The application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in healthcare domains has received much attention in recent years, yet significant questions remain about how these new tools integrate into frontline user workflow, and how their design will impact implementation. Lack of acceptance among clinicians is a major barrier to the translation of healthcare innovations into clinical practice. In this systematic review, we examine when and how clinicians are consulted about their needs and desires for clinical AI tools. Forty-five articles met (...) criteria for inclusion, of which 24 were considered design studies. The design studies used a variety of methods to solicit and gather user feedback, with interviews, surveys, and user evaluations. Our findings show that tool designers consult clinicians at various but inconsistent points during the design process, and most typically at later stages in the design cycle. We also observed a smaller amount of studies adopting a human-centered approach and where clinician input was solicited throughout the design process. A third of all studies reported on clinician trust in clinical AI algorithms and tools. The surveyed articles did not universally report validation against the “gold standard” of clinical expertise or provide detailed descriptions of the algorithms or computational methods used in their work. To realize the full potential of AI tools within healthcare settings, our review suggests there are opportunities to more thoroughly integrate frontline users’ needs and feedback in the design process. (shrink)

Sharing within communities has gained popularity in recent years. However, taking part in a community also comes with a certain amount of risk. This perceived amount of risk can be contained by regulations within a community as well as by potential participants’ trust in the community and the other members. We argue for a relation between regulation and the willingness to take the risk of joining a sharing community with trust as mediator. Thereby, we distinguish between two kinds of regulation (...) (soft and harsh regulation) and two kinds of trust (implicit and reason-based trust) on two different levels (vertical and horizontal trust). In one laboratory and one online experiment with overall 432 participants, we found that the compound of high soft and low harsh regulation increases participants’ willingness to take the risk of participation and the effect of soft regulation is mediated mainly by vertical and horizontal reason-based trust. Based on our results, we encourage sharing communities to count on soft regulation in order to increase potential members’ trust in the community and therefore take the risk to participate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical TraditionSarah B. PomeroyMadeleine M. Henry. Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. 201 pp. Cloth, $29.95.Pericles declared that the best women are those who are known neither for praise nor blame (Thuc. 2.45.2). Despite the invisibility of respectable women in fifth-century Athens, skeletal biographies including the names of (...) their fathers, husbands, sons, and, occasionally, daughters can be constructed. A vignette in Plutarch or a private oration may flesh out the story. Although etiquette discouraged giving the name of a respectable woman while she was alive, she is named in her epitaph. The historian can narrate the entire life of such a woman in a single paragraph.The most famous woman in classical Athens, the only one who rates an entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary2 (Oxford, 1970) and could be the subject of a full-length biography, is the hetaira Aspasia. Yet even a book devoted to Aspasia who is named in multiple sources including comedy, philosophy, history, and biography fills only 130 pages of text, most of which treat post-classical traditions about Aspasia rather than the life of the woman herself.Chapter 1, a mere nine pages about “Aspasia in Greek History,” is the only part of this book that discusses Aspasia’s actual biography. Henry accepts P. J. Bicknell’s suggestion that Aspasia was an upper-class Milesian whose older sister was married to the Alcibiades who became the grandfather of the notorious Alcibiades (AC 51 [1982] 240–50). An orphan, when she was an adolescent Aspasia came to Athens with her sister and brother-in-law. If this reconstruction is accurate, we must wonder why her brother-in-law did not secure a proper marriage for his young sister-in-law, rather than permit her to become Pericles’ concubine, but perhaps an alliance with the first man in Athens was attractive to the elder Alcibiades. Furthermore he had no legal obligation to dower his sister-in-law. Estate planning and heirship strategies probably influenced Pericles, on his part (cf. Plut. Pericles 16.3–4), for he already had legitimate sons born from his first wife and had no need of another full-fledged marriage. Despite the affection with which Pericles treated Aspasia (Plut. Pericles 24.5–6), he does not seem to have made any arrangements for her future after his death. Lysicles, in turn, who is reported to have married Aspasia, probably regarded a connection with her as a “dynastic marriage” linking himself in this way with the deceased [End Page 648] Pericles. Aspasia made the best of her situation, attempting to bridge the gap between notoriety and respectability: she seems to have confined her attentions to only one man at a time and bore sons whose parentage was never doubted.The very existence of Poristes (“Provider”), the son of Aspasia and Lysicles, is questioned by Henry (43) who suggests that word was used of Aspasia herself. I think it is at least as likely that Lysicles chose his son’s name as his own epithet to refer to his fatherly concern for the Athenians, much the way that the names of Themistocles’ children testify to their father’s political interests. Furthermore, although Henry does not refer to the larger sweep of women’s history, Aspasia lived during the Peloponnesian War, a watershed in the history of Athenian women, when on account of the absence of men at war and the desertion of slaves, the luxury of secluding respectable women had to yield to harsh necessity (see Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves [New York, 1975] 66–67). Therefore the traditions that Aspasia lived in the same household with Pericles’ married sons and their wives and that she conversed with married women are believable.In chapter 2, “The Story Told by Comedy,” Henry rejects the testimony of the comic poets, found also in Plutarch (Pericles 24.5), that Aspasia ran a brothel. Yet since her concubinage is evidence of the lack of a dowry, it would have been advantageous for Aspasia to arrange... (shrink)

