The commitment to evidence-based practice in clinical psychology requires scientific investigation of the effects of treatment and mechanisms of change. Empirical evidence suggests that mindfulness-based treatments provide clinically meaningful improvement for people suffering from many important problems, including depression, anxiety, pain, and stress. However, the processes of change that produce these beneficial outcomes are not entirely clear. Central questions include whether mindfulness training leads to increases in the general tendency to respond mindfully to the experiences of daily life, and if (...) so, whether these changes are responsible for the improvements in mental health that are often observed. Answering these questions requires methods for assessing mindfulness. Several tools for this purpose are now available and early evidence suggests that they are useful and informative, despite shortcomings that require additional work. This paper summarizes the rationale for mindfulness questionnaires, the methods used to construct them, and research findings on their utility. Challenges related to maintaining consistency with Buddhist conceptions of mindfulness while applying psychological research methods to the study of its assessment are discussed. (shrink)

Las traducciones al inglés de la obra de Karl Jaspers no han sido hasta el momento uniformes en su elección de la terminología técnica. Esta interpretación especializada de la Introducción de Jaspers a su obra seminal "The Great Philosophers" ("Los Grandes Filósofos", nota de la traductora) se mantiene fiel al texto original en alemán tanto como es posible, protegiendo sus expresiones idiomáticas culturales, la estructura compleja de la oración y los matices particulares, con la condición de que la claridad de (...) la comunicación se conserve. Los contenidos sustanciales y la significación de este texto, cuyo principal tema es la grandeza, se bosquejan aquí. La comunicación con los grandes filósofos puede aportar una visión de su pensamiento, haciendo posible el trascender hacia una posible Existenz auténtica. (shrink)

This article presents a sociological analysis of the changing role of women in the Catholic church over the past twenty years. The theoretical framework is drawn from The Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. Data are derived from the documents of Vatican II, the revised Code of Canon Law, research from 1965 to the present, and exploratory interviews with Catholic women recently appointed as church administrators. The article concludes with a discussion of future prospects regarding the (...) new social reality for Catholic women. (shrink)

The recent Minnesota case of In re Emergency Guardianship of Albert Barnes illustrates an emerging class of cases where a dispute between a family proxy and a hospital over “medical futility” requires legal resolution. The case was further complicated by the patient’s spouse who fraudulently claimed to be the patient’s designated health care proxy and who misrepresented the patient’s previously expressed treatment preferences. Barnes demonstrates the degree of significant administrative and institutional support to the health care team, ethics consultants, and (...) futility committees that is required when a futility dispute escalates to the need for judicial resolution. An institutional futility policy, especially one that is endorsed by other regional medical centers and organizations, is an important foundation for a hospital that seeks judicial support in a dispute over medical futility in end of life care. (shrink)

The aim of this contribution is to critically explore the understanding, the goals and the meaning of education in the philosophy of education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his educational novel Emile: or On Education [Emile ou De l’éducation] (1762) he depicts his account of the natural education. Rousseau argues that all humans share one and the same development process which is independent of their social background. He regards education as an active process of perfection which is curiosity-driven and intrinsic to (...) each child. Rousseau’s educational goals are autarky, happiness and freedom. (shrink)

Translations of Karl Jaspers' work into the English language have so far not been uniform in their choice of technical terminology. This scholarly renditionof Jaspers' ´Introduction´ to his seminal work "The Great Philosophers" stays to theoriginal German text as true possible by upholding its idiomatic cultural expressions, complex sentence structure, and nuanced particularities provided that clarity of communication can be maintained. The substantive contents and the significance of this text, whose principal topic is greatness, are outlined here. Communication with the (...) great philosophers can bring insight into their thought and can enable humans to transcend toward possible authentic Existenz. (shrink)

