This article explores challenges to accessing opioid treatment programs in rural areas, and offers solutions that would ease these problems.

This article highlights local government responses to the opioid crisis in Northern Kentucky through a series of interviews with county-level officials. The author's discussions with civic leaders reflect the challenges faced by local communities and the new approaches implemented to stem the epidemic.

Quentin Tarantino’s filmography, especially since the turn of the century, seems to be an argument for the moral justification of revenge. Bill and his D.iV.A.S. hit-squad (from Kill Bill); Adolf Hitler and Hans Landa (from Inglourious Basterds); “Monsieur” Calvin Candie and his loyal house slave Stephen (from Django Unchained); Stuntman Mike and the Manson family killers (from Death Proof and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood); and Daisy Domergue and General Sanford Smithers (from The Hateful Eight) – they all (...) had it coming, and audiences celebrate when they get what they deserve. Revenge, Tarantino reminds us, is a dish best served cold. But is it really the kind of thing that can be morally justified? To see whether it is, this chapter explores arguments both historic and contemporary. After delineating revenge from legal justice and simple retribution and exploring how Tarantino’s films argue for moral justification of revenge, we will consider common everyday arguments on the topic, as well as the relevant arguments of Plato, Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Friedrich Nietzsche, Trudy Govier, Suzanne Uniacke, Andrew Oldenquist, Simone de Beauvoir, Joshua Gert, Gilead Bar-elli, David Heyd, Robert Nozick, and others. In the end, we will see that revenge can be justified – but only in very specific conditions. (shrink)

Now that mankind has created the capability of destroying itself through nuclear technology, is it still possible to think in terms of a "just war"? Johnson argues that it is, and in the context of specific case studies he offers moral guidelines for addressing such major contemporary problems as terrorist activity in a foreign country, an individual’s conscientious objection to military service, and an American defense policy that requires development of weapons that may be morally employed in case of (...) need. "Remarkable.... A thoughtful and even profound book, which can be warmly recommended."—Adam Roberts, _New Society_ __ "[A] wise, prudential, and moral thesis.... A most important book, one that all Americans who can should read."—George Armstrong Kelly, _Political Science Quarterly_ __ "At its heart, _Can Modern War be Just? _Is a challenge to the common assumption that any modern war must be total—an unrestrained, spasmodic release of one’s entire destructive capacity against the whole of the enemy’s population."—Richard Allen, _Journal of Religious Ethics_ __ "Johnson... seriously attempt[s] to balance principles and respect facts. For this he is to be praised."—Gary Jason, _Chronicles of Culture_ __ "Johnson’s application of just war doctrine to the hardest problems of contemporary warfare is both morally sensitive and intellectually bold. Readers will sometimes disagree with his arguments, but they will be forced to think hard, and they will learn what it is to work within a moral tradition."—Michael Walzer. (shrink)

For evolutionary biologists, the concept of chance has always played a significant role in the formation of evolutionary theory. As far back as Greek antiquity, chance and "luck" were key factors in understanding the natural world. Chance is not just an important concept; it is an entire way of thinking about nature. And as Curtis Johnson shows, it is also one of the key ideas that separates Charles Darwin from other systematic biologists of his time. Studying the concept of (...) chance in Darwin's writing reveals core ideas in his theory of evolution, as well as his reflections on design, purpose, and randomness in nature's progression over the course of history.In Darwin's Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin, Curtis Johnson examines Darwin's early notebooks, his collected correspondence, and most of his published writing to trace the evolution of his ideas about chance in evolution. This proved to be one of Darwin's most controversial ideas among his reading public, so much so that it drew hostile reactions even from Darwin's scientific friends, not to mention the more general reader. The firestorm of criticism forced Darwin to forge a retreat, not in terms of removing chance from his theory--his commitment to it was unshakable--but in terms of how he chose to present his theory. Briefly, by changing his wording and by introducing metaphors and images, Darwin succeeded in making his ideas seem less threatening than before without actually changing his views. Randomness remained a focal point for Darwin throughout his life. Through the lens of randomness, Johnson reveals implications of Darwin's views for religion, free will, and moral theory. Darwin's Dice presents a new way to look at Darwinist thought and the writings of Charles Darwin. (shrink)