It has long been held that humans need government to impose social order on a chaotic, dangerous world. How, then, did early humans survive on the Serengeti Plain, surrounded by faster, stronger, and bigger predators in a harsh and forbidding environment? Pirates, Prisoners, and Lepers examines an array of natural experiments and accidents of human history to explore the fundamental nature of how human beings act when beyond the scope of the law. Pirates of the 1700s, the leper colony (...) on Molokai Island, prisoners of the Nazis, hippie communes of the 1970s, shipwreck and plane crash survivors, and many more diverse groups--all existed in the absence of formal rules, punishments, and hierarchies. Paul and Sarah Robinson draw on these real-life stories to suggest that humans are predisposed to be cooperative within limits. What these "communities" did and how they managed have dramatic implications for shaping our modern institutions. Should today's criminal justice system build on people's shared intuitions about justice? Or are we better off acknowledging this aspect of human nature but using law to temper it? Knowing the true nature of our human character and our innate ideas about justice offers a roadmap to a better society. (shrink)

In this incisive study Sarah Broadie gives an argued account of the main topics of Aristotle's ethics: eudaimonia, virtue, voluntary agency, practical reason, akrasia, pleasure, and the ethical status of theoria. She explores the sense of "eudaimonia," probes Aristotle's division of the soul and its virtues, and traces the ambiguities in "voluntary." Fresh light is shed on his comparison of practical wisdom with other kinds of knowledge, and a realistic account is developed of Aristototelian deliberation. The concept of pleasure (...) as value-judgment is expounded, and the problem of akrasia is argued to be less of a problem to Aristotle than to his modern interpreters. Showing that the theoretic ideal of Nicomachean Ethics X is in step with the earlier emphasis on practice, as well as with the doctrine of the Eudemian Ethics, this work makes a major contribution towards the understanding of Aristotle's ethics. (shrink)

Existing discussions of legal proof address a host of apparently disparate questions: What does it take to prove a fact beyond a reasonable doubt? Why is the reasonable doubt standard notoriously elusive, sometimes considered by courts to be impossible to define? Can the standard of proof by a preponderance of the evidence be defined in terms of probability thresholds? Why is statistical evidence often insufficient to meet the burden of proof? -/- This paper defends an account of proof that addresses (...) each of these questions. Where existing theories take a piecemeal approach to these puzzles, my theory develops an insight that unifies them—namely, the thesis that legal proof requires knowledge. Although this thesis may seem radical at first, I answer several common objections to it, and I argue that it does better than several competing accounts when it comes to making sense of our intuitions about what legal proof requires. (shrink)

The Archival and Constructive views of memory offer contrasting characterizations of remembering and its relation to memory errors. I evaluate the descriptive adequacy of each by offering a close analysis of one of the most prominent experimental techniques by which memory errors are elicited—the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. Explaining the DRM effect requires appreciating it as a distinct form of memory error, which I refer to as misremembering. Misremembering is a memory error that relies on successful retention of the targeted event. It (...) differs from both successful remembering and from confabulation errors, where the representation produced is wholly inaccurate. As I show, neither the Archival nor the Constructive View can account for the DRM effect because they are insensitive to misremembering’s unique explanatory demands. Fortunately, the explanatory limitations of the Archival and Constructive Views are complementary. This suggests a way.. (shrink)