In the ´Introduction´ to "The Great Philosophers" Karl Jaspers explores the criteria for recognizing human greatness in general and in philosphers in particular. He comments on the historical process related to the selection and grouping of great philosophers. Jaspers acknowledges the questionable aspect of greatness, yet he affirms that such distinction is indispensable. The 1957 English translation by Ralph Mannheim and Hannah Arendt of Jaspers' Die Grossen Philosophen and all its subsequent editions did not include this Introduction. The translation offered (...) here redresses this omission and is the first ever published English translation of Jaspers' extended Introduction. (shrink)

Taking Parenting Public makes a compelling case that parenting has become dangerously undervalued in America today. It calls for a new investment—both personal and public—into the work of raising children and argues that we are all "stockholders" in the next generation. With a foreword by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Taking Parenting Public crosses boundaries to bring together thinkers from diverse fields spanning the political spectrum. It features contributions from distinguished experts in economics, political science, public policy, child development, (...) public health, history, and the media. While recent books have focused on working mothers or absent fathers, Taking Parenting Public is the first volume to take a comprehensive look at the common struggles of parents. These essays go beyond the usual chest-beating about busy parents torn between work and family demands to suggest bold solutions. Instead of the typical call for "parent replacement"—more child care, more after school programs and more mentors—the contributors offer fresh strategies for "parent replenishment," ways to put mothers and fathers back into the lives of their children not only as economic providers, but also as emotional and moral providers. (shrink)

Three experiments are reported which show that in certain contexts subjects reject instances of the valid modus ponens and modus tollens inference form in conditional arguments. For example, when a conditional premise, such as: If she meets her friend then she will go to a play, is accompanied by a conditional containing an additional requirement: If she has enough money then she will go to a play, subjects reject the inference from the categorical premise: She meets her friend, to the (...) conclusion: She will go to a play. Other contexts suppress the conditional fallacies. The first experiment demonstrates the effects of context on conditional reasoning. The second experiment shows that the inference suppression disappears when the categorical premise refers to both of the antecedents, such as: She meets her friend and she has enough money. In this case, subjects make both the valid inferences and the fallacies, regardless of the contextual information. The third experiment establishes that when subjects are given general information about the duration of a situation in which a conditional inducement was uttered, such as: If you shout then I will shoot you, they reject both the valid inferences and the fallacies. The results suggest that the interpretation of premises plays an even more central role in reasoning than has previously been admitted. Trois expériences montrent que dans certains contextes les sujets rejettent des instances valides de modus ponens et de modus tollens dans des énoncés conditionnels. Par exemple, quand une prémisse conditionnelle comme: Si elle rencontre son ami, alors elle ira jouer, est accompagnée par une phrase contenant une condition supplémentaire: Si elle a assez d'argent, alors elle ira jouer, les sujets rejettent l'inférence liant la prémisse catégorielle: Elle rencontre son ami, à la conclusion: Elle ira jouer. D'autres contextes éliminent également les inférences conditionnelles fallacieuses. La premiére expérience démontre l'effet du contexte sur la raisonnement conditionnel. La deuxiéme expérience montre que la suppression de l'inférence disparait quand la prémisse catégorielle fait référence aux deux antécédants, comme: Elle rencontre son ami et elle a assez d'argent. Dans ce cas, les sujets font aussi bien les inférences valides et fallacieuses, quelle que soit l'information contextuelle. La troisiéme expérience établit que quand l'on donne aux sujets des informations générales à propos de la durée d'une situation dans laquelle une conditionnelle a été prononcée, comme Si tu cries, alors je te tire dessus, ils rejettent autant les inférences valides que les inférences fallacieuses. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'interprétation des prémisses joue un rŏle encore plus central dans le raisonnement que l'on admettait auparavant. (shrink)

What sorts of consideration can be normative reasons for action? If we systematize the wide variety of considerations that can be cited as normative reasons, do we find that there is a single kind of consideration that can always be a reason? Desire-based theorists think that the fact that you want something or would want it under certain evaluatively neutral conditions can always be your normative reason for action. Value-based theorists, by contrast, think that what plays that role are evaluative (...) facts (or the facts that subvene them) about what you want, such as the fact that having it would be good in some way. This paper argues that value-based theorists are wrong; if we try to find a single kind of consideration that can always be normative reason, we find that sometimes our reason is the fact that we want something and not any corresponding evaluative fact. (shrink)