This is a book about moral reasoning: how we actually reason and how we ought to reason. It defends a form of 'rule' utilitarianism whereby we must sometimes judge and act in moral questions in accordance with generally accepted rules, so long as the existence of those rules is justified by the good they bring about. The author opposes the currently more fashionable view that it is always right for the individual to do that which produces the most good. Among (...) the salient topics covered are: an account of the utilitarian function in society of generally accepted moral rules; a discussion of how we interpret existing moral rules and create new ones; and a defence of 'rule' utilitarianism against the charge that it either commits one to irrational rule worship, or collapses into a form of 'act' utilitarianism. This is a book about moral reasoning: how we actually reason and how we ought to reason. It defends a form of 'rule' utilitarianism whereby we must sometimes judge and act in moral questions in accordance with generally accepted rules, so long as the existence of those rules is justified by the good they bring about. (shrink)

The word dignity is frequently used both in clinical and philosophical discourse when referring to and describing the ideal conditions of the patient's treatment, particularly the dying patient. An exploration of the variety of meanings associated with the word dignity will note dignity's ambiguous usage and reveal instrumental concepts needed to better understand the discourse of the dying. When applied to a critique of recent and contemporary criticisms of the medical community's handling of the dying, such concepts might provide a (...) more coherent notion of dignity. Rather than a separate construct, a death with dignity might be viewed as an interactive process among the dying and their caretakers. Together, this interdependent amalgam engages in humanizing communication aimed toward understanding the final needs and wants of the patient. (shrink)

Aristotle's syllogistic is extended to include denumerably many quantifiers such as 'more than 2/3' and 'exactly 2/3.' Syntactic and semantic decision procedures determine the validity, or invalidity, of syllogisms with any finite number of premises. One of the syntactic procedures uses a natural deduction account of deducibility, which is sound and complete. The semantics for the system is non-classical since sentences may be assigned a value other than true or false. Results about symmetric systems are given. And reasons are given (...) for claiming that syllogistic validity is relevant validity. (shrink)

After discussing the distinction between artifacts and natural entities, and the distinction between artifacts and technology, the conditions of the traditional account of moral agency are identified. While computer system behavior meets four of the five conditions, it does not and cannot meet a key condition. Computer systems do not have mental states, and even if they could be construed as having mental states, they do not have intendings to act, which arise from an agent’s freedom. On the other hand, (...) computer systems have intentionality, and because of this, they should not be dismissed from the realm of morality in the same way that natural objects are dismissed. Natural objects behave from necessity; computer systems and other artifacts behave from necessity after they are created and deployed, but, unlike natural objects, they are intentionally created and deployed. Failure to recognize the intentionality of computer systems and their connection to human intentionality and action hides the moral character of computer systems. Computer systems are components in human moral action. When humans act with artifacts, their actions are constituted by the intentionality and efficacy of the artifact which, in turn, has been constituted by the intentionality and efficacy of the artifact designer. All three components – artifact designer, artifact, and artifact user – are at work when there is an action and all three should be the focus of moral evaluation. (shrink)

J. D. Monk has shown that for first order languages with finitely many variables there is no finite set of schema which axiomatizes the universally valid formulas. There are such finite sets of schema which axiomatize the formulas valid in all structures of some fixed finite size.

Gregory R. Johnson and David Rasmussen defend their critique of Ayn Rand's views on abortion, arguing that their critics miss its main points. Tibor Machan and Alexander Tabarrok actually depart from Rand's own position under the guise of defending it; they introduce a non-Randian distinction between being a human organism and being a moral person.

In Truth Without Paradox, David Johnson purports to solve several of the traditional problems of metaphysics, pertaining to truth, logic, similitude, morality, and God.

" Notre époque ne veut croire qu'à des "réalités". Or sa réalité la plus puissante est la science, voilà pourquoi c'est de la science philosophique dont notre époque a le plus grand besoin (...) et le plus grand progrès que puisse accomplir notre époque sera de reconnaître que l'intuition philosophique bien comprise est l'appréhension phénoménologique des essences. " Ce texte, écrit en 1911, constitue bien le manifeste par quoi s'ouvre la philosophie du XXè siècle. Husserl cherche à dépasser l'opposition toujours (...) actuelle entre positivisme et historicisme, en exigeant que la philosophie s'établisse à partir d'un nouveau commencement, plus radical que tous ceux qu'elle n'a jamais pu entreprendre, et qu'elle vise une rigueur qui l'affranchisse enfin des modèles hérités des sciences de la nature. Quelle qu'ait été l'histoire de la phénoménologie Husserlienne, l'exigence exprimée dans ce manifeste ne concerne pas seulement un courant de pensée particulier ; elle est consubstantielle à la réflexion philosophique elle-même. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical inquiry into historical meaning and narrative understanding. Interpreting selected writings of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, and stories of Kafka, Rilke, Sartre, and Camus, the author defends the narrative coherence of life and the irreducibility of narrative understanding and truth. The island imagery uncovered in these authors provides the parameters for a contemporary philosophy of history properly mingling earth and sky as natality and mortality, remembering and forgetting, wandering and homecoming, waking and dreaming, wealth and poverty. (...) class='Hi'>Johnson has pushed the life-world theme of Husserl's phenomenology out toward the wild-flowering world where it seems to have been headed. (shrink)

"The only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter." -- James Clerk Maxwell.