Clinical use of the term “confabulation” began as a reference to false memories in dementia patients. The term has remained in circulation since, which belies shifts in its definition and scope over time. “Confabulation” now describes a range of disorders, deficits, and anomalous behaviors. The increasingly wide and varied use of this term has prompted many to ask: what is confabulation? In recent years, many have offered answers to this question. As a general rule, recent accounts are accounts of broad (...) confabulation: attempts to unify the seemingly disparate features of all or most confabulatory phenomena under a shared set of characteristics or mechanisms. In this paper, I approach the question differently. I focus on a particular form of confabulation—mnemonic confabulation—so as to understand its distinctive features and the ways in which it does fit into accounts of broad confabulation. Understanding mnemonic confabulation is a project in the philosophy of memory; it plays an important role in guiding theories of remembering, as a form of error that must be distinguished from genuine remembering. Mnemonic confabulation, as I define it in Sect. 2, occurs when there is no relation between a person’s seeming to remember a particular event or experience and any event or experience from their past—either because there is no such event in their past or because any similarity to such an event is entirely coincidental. This account draws on my own theory of remembering, but shares many important points of consensus with other accounts of mnemonic confabulation, which I highlight in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4, I turn to accounts of broad confabulation—identifying three features such accounts have in common—and, for each, I argue that mnemonic confabulation lacks the requisite feature. As an error, mnemonic confabulation has more in common with perceptual hallucination than with the confabulatory phenomena included in standard accounts of broad confabulation. Recognizing that, despite the shared use of the term “confabulation” mnemonic confabulation and broad forms of confabulation are unrelated, is important for continued progress in debates about each. (shrink)

In this article, we advance a new understanding of “difference” as an ongoing interactional accomplishment. Calling on the authors' earlier reconceptualization of gender, they develop the further implications of this perspective for the relationships among gender, race, and class. The authors argue that, despite significant differences in their characteristics and outcomes, gender, race, and class are comparable as mechanisms for producing social inequality.

In this paper, I argue that an adequate meta-semantic framework capable of accommodating the range of projects currently identified as projects in conceptual engineering must be sensitive to the fact that concepts (and hence projects relating to them) fall into distinct kinds. Concepts can vary, I will argue, with respect to their direction of determination, their modal range, and their temporal range. Acknowledging such variations yields a preliminary taxonomy of concepts and generates a meta-semantic framework that allows us both to (...) accommodate the full range of cases and to identify a proper subset of concepts for special ameliorative consideration. Ignoring such variations, in contrast, leads to a restricted meta-semantic framework that accommodates only a subset of the particular projects while generating implausible accounts of others. (shrink)

: Contextualism in epistemology has been proposed both as a way to avoid skepticism and as an explanation for the variability found in our use of "knows." When we turn to contextualism to perform these two functions, we should ensure that the version we endorse is well suited for these tasks. I compare two versions of epistemic contextualism: attributor contextualism and methodological contextualism. I argue that methodological contextualism is superior both in its response to skepticism and in its mechanism for (...) changing contexts. However, methodological contextualism still faces two challenges: explaining why we are solidly committed to some contexts, and explaining why knowledge within a context is valuable. I propose virtue contextualism as a useful extension of methodological contextualism, focusing on the way that our virtues depend on our social roles. My proposed virtue contextualism retains the benefits of methodological contextualism while explaining both our commitment to particular contexts and the value of knowledge held within those contexts. (shrink)

The idea that remembering involves an engram, becoming stable and permanent via consolidation, has guided the neuroscience of memory since its inception. The shift to thinking of memory as continuo...

Since its introduction in the 1980s, futility as a concept has held contested meaning and applications throughout medicine. There has been little discussion within the psychiatric literature about the use of futility in the care of individuals experiencing severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI), despite some tacit acceptance that futility may apply in certain cases of psychiatric illness. In this paper, we explore the literature surrounding futility and argue that its connotation within medicine is to describe situations where patients (or (...) their substitute decision-makers) believe that interventions will almost certainly provide no meaningful benefit. We then provide two arguments in support of the use of futility within the care of individuals experiencing SPMI: that some SPMI can be considered a terminal illness, and that the risk-benefit ratio is a dynamic entity such that futility can help describe what Gillett calls the ‘risk of unacceptable badness’ when it comes to considering how an intervention might impact a patient’s quality of life. We posit that capacity should not pose an obstacle to declaring futility when caring for individuals experiencing SPMI and explain how futility is not antithetical to recovery in mental health. Finally, we describe how using futility within psychiatric practice can allow for a reorientation of care by signalling the need to shift to a palliative approach. (shrink)