This paper proposes a way to understand transformative choices, choices that change ‘who you are.’ First, it distinguishes two broad models of transformative choice: 1) ‘event-based’ transformative choices in which some event—perhaps an experience—downstream from a choice transforms you, and 2) ‘choice-based’ transformative choices in which the choice itself—and not something downstream from the choice—transforms you. Transformative choices are of interest primarily because they purport to pose a challenge to standard approaches to rational choice. An examination of the event-based transformative (...) choices of L. A. Paul and Edna Ullman-Margalit, however, suggests that event-based transformative choices don’t raise any difficulties for standard approaches to rational choice. An account of choice-based transformative choices—and what it is to be transformed—is then proposed. Transformative choices so understood not only capture paradigmatic cases of transformative choice but also point the way to a different way of thinking about rational choice and agency. (shrink)

Conflicts between morality and prudence are often thought to pose a special problem because the normativity of moral considerations derives from a distinctively moral point of view, while the normativity of prudential considerations derives from a distinctively prudential point of view, and there is no way to ‘put together’ the two points of view. I argue that talk of points of view is a red herring, and that for any ‘prumoral’ conflict there is some or other more comprehensive value – (...) often nameless – that accounts for the relative normative weight of conflicting moral and prudential considerations. The rational resolution of conflict is possible only in virtue of a more comprehensive value that includes the conflicting moral and prudential considerations as parts. (shrink)

A prominent feature of late nineteenth-century psychology was its intense preoccupation with precision. Precision was at once an ideal and an argument: the quest for precision helped psychology to establish its status as a mature science, sharing a characteristic concern with the natural sciences. We will analyse how psychologists set out to produce precision in 'mental chronometry', the measurement of the duration of psychological processes. In his Leipzig laboratory, Wundt inaugurated an elaborate research programme on mental chronometry. We will look (...) at the problem of calibration of experimental apparatus and will describe the intricate material, literary, and social technologies involved in the manufacture of precision. First, we shall discuss some of the technical problems involved in the measurement of ever shorter time-spans. Next, the Cattell-Berger experiments will help us to argue against the received view that all the precision went into the hardware, and practically none into the social organization of experimentation. Experimenters made deliberate efforts to bring themselves and their subjects under a regime of control and calibration similar to that which reigned over the experimental machinery. In Leipzig psychology, the particular blend of material and social technology resulted in a specific object of study: the generalized mind. We will then show that the distribution of precision in experimental psychology outside Leipzig demanded a concerted effort of instruments, texts, and people. It will appear that the forceful attempts to produce precision and uniformity had some rather paradoxical consequences. (shrink)

A list of groceries, Professor Anscombe once suggested, might be used as a shopping list, telling what to buy, or it might be used as an inventory list, telling what has been bought (Anscombe 1957). If used as a shopping list, the world is supposed to conform to the representation: if the list does not match what is in the grocery bag, it is what is in the bag that is at fault. But if used as an inventory list, the (...) representation is supposed to conform to the world: if the list does not match what is in the bag, it is the list that is at fault. The first kind of representation, where the world is supposed to conform to the list, can be called "directive"; it represents or directs what is to be done. The second, where the list is supposed to conform to the world, can be called "descriptive"; it represents or describes what is the case. I wish to propose that there exist representations that face both these ways at once. With apologies to Dr. Doolittle, I call them pushmi-pullyu representations or PPRs. (shrink)

What makes individuals, groups, or even entire countries vulnerable? And why is vulnerability a concern in bioethics? A simple answer to both questions is that vulnerable individuals and groups are subject to exploitation, and exploitation is morally wrong. This analysis is limited to two areas. First is the context of multinational research, in which vulnerable people can be exploited even if they are not harmed, and harmed even if they are not exploited. Second is the situation of women, who are (...) made vulnerable in cultural settings or in entire countries in which they are oppressed and powerless. (edited). (shrink)

Readers of this book are sure to view the ethics of incentives in a new light.