Wielding his philosophical razor, William of Ockham declared, in the early 14th century, that in slicing the world into categories, thou shalt not multiply entities needlessly. He might have been pleased when, half a millennium later, James Clerk Maxwell helped tidy things up by writing the equations that show magnetism and electricity as perpendicular shadows cast by light beams, radio waves, X-rays and other forms of what we now call electromagnetic radiation. Einstein did Maxwell one better by equating mass with (...) energy. And today the physicists promise us that once we give them their superconducting supercollider, they will take a giant step toward the day when they can unify light with gravity and the two forces at work inside the nuclei of atoms -- showing how everything, even the geometry of space and time, crystallized from the primordial flash of the big bang. (shrink)

The daddy longlegs clinging vertically to my bathroom wall is a marvel of airy symmetry, its tiny head perched delicately at the center of eight arching limbs. A moment later, struck by the back of my hand, it lies crumpled on the floor. I’m sorry, but I don’t like spiders in the house.

This article reviews some linguistic and philosophical work in lexical semantics. In Section 1, the general methods of lexical semantics are explored, with particular attention to how semantic features of verbs are associated with grammatical patterns. In Section 2, philosophical consequences and issues arising from this sort of research is reviewed.

Concussion is a common, serious injury in youth ice hockey, affecting up to 25% of players per season by one estimate. • Bodychecking is a major cause of injury and concussion in hockey, yet some Canadian provinces allow players as young as nine years to engage in bodychecking. • Reducing rates of concussion requires eliminating bodychecking for all except elite hockey players aged 16 years and older, as per the recommendations of the Canadian Academy of Sports and Exercise Medicine.

This paper looks at an approach to Principle C in which the disjoint reference effect triggered by definite description arises because there is a preference for using bound pronouns in those cases. Philippe Schlenker has linked this approach to the idea that the NP part of a definite description should be the most minimal in content relative to a certain communicative goal. On a popular view about what the syntax and semantics of a personal pronoun is, that should have the (...) effect of favoring a pronoun over a definite description. This paper shows how that can be made the source of “Vehicle Change,” an effect in ellipsis contexts in which definite descriptions seem to behave like pronouns. It requires, however, a way of distinguishing bound pronouns from non-bound pronouns, and the paper makes a proposal about how these two kinds of pronouns can be distinguished in the way needed. (shrink)

An earlier, abbreviated version was presented as remarks for the inaugural symposium of the Molinari Society, at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division meeting, on 27 December 2004. Replies and comments on matters of style, content, and argument in this essay are welcome.

'You ought to make something of yourself.' That certainly has the ring of truth about it. But is there really any obligation to develop yourself? Those who let abilities lie idle are shortsighted, of course. But are they guilty of anything more than imprudence? It is easy to think that there could be a moral fault in failing to help others such as your children to develop their talents and abilities. But what about not developing your own? And if this (...) is a moral failing, is the fault solely in your having let others down in some way? Or is there fault in having let yourself down as well? (shrink)

This article presents three experiments that examine the relation between order effects and frequency learning, with the following results. First, when frequencies of occurrence are presented as sequences of real events, base rates can be learned and used with a high degree of accuracy. However, conditional probabilities for multiple sequentially presented evidence items cannot be completely learned, due to the distortion of a recency order effect for actual decisions. Second, there is also a recency order effect for belief evaluations, which (...) cannot be eliminated even if base rates are used correctly. Third, base rates learned in one environment can be transferred to another environment, but the transfer soon diminishes due to learning in the new environment. However, belief evaluations are not transferred from one environment to another The existing models of frequency learning cannot explain the order effect for actual decisions because they do not consider sequential information. The existing models of belief updating can explain both types of order effects, but they do not have any mechanisms for frequency learning. To account for the complete spectrum of frequency learning and order effects, we outline our initial effort in developing a unified model that integrates frequency learning and order effects. (shrink)