International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, Vol. 196. -/- Introduction, S. Hutton; Nicholas of Cusa : Platonism at the Dawn of Modernity, D. Moran; At Variance: Marsilio Ficino Platonism And Heresy, M.J.B. Allen; Going Naked into the Shrine:Herbert, Plotinus and the Consructive Metaphor, S.R.L.Clark; Commenius, Light Metaphysics and Educational Reform, J. Rohls ; Robert Fludd’s Kabbalistic Cosmos, W. Schmidt-Biggeman; Reconciling Theory and Fact:The Problem of ‘Other Faiths’ in Lord Herbert and the Cambridge Platonists, D. (...) Pailin; Trinity, Community and Love: Cudworth’s Platonism and the Idea of God, L. Armour; Chaos and Order in Cudworth’s Thought, J-L. Breteau; Cudworth, Prior and Passmore on the Autonomy of Ethics, R. Attfield; Substituting Aristotle: Platonic Themes In Dutch Cartesianism, H. van Ruler; Soul, Body, And World: Plato’s Timaeus And Descartes’ Meditations, C. Wilson ; Locke, Plato and Platonism, G.A.J. Rogers; Reflections on Locke’s Platonism, V. Nuovo; The Platonism at the Core of Leibniz’s Philosophy, C. Mercer; Leibniz and Berkeley: Platonic Metaphysics and ‘The Mechanical Philosophy’, S. Brown; Which Platonism for which Modernity? A Note on Shaftesbury’s Socratic Sea-Cards, L. Jaffro; Platonism, Aesthetics and the Sublime at the Origins Of Modernity, D. Hedley. (shrink)

What is the best model of epistemic agency for virtue epistemology? Insofar as the intellectual and moral virtues are similar, it is desirable to develop models of agency that are similar across the two realms. Unlike Aristotle, the Stoics present a model of the virtues on which the moral and intellectual virtues are unified. The Stoics’ materialism and determinism also help to explain how we can be responsible for our beliefs even when we cannot believe otherwise. In this paper I (...) show how a neo-Stoic model of epistemic agency can address common objections to treating epistemic and moral agency similarly and allow a robust explanatory role for character in determining our actions and beliefs. The picture of epistemic responsibility that flows from this model also explains why we often deserve credit for our knowledge, while demonstrating that the truth of our beliefs is not something for which we are epistemically responsible. (shrink)

Catherine Elgin has recently offered compatibility with autonomy as a plausible criterion for the epistemic virtues. This approach mixes elements of Kantianism with virtue theory. Sasha Mudd has criticized this combination on the grounds that it weakens the structure of Kantian autonomy and undermines its resources for responding to cultural relativism. Elgin’s more recent defense of the role of autonomy has taken a more Kantian turn. Here, I defend Elgin’s original claim, grounding it in a distinctively virtue theoretic account of (...) the development of virtues. Exploring how individuals develop their epistemic virtues within a social context, I show how these virtues can be grounded in both developmental and constitutive relational autonomy. I further argue that a virtue theoretic conception of autonomy should be substantive, not just procedural, and this limits concerns about relativism. (shrink)

This book offers an accessible and inclusive overview of the major debates in the philosophy of action. It covers the distinct approaches taken by Donald Davidson, G.E.M. Anscombe, and numerous others to answering questions like "what are intentional actions?" and "how do reasons explain actions?" Further topics include intention, practical knowledge, weakness and strength of will, self-governance, and collective agency. With introductions, conclusions, and annotated suggested reading lists for each of the ten chapters, it is an ideal introduction for advanced (...) undergraduates as well as any philosopher seeking a primer on these issues. (shrink)