Connected Lives examines the account of human nature that is implicit in an ethics of care, a picture of human lives that emphasizes interdependency, embodiment, and social connectedness. The book makes important connections to the picture of human life found in theorists of love such as St. Augustine and Emmanuel Levinas, and shows that when care theory is articulated clearly, it provides resources for thinking through some of the difficult moral issues we face in the contemporary world, issues such as (...) assisted reproduction and the new genetic technologies. (shrink)

Ontology. Revisited. Groff's argument cuts against a familiar anti-metaphysical grain. Social and political philosophy, she maintains, is not as metaphysically neutral as it may seem. Even the most deontological of theories connects up with a ...

: Following a long process of revision, a new version of the Declaration of Helsinki was approved by the World Medical Association in 2000. Two provisions of the Declaration address ongoing international controversies regarding research sponsored by industrialized countries and conducted in developing countries. Despite the issuance of the final version of the Declaration, opponents remain locked in debate. Moreover, the Declaration remained silent on other prominent controversies concerning international research. An analysis of these current controversies reveals reasons why they (...) are not likely to be readily resolved, despite apparent agreement by opponents on overarching ethical principles. (shrink)

ABSTRACTComparative effectiveness studies, referred to here as “usual-care” trials, seek to compare current medical practices for the same medical condition. Such studies are presumed to be safe and involve only minimal risks. However, that presumption may be flawed if the trial design contains “unusual” care, resulting in potential risks to subjects and inaccurately informed consent. Three case studies described here did not rely on clinical evidence to ascertain contemporaneous practice. As a result, the investigators drew inaccurate conclusions, misinformed research participants, (...) and subjects’ safety was compromised. Before approving usual-care protocols, IRBs and scientific review committees should evaluate the quality and completeness of information documenting usual-care practices. Guidance from governmental oversight agencies regarding evidence-based documentation of current clinical practice could prevent similar occurrences in future usual-care trials. Accurate information is necessary to ensure that trials comply with government regulations that require minimizing research risks to subjects and accurate informed consent documents. (shrink)

Recently, some of the leading proponents of the view that there is widespread incommensurability among goods have suggested that the incommensurability of some goods is a constitutive feature of the goods themselves. So, for example, a friendship and a million dollars are incommensurable because it is part of what it is to be a friendship that it be incommensurable with money. According to these ‘constitutive incommensurabilists’ incommensurability follows from the very nature of certain goods. In this paper, I examine this (...) idea and argue that constitutive incommensurabilists have mistaken for constitutive incommensurability a particular emphatic kind of comparability. This examination involves an account of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ goods and an explanation of how goods of different ‘types’ figure in practical conflict. (shrink)

A new political movement has arisen in bioethics, self‐consciously distingushed from the rest of the ield and characterized by a new way of writing and arguing. Unfortunately, that new method is mean‐spirited, mystical, and emotional. It claims insight into ultimate truth yet disavows reason.

In his essay "Consumers Need Information: Supplementing Teleosemantics with an Input Condition" (this issue) Nicholas Shea argues, with support from the work of Peter Godfrey-Smith (1996), that teleosemantics, as David Papinau and I have articulated it, cannot explain why "content attribution can be used to explain successful behavior." This failure is said to result from defining the intentional contents of representations by reference merely to historically normal conditions for success of their "outputs," that is, of their uses by interpreting or (...) consuming mechanisms, bypassing the more traditional focus, of those who would naturalize intentional content, on causal or informational inputs. Shea proposes to "add an input condition to teleosemantics," requiring that simple representations must carry "correlational information." I am grateful to Shea for his paper, as it presents me with an opportunity to clarify two fairly central features of my position on intentional content, one of which seems to have been overlooked in the literature (Millikan 1993a), the other of which I have stated previously only in a confusing way (Millikan 2004, Chapters 3-4). The first clarification concerns the general form that I take explanation by reference to intentional states to have. The second concerns my description of "locally recurrent natural information," why this kind of information is needed in place of Shea's "correlational information" to explain what feeds simple representational systems, and why no reference to natural information is needed to account for the success of behaviors by reference to the truth of representations that motivate them. (shrink)

