuum of Sexual Activities (Alan Soble); Love: What’s Sex Got to Do with It? (Natasha McKeever); Is “Loving More” Better? The Values of Polyamory (Elizabeth Brake); What Is Sexual Orientation? (Robin Dembroff); Sexual Orientation: What Is (...) It? (Kathleen Stock); Asexuality (Luke Brunning and Natasha McKeever); LGBTQ ... Z? (Kathy Rudy); How to Be a Pluralist About Gender Categories (Katharine Jenkins); The Negotiative Theory of Gender Identity and the Limits of First-Person Authority (Burkay Ozturk); Racial Sexual Desires (Raja Halwani); Sex and Technology: The Ethics of Virtual Connection (Neil McArthur); A Realist Sexual Ethics (Micah Newman); Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person (Thomas Mappes); Sexual Use (Alan Soble); Dark Desires (Seiriol Morgan); The Harms of Consensual Sex (Robin West); Casual Sex, Promiscuity, and Objectification (Raja Halwani); Is Prostitution Harmful? (Ole Martin Moen); BDSM (Shaun Miller); Two Views of Sexual Ethics: Promiscuity, Pedophilia, and Rape (David Benatar); Sexual Gifts and Sexual Duties (Alan Soble); A Bibliography of the Philosophy of Sex . (shrink)

The masses may concede that someone has talent where he has displayed a certain industry and fortune has not been unkind to him; but if he tries to enter another field and diversify his abilities, he appears to damage the claim he once had on public opinion, and therefore his efforts in a new realm are seldom accepted with favor and good will.

This volume presents a significantly different interpretation of nature and society compared with existing theories of logic, relativity, quanta, evolution, medicine and international relations. For the first time in a number of years, it offers a new paradigm dealing with the entirety of reality. The Principle of Relations is formulated based on five postulates, before being applied to all fields of reality, namely the universe, elementary particles, changes of species, the human and international relations. It represents a platform on which (...) applications for all fields of reality can be understood, including gravity, energy, cancer, poverty, and prosperity and welfare. (shrink)

A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently in widespread therapeutic use are already having unintended effects on these processes, and thus on moral decision making and morally significant behavior. We review current evidence on the moral effects (...) of three widely used drugs or drug types: propranolol, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and drugs that effect oxytocin physiology. This evidence suggests that the alterations to moral decision making and behavior caused by these agents may have important and difficult-to-evaluate consequences, at least at the population level. We argue that the moral effects of these and other widely used pharmaceuticals warrant further empirical research and ethical analysis. (shrink)

The foremost task of educational philosophy is to deal with questions about the process of education and to formulate means and ends to the educational experience. In the development of such formulations, the educational philosopher must make extensive analyses of such relevant concepts and factors as democracy, intellectual freedom, individual experience, social control, and instructional method. This is particularly true in regard to the philosophy of social and ethical education. Two questions of social and ethical significance have, in particular, claimed (...) the attention of educational philosophers. These are: what rules of conduct should be taught in the schools and how should these rules be taught? It is with these questions that the present writing essentially deals. (shrink)

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models (...) of science and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process. (shrink)

Response to commentary. We are grateful to Crockett and Craigie for their interesting remarks on our paper. We accept Crockett’s claim that there is a need for caution in drawing inferences about patient groups from work on healthy volunteers in the laboratory. However, we believe that the evidence we cited established a strong presumption that many of the patients who are routinely taking a medication, including many people properly prescribed the medication for a medical condition, have morally significant aspects of (...) their cognition and behavior modified in a way that is unintended and may sometimes be unwelcome. Crockett notes that in some cases the effects of long-term drug use may differ, sometimes markedly, from the effects of short-term use. However, if acute use of a drug affects a neural system involved in mediating moral cognition or behavior, this nevertheless provides some evidence that chronic use of the drug may affect that same system and thus have morally significant effects. It is also plausible, in some cases, that an acute moral effect would give rise to a chronic moral effect via cognitive mechanisms. ... (shrink)

Philosophical arguments often assume that the folk tends towards moral objectivism. Although recent psychological studies have indicated that lay persons’ attitudes to morality are best characterized in terms of non-objectivism-leaning pluralism, it has been maintained that the folk may be committed to moral objectivism _implicitly_. Since the studies conducted so far almost exclusively assessed subjects’ metaethical attitudes via explicit cognitions, the strength of this rebuttal remains unclear. The current study attempts to test the folk’s implicit metaethical commitments. We present results (...) of a newly developed Implicit Association Test (IAT) for metaethical attitudes which indicate that the folk generally tend towards moral non-objectivism on the implicit level as well. We discuss implications of this finding for the philosophical debate. (shrink)