What role can intellectual virtues play in an account of knowledge when we interpret those virtues internalistically, i.e., as depending only on internal states of the cognizer? Though it has been argued that internalist virtues are ill suited to play any role in an account of knowledge, I will show that, on the contrary, internalist virtues can play an important role in recent accounts of knowledge developed to utilize externalist virtues. The virtue account of knowledge developed by Linda Zagzebski is (...) intended to be supplemented by her version of the intellectual virtues which require an external success component. John Greco and Wayne Riggs both develop credit accounts of knowledge on which the abilities we use when we get credit for a true belief must be reliable. I examine the similarities between these three accounts of knowledge and demonstrate that internalist virtues fit into these accounts just as well as externalist virtues. Thus, although internalist virtues do not require a reliable connection to truth, they can still play an important role in defining the truth-requiring concept of knowledge. (shrink)

In a recent case, a Facebook user in Iran posted “death to Khamenei”, which the platform removed as a violation of its policy against threats and incitement. Facebook ultimately overturned the decision on the grounds that the speech, while contravening its rules, was newsworthy. Yet the company’s Oversight Board offered a distinct rationale for allowing the post: “death to Khamenei” wasn’t a threat or an incitement at all, but rather a rhetorical expression of criticism, disdain, or disgust. Who was right? (...) Drawing on longstanding distinctions in the philosophy of language, we argue that the answer depends on whether platform rules should primarily target an utterance’s illocutionary force or instead its perlocutionary effects. Using this case study to trace broader lessons for the proper governance of online speech, we argue that platforms’ rules should primarily target illocutionary force, only considering perlocutionary effects in cases where illocutionary force is ambiguous. (shrink)

Identifying the referent of novel words is a complex process that young children do with relative ease. When given multiple objects along with a novel word, children select the most novel item, sometimes retaining the word‐referent link. Prior work is inconsistent, however, on the role of object novelty. Two experiments examine 18‐month‐old children's performance on referent selection and retention with novel and known words. The results reveal a pervasive novelty bias on referent selection with both known and novel names and, (...) across individual children, a negative correlation between attention to novelty and retention of new word‐referent links. A computational model examines possible sources of the bias, suggesting novelty supports in‐the‐moment behavior but not retention. Together, results suggest that when lexical knowledge is weak, attention to novelty drives behavior, but alone does not sustain learning. Importantly, the results demonstrate that word learning may be driven, in part, by low‐level perceptual processes. (shrink)

If we adopt a virtue approach to epistemology, what form should the intellectual virtues take? In this paper, I argue that the proper structure of the intellectual virtues should be one that follows the tradition of internalism in epistemology. I begin by giving a general characterization of virtue epistemology and then define internalism within that framework. Arguing for internalism, I first consider the thought experiment of the new evil demon and show how externalist accounts of intellectual virtue, though constructed to (...) accommodate our intuitions in such cases, cannot fully do so. I further argue that only adopting an internalist structure of the virtues will provide intellectual virtues that appropriately mirror the structure of the classical moral virtues. Finally, I argue that only an internalist structure of the virtues can explain why the intellectual virtues are valuable in themselves. (shrink)

After offering an opening consideration of the hazards of neoliberalism, I address the general shape of the crisis of care that has evolved under its auspices. Two aspects of this crisis require greater attention: the moral precarity of caregivers and the relational harms of neoliberal capitalism. Thus, I first consider the moral precarity that caregivers experience by drawing on a concept that originates in scholarly work on the experiences of healthcare workers and combat veterans, namely, moral injury. Through this concept, (...) we can see how caregivers in late-stage capitalism face a seemingly unavoidable violation of their own significant moral beliefs. Second, I examine how the crisis of care results not only in individual harms of moral injury but also in harms to relationships themselves, as I continue to track the impact of moral injury on our intrapersonal and interpersonal lives. Ultimately, I argue that an important facet of the crisis of care is how it operates as a crisis of relationality in which our intrapersonal and interpersonal connections are placed under practical and moral strain. In taking a broader view, we can see how the fraying of particular intrapersonal and interpersonal connections can accumulate, resulting in the unraveling of wider webs of interdependency, just when we need them most. Throughout the paper, I zero in on the moral implications of the crisis of care driven by neoliberalism, featuring the damages that caregivers and their relationships sustain when situated in morally precarious ways. In doing so, I drive home the point that the crisis of care under neoliberalism is as much a moral and relational crisis as it is a political and economic one. (shrink)

Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash Introduction The problem of climate change raises some important philosophical, existential questions. I propose a radical solution designed to provoke reflection on the role of humans in climate change. To push the theoretical limits of what measures people are willing to accept to combat it, an extreme population control tool is proposed: allowing people to reproduce only if they make a financial commitment guaranteeing a carbon-neutral upbringing. Solving the problem of climate change in the (...) long run by halting the procreation of human beings is controversial. In the absence of human beings and consequent climate change, other animals and plant species would benefit from an atmosphere more conducive to prolonging their existence and even improving their ability to thrive. If someone were to invent something to reverse the effects of climate change and improve animals’ lives, then human beings’ presence would be justified by the invention. Whether the propagation of the human species is beneficial to anyone or anything but human beings themselves is difficult to answer. Perhaps human beings are unfit to tackle this issue, being unable to judge it objectively. Managing Procreation: An alternative to Piecemeal Approaches Measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gases by nudging individuals and corporations may have a positive effect, but if their behavior is not climate neutral, they continue to contribute to climate change. Consequently, as long as the number of people increases, reducing greenhouse gases is at best a mitigation tool. If humans could rely solely on renewable energy, decreasing the population arguably would not be necessary. Significantly reducing the number of people appears to provide a solution to both problems: people who do not exist do not contribute to climate change, and renewable energy could meet the demand of a smaller population. One option is to let only those who produce the problem pay for its solution. One could determine the expected annual emission of greenhouse gases per person, assuming an average life expectancy, and calculate the costs to compensate them by, e.g., installing extra solar panels. Those expected costs could then be paid by the parents of each new person annually over the first eighteen years of that person’s life by dividing the total expected costs by eighteen. There are also practical difficulties. It would be difficult to determine the payment necessary. What should be done if a child has been born whose parents cannot afford to pay? In addition, child benefits could be canceled, contrary to recent incentives for child births instated in Italy,[1] where additional benefits will be made available to pay for childcare, and Hungary,[2] where women with four children or more will be exempted for life from paying income tax. A transition period could exist once the policy has been adopted, since it would be unreasonable to confront those who are already pregnant with costs they could not reasonably have expected. While the analysis is both hypothetical and theoretical, the impracticality is a noteworthy obstacle. There are several practical issues that cannot be addressed here, like the difficulty of calculating the added negative effects of each new individual and the unlikelihood that many citizens will support politicians who propose adopting policies that discourage having children. The upshot of what I have proposed is that climate change can be solved in the long run without financial costs to society as a whole, notwithstanding the transitional measures that would bring costs with them. Managing Procreation to Reduce Suffering Should this be deemed too harsh a stance, it is important to consider the basic issue of whether it is justified to introduce measures to reduce the number of people in an already overpopulated world, especially if climate change leads to additional suffering. One need not agree with Benatar, but his perspective must at least be taken seriously: It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.[3] Benatar argues that non-existence is preferable to existence,[4] which raises the question why new people should be created at all. Those who question whether this planet will be habitable for future generations presuppose that such generations will exist. If people are not brought into existence, they may be said to be deprived of what life has to offer, but life must not be presupposed to be something positive. Whether this is the case in fact merits an inquiry of its own. A solution to the problem of climate change despite an increased population does not equate to a positive outcome since it merely means that something negative is removed. After all, solving the problem is not a means to an end, but a means to a means, the latter means being a means to a happy life, which does not automatically ensue from a solution to the problem. Benatar, as an anti-natalist, argues that procreation is morally wrong. His basic idea is that there is an asymmetry between pleasure and pain and that the pleasure that is not experienced by someone because that person does not exist is not something bad whereas the absence of pain that is not experienced – for the same reason – is something good.[5] Accordingly, “The reason why we do not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because absent pleasures are not bad.”[6] One may question whether such a perspective suffices to prove that coming into existence is always a harm, but the assertion that coming into existence exposes a new being to potential harm is clear. Objections A drawback of the proposed radical solution, placing the financial impediment on procreation, is that it will not solve climate change in the short run. A significant drop in the number of people may have a positive effect in the long run, but for now the behavior of the people in existence is the problem. Other climate change mitigation policies would necessarily continue. Additionally, there are important practical reasons to continue to procreate. The benefits for the elderly are paid for by the labor force. It is a problem that new generations are created as mere means to benefit older people. Perhaps more troubling, a pyramid scheme is created: by the time those people have themselves become old, a new labor force must have been brought into existence, a process that must presumably continue. If a consideration for people in developing countries to have children is that they cannot provide for themselves at an advanced age, while benefits are either lacking or insufficient, developed countries could collectively fund a pension scheme.