Tim Maudlin's argument for the inconsistency of Cramer's Transactional Interpretation of quantum theory has been considered in some detail by Joseph Berkovitz, who has provided a possible solution to this challenge at the cost of a significant empirical lacuna on the part of TI. The present paper proposes an alternative solution in which Maudlin's charge of inconsistency is evaded but at no cost of empirical content on the part of TI. However, Maudlin's argument is taken as ruling out Cramer's heuristic (...) "pseudotime" explanation of the realization of one transaction out of many. (shrink)

The demand for bodily parts such as organs is increasing, and individuals in certain circumstances are responding by offering parts of their bodies for sale. Is there anything wrong in this? Kant had arguments to suggest that there is, namely that we have duties towards our own bodies, among which is the duty not to sell parts of them. Kant's reasons for holding this view are examined, and found to depend on a notion of what is intrinsically degrading. Rom Harré's (...) recent revision of Kant's argument, in terms of an obligation to preserve the body's organic integrity, is considered. Harré's view does not rule out all acts of selling, but he too ultimately depends on a test of what is intrinsically degrading. Both his view and Kant's are rejected in favour of a view which argues that it does make sense to speak of duties towards our own bodies, grounded in the duty to promote the flourishing of human beings, including ourselves. This provides a reason for opposing the sale of bodily parts, and the current trend towards the market ethic in health care provision. (shrink)

: Because an influenza pandemic would create the most serious hardships for those who already face most serious hardships, countries should take special measures to mitigate the effect of a pandemic on existing social inequalities. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that anybody is thinking about that.

A realist, powers‐based metaphysics is very much on the table in contemporary metaphysics, and is beginning to take hold in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. On this picture, causality is (roughly) a matter of the powers that things have to effect change(s) in other things. The realist view is at odds with every version of Humeanism, according to all of which causation is not, in the end, about the exercise of powers, but rather, in one way or another, (...) about regular sequences. The chapter has two parts. In the first part the chapter considers how it is that analytic philosophers of social science have been able thus far to side‐step the critique of Humeanism. In the second part, the chapter considers how analytic philosophy of social science might look different, were Humeanism no longer to be its tacit metaphysics. (shrink)

Happiness is a large idea. It looms enticingly before us when we are young, delivers verdicts on our lives when we are old, and seems to inform a responsible engagement with children. The question is raised: do we want this idea? I explore a distinction between rich and poor conceptions of happiness, suggesting that many sceptical arguments are directed against the latter. If happiness is to receive its teleological due, recognised in rather the way Aristotle saw it, as a final (...) end that crucially lacks specificity, it must be richly conceived without denying the significance of unhappiness or despair. I suggest that Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is ‘completed’ in a distinctively Aristotelian sense by authors like George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Substantial excerpts are discussed to show how ideas like ‘making others happy’ may be richly conceived. By treating literary examples (poetically articulated, sensually received) as ineliminable reference points in our thinking, we open up a new way of imagining relationships in education. We attend communally, conversationally and often argumentatively to the dramas of human life. This, I argue, is how we grapple with large ideas and bring about ethical learning. (shrink)

Cramer's Transactional Interpretation (TI) is applied to the ``Quantum Liar Experiment'' (QLE). It is shown how some apparently paradoxical features can be explained naturally, albeit nonlocally (since TI is an explicitly nonlocal interpretation). At the same time, it is proposed that in order to preserve the elegance and economy of the interpretation, it may be necessary to consider offer and confirmation waves as propagating in a ``higher space'' of possibilities.