Current accounts suggest that self-referential thought serves a pivotal function in the human ability to simulate the future during mind-wandering. Using experience sampling, this hypothesis was tested in two studies that explored the extent to which self-reflection impacts both retrospection and prospection during mind-wandering. Study 1 demonstrated that a brief period of self-reflection yielded a prospective bias during mind-wandering such that participants’ engaged more frequently in spontaneous future than past thought. In Study 2, individual differences in the strength of self-referential (...) thought — as indexed by the memorial advantage for self rather than other-encoded items — was shown to vary with future thinking during mind-wandering. Together these results confirm that self-reflection is a core component of future thinking during mind-wandering and provide novel evidence that a key function of the autobiographical memory system may be to mentally simulate events in the future. (shrink)

The aim of the book is twofold: (1) To develop a comprehensive, contractualist theory of intergenerational ethics; (2) To argue that contractualism's ability to be that comprehensive theory of intergenerational ethics contributes to its plausibility as a moral theory in general. The book's core claim is that contractualism provides us with a comprehensive theory of intergenerational ethics that justifies including future people in the scope of what we owe to each other and tells us how much we owe them. It (...) begins by arguing that contractualism is not susceptible to the non-identity problem and so we must consider what future people could reasonably reject. It then argues that contractualism endorses 'reason-balanced sufficientarianism' and develops a series of moral principles guiding our behaviour towards future generations in terms of resource distribution, procreative decisions, optimal population size, and risk imposition. It concludes by applying these general principles to concrete, real-world individual and policy decisions and considering how the principles can and do interact with each other. (shrink)

By the death, last summer, of Jack Robson, the world of utilitarian studies and a wider world of scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic lost one of their most distinguished figures. It would not be appropriate here, even if it were possible now, to attempt a full and measured assessment of his work. Writing only a few months after the news of his death, while the sense of loss is still so sharp for all his many friends, two things (...) are possible. Something can and should be said to acknowledge and celebrate Robson's achievement as a scholar; and to this can be added some personal recollections of one whose human qualities were as outstanding as his scholarship. (shrink)

This article examines the views of Hegel and Alasdair MacIntyre regarding philosophical disagreements, whether or not they can be resolved and if so how. For both thinkers such a disagreement is thought of as taking place between the advocates of two theoretical positions which are opposed to one another. Each party subscribes to a way of thinking about the issue under discussion which appears to be logically incompatible with the views of the other. We seem therefore to have to make (...) an either-or choice between them. In the case of all philosophical disagreements, therefore, the same questions arise. Is the contradiction in question real, or merely apparent? Can it be resolved? If so, what exactly is involved in such a resolution? Is some form of theoretical compromise, between these two extremes possible? Is there a third-way, a both-and approach, which in some way combines the strengths of each and the weaknesses of neither, or which seeks in some way to balance their respective strengths and weaknesses of each against those of the other? The article suggests that MacIntyre differentiates between two types of philosophical disagreement. In the case of the first, the ideas associated with the two opposed positions are incommensurable. We must, therefore make an either-or choice between them. In the case of disagreements of the second type, the ideas in question are not incommensurable. In these cases, therefore, it is possible for them to be combined or synthesised. The article argues that MacIntyre’s approach to this second type of philosophical disagreement has an obvious affinity with what is often thought to be that of Hegel. In the words of Richard J. Bernstein, it is ‘quasi-Hegelian’. It is therefore fruitful to compare and contrast the views of these two thinkers on this issue. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: Walter Freeman discusses with Jean Burns some of the issues relating to consciousness in his recent book. Burns: To understand consciousness we need know its relationship to the brain, and to do that we need to know how the brain processes information. A lot of people think of brain processing in terms of individual neurons, and you're saying that brain processing should be understood in terms of dynamical states of populations?

Burns, C. R. Introduction.--Antiquity: Margalith, D. The ideal doctor as depicted in ancient Hebrew writings. Edelstein, L. The Hippocratic oath. Edelstein, L. The professional ethics of the Greek physician. Michler, M. Medical ethics in Hippocratic bone surgery. Maas, P. L., Oliver, J. H. An ancient poem on the duties of a physician.--The medieval era: Levey, M. Medical deontology in ninth century Islam. Bar-Sela, A., Hoff, H. E. Isaac Israeli's fifty admonitions of the physicians. Rosner, F. The physician's prayer attributed (...) to Moses Maimonides. MacKinney, L. C. Medical ethics and etiquette in the early middle ages, the persistence of Hippocratic ideals. Welborn, M. C. The long tradition, a study in fourteenth-century medical deontology.--The modern period: Larkey, S. V. The Hippocratic oath in Elizabethan England. Pleadwell, F. L. Samuel Sorbiere and his Advice to a young physician. Clark, G. Bernard Mandeville, M.D., and eighteenth-century ethics. Burns, C. R. Thomas Percival, medical ethics or medical jurisprudence? Burns, C. R. Reciprocity in the development of Anglo-American medical ethics, 1765-1865. Williams, T. F. Cabot, Peabody, and the care of the patient. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co‐existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non‐overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert‐Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required (...) to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling‐down objection. (shrink)

When discussing the extinction of humanity, there does not seem to be any clear agreement about what ‘humanity’ really means. One aim of this paper is to show that it is a more slippery concept than it might at first seem. A second aim is to show the relationship between what constitutes or defines humanity and what gives it value. Often, whether and how we ought to prevent human extinction depends on what we take humanity to mean, which in turn (...) depends on what we value about humans. Finally, I will offer a definition of humanity that I argue offers a plausible account of when we might say humanity has gone extinct, and reflects what we value about humans, and relatedly, what many actually care about in terms of why we should be preserved. (shrink)