This bibliography consists of 936 numbered entries, with references to a far greater number of works. The first part covers works by Malebranche and consists of six sections on his collected works, selections from his works, his individual works, translations of his works, his correspondence, and the controversies into which he entered. The second part deals with works on Malebranche and consists of other bibliographical sources, biographical references, and studies. As a critical bibliography, this book contains not only references to (...) reviews but also a brief critical assessment for most entries. An extensive index is included and much of the material is cross-referenced. Entries note when a work has been superseded and refer the reader to the more recent work. (shrink)

What is the basis of our capacity to act morally? This is a question that has been discussed for millennia, with philosophical debate typically distinguishing two sources of morality: reason and sentiment. This collection aims to shed light on whether the human capacity to feel for others really is central for morality and, if so, in what way. To tackle these questions, the authors discuss how fellow feeling is to be understood: its structure, content and empirical conditions. Also discussed are (...) the exact roles that relevant psychological features - specifically: empathy, sympathy and concern - may play within morality. The collection is unique in bringing together the key participants in the various discussions of the relation of fellow feeling to moral norms, moral concepts and moral agency. By integrating conceptually sophisticated and empirically informed perspectives, Forms of Fellow Feeling will appeal to readers from philosophy, psychology, sociology and cultural studies. (shrink)

The prevailing pedagogical approach in business ethics generally underestimates or even ignores the powerful influences of situational factors on ethical analysis and decision-making. This is due largely to the predominance of philosophy-oriented teaching materials. Social psychology offers relevant concepts and experiments that can broaden pedagogy to help students understand more fully the influence of situational contexts and role expectations in ethical analysis. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment is used to illustrate the relevance of social psychology experiments for business ethics instruction.

Banez’ commentary on I, q. 3, art. 3, is justly well-known for the criticism of earlier Thomists and for its metaphysical acuity. But Banez’ skill is best seen when we read not only his commentary, but the other texts which he himself was reading, such as the works of Capreolus, Soncinas, and Cajetan. In particular, he connects three issues which at first glance might seem unrelated, namely the view that esse is the ultimate act, that it is reduced to the (...) categories, and that it is less perfect than essence. The view that esse is the ultimate act implies that it can be reduced to the category of what is prior to it as the imperfect to the perfect. The position that essence on its own is prior and belongs to a category can lead to the view that essence is more perfect than esse. (shrink)

The spread of new information and communications technologies during the past two decades has helped reshape civic associations, political communities, and global relations. In the midst of the information revolution, we find that the speed of this technology-driven change has outpaced our understanding of its social and ethical effects. The moral dimensions of this new technology and its effects on social bonds need to be questioned and scrutinized: Should the Internet be understood as a new form of public space and (...) a source of public good? What are we to make of hackers? Does the Internet strengthen or weaken community? In The Internet in Public Life, essayists confront these and other important questions. This timely and necessary volume makes clear the need for a broader conversation about the effects of the Internet, and the questions raised by these seven essays highlight some of the most pressing issues at hand. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for craftivism as a form of social activism with a political depth reached through making. From Mary Wollstonecraft to the suffragettes, Betsy Greer to DIY, craftivism has had a place in feminist activism. The human tradition for making objects combined with the online possibility of documentation, has made craftivism a political weapon. But it is a soft weapon, where the power lies in the pain and suffering it reminds us off. This protest is often performed (...) by women and history shows that this is why craft has been seen as something other than art, and as a form of political protest today. This article ties the history of feminist craft to the current movement of craftivism, arguing for this art herstory to be part of the canon and part of a political solution. (shrink)

This paper treats a heretofore-unnoticed concept in the history of the philosophical discussion of human freedom, a kind of freedom that is not defined solely in terms of the causal power of the agent. Instead, the exercise of freedom essentially involves the non-occurrence of something. That being free involves the non-occurrence, that is, the absence, of an act may seem counterintuitive. With the exception of those specifically treated in this paper, philosophers tend to think of freedom as intimately involved with (...) volition, the judging or deciding activity of the will that votes in favor of or against a proposed action. However, there are two thinkers who endorse a view where not willing constitutes human freedom. Our analysis focuses on the views of Malebranche and Locke. Both invoke a notion dubbed here as ‘absential suspension.’ On this view, freedom is associated not with the power of volition, but rather with this kind of suspension. (shrink)