It is a theorem of Prikry [7] that ifκcarries a uniformη-descendingly complete ultrafilter then the stationary reflection propertyfails. In this paper we will derive similar results, but here from properties of filters rather than ultrafilters.Throughoutκandηwill denote regular cardinals withη<κ, andIwill denote an ideal onκ, by which we mean a setI⊆P such that Iis closed under taking subsets and finite unions and αЄIfor eachα<κ, butκ∉I.Iis said to beμ-complete if it is closed under taking unions of size <μ,I* = {X⊆κ∣κ−XЄI} is the (...) filter dual toIand ifAЄI+ −I), thenI∣Ais the ideal onκgiven byI∣A= {X⊆κ∣X∩AЄI}. Ifh: A→κthenhis said to be unbounded modIif for eachα<κ,h−1 = {ξЄA∣h<α} ЄIand a least function forIifhis unbounded modIand wheneverg: A→κis a function, unbounded modI, then {ξЄA∣g{ξ) shrink)

Some recent discussions of A. N. Whitehead's treatment of the problem of value have stressed the point that his work in this field is open to serious objection. For example, Professor John Goheen claims that Whitehead's attempt to indicate distinguishing characteristics of experience of “the Good”, is too general to be adequate. He also suggests that this generality of approach makes it impossible for Whitehead to differentiate between different species of value. Further, according to Goheen, Whitehead involves himself in confusion (...) when he claims that satisfaction is achieved when experience is characterized by order ; and yet he also suggests that in some cases, the presence of disorder makes possible a higher type of satisfaction. Professor P. A. Schilpp agrees with Goheen in feeling that Whitehead's explanation of the good life in terms of “pattern” is too vague. In Schilpp's opinion, Whitehead does not answer the basic question: “What kind of pattern?” There is a further objection to Whitehead's “theory of the close connection between morality and beauty,” because at times it looks like an actual identification. Schilpp also objects to what appears to be Whitehead's identification of “good” with “interest”. Finally, it is claimed by Schilpp that Whitehead subordinates goodness to beauty. This interpretation is apparently supported by Prof. George Morgan who states: “Truth and moral values are instrumental except in so far as they enhance beauty.” Professor B. Morris objects to Whitehead's attempt to apply the mathematical method to aesthetic experience. He suggests that the method of symbolic logic is too abstract to deal adequately with concrete aesthetic data. Professor J. W. Blyth, as the result of his examination of Whitehead's theory of truth, reaches the conclusion that “the various elements involved in Whitehead's theory of truth cannot be brought together in one coherent and consistent system. (shrink)

Whitehead's philosophy of civilization is discussed in this book. noting that this aspect of whitehead's philosophy is less well known and appreciated than his work in mathematics and metaphysics, the author presents it as "an impressive treatment of the meaning and values of civilization." actually the book presents whitehead's views on western christian civilization rather than on civilization "per se", as discerned in "a series of insights," rather than by "detailed systematic presentation." since whitehead wrote no treatise exclusively on this (...) topic, this book draws from "science and the modern world", "process and reality", "adventures in ideas", and articles written by him after 1925. the final chapter relates whitehead's philosophy of civilization to his "highly technical terminology" and "demonstrates that whitehead's main ideas in his philosophy of civilization are in accordance with his metaphysics--, i.e., his theory of reality." one chapter discusses various criticisms of whitehead. (bp). (shrink)

This article is an attempt to: outline the essential elements in Alfred North Whitehead's theory of “actual entities“; indicate the erroneous nature of a number of widely held interpretations and criticisms of his speculative scheme; state criticisms which seem legitimately applicable to Whitehead's cosmology.Whitehead's theory of actual entities can only be understood if one continually bears in mind Whitehead's purpose in formulating this theory and the method which he uses in his project.

There are increasing pressures for bioethics research to have translational purposes. Against this backdrop, we argue in defense of speculative bioethics. We explore methods of speculation and their importance. Further, we examine the relationship between speculative bioethics and translational bioethics and posit that they are not dimorphous enterprises, but often support each other. First, speculative research might be conducted as ethical analysis of contemporary issues through a new lens, in which case it is a means of conducting translational work. Second, (...) speculative bioethics research might be a first step prior to translational work on a topic, in which case speculative bioethics is a necessary requirement for later translational work. Finally, speculative bioethics research might be a separate kind of bioethics altogether, in which case it does not have the same objectives of impact and translation as other bioethics work. For each type of work, important methodological aspects determine whether it constitutes good speculative bioethics research. We conclude that speculative bioethics is multipurpose, and whether it should have a translational dimension—and to what extent—depends on the issue. Applying standards of impact and translation as the gold standard across bioethics may inappropriately limit bioethics, particularly on emerging technologies. (shrink)