[7] This may be low-cost if it is tailored to the living standard in the countries in question and given the life expectancy. Such a pension scheme should be predicated on the countries’ efforts in reducing the birth rate. If the labor force decreases, the economy may suffer. The focus on economic growth is arguably one of the causes of climate change, but if the number of people is reduced, the living standard does not have to be compromised, since the economy can then still grow. If fewer people began to use natural resources and nonrenewable energy at higher per capita rates, then the procreation might not be beneficial to the climate. It would need to be accompanied by regulations on use. One may also object that only wealthy people will be able to afford children. This is correct, but there is no right to have a child one cannot afford. The right to procreate does not entail the right to have as many children as one wants.[8] Yet in many countries, like the United States, it is a fundamental right that is constitutionally protected. There are numerous social, emotional, and even biological reasons why people choose to procreate. These may include the joy of having a family, the hope that children may bring in society, and the intergenerational transference of knowledge. People may have a strong desire to raise children or even a religious duty. If someone procures a sports car that is highly polluting, it would be justifiable to impose a tax in such a case. Many taxes and fines are imposed on corporate polluters. Procreation is significantly different but if the issue is regarded with some distance, then a climate change prevention tax could be appropriate. Some may argue that raising children is expensive already, which nonetheless does not deter people from having children. The tax I propose would be additional and specifically dedicated to carbon neutrality, but it would be difficult to predict whether it would discourage procreation. One last objection may be that for those now dedicated to sustainability for preserving the earth for the sake of future generations, there would be little or no incentive to continue any climate change mitigation efforts at all. If they sense they cannot afford to procreate, they may simply use every natural resource rather than save the earth for animals or for next generations. In a democracy, this problem does not exist if the majority can afford to procreate and agree with legislation on the basis of which such behavior is discouraged or punished. CONCLUSION Prior to their existence, there is no obligation to bequeath the earth to next generations. Such generations will only exist if they are actually created, and there is no obligation to create them. The lack of existence should not be confused with harm. Climate change provides an important reason to stem overpopulation. Ironically, fast rates of procreation may lead to the earth becoming uninhabitable for humans altogether. The radical solution that has been proposed here is an unrealistic scenario. For now, the average global birth rate is just over 18 per thousand people, but there is a need to ensure that the number of people is not greater than the planet can endure. While it is better to prevent problems than to solve them, the interest in procreation and its associated joys, usefulness, and cultural value make mass reduction in the population unlikely. Some countries have smaller average family size than others and can act as models for reducing population in a less radical way. The need to continue efforts to reduce climate change persists. Whether it would curb population growth or not, an additional financial burden applied to neutralizing each person’s offspring’s carbon footprint provides a meaningful thought exercise that could help alleviate the pressure on current climate mitigation strategies. [1] The Local Italy, How Italy’s new ‘Family Act’ aims to increase the plunging birthrate, https://www.thelocal.it/20200612/what-you-need-to-know-about-italys-new-family-act/. [2] BBC, Hungary tries for baby boom with tax breaks and loan forgiveness, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612. [3] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 6. [4] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 44, 58. [5] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 14, 30, 38. [6] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 35. [7] Alastair Leithead, “Can Niger break out of its cycle of poverty?”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41018081; Sebastien Malo, “Fewer children, fewer climate risks? Niger ponders a controversial option”, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-climate-change-familyplanning-idUSKBN1WM11E. [8] Sarah Conly, “The Right to Procreation: Merits and Limits,” American Philosophical Quarterly 42, no. 2 : 105-115, 105, 106. (shrink)

The multiplicity of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) encoded by vertebrate genomes is partly attributable to whole genome duplication events that occurred early in chordate evolution. By surveying the literature for the largest family of DUBs (the ubiquitin-specific proteases), extensive functional redundancy for duplicated genes has been confirmed as opposed to singletons. Dramatically conflicting results have been reported for loss of function studies conducted through RNA interference as opposed to inactivating mutations, but the contradictory findings can be reconciled by a recently proposed (...) compensatory mechanism involving nonsense-mediated RNA degradation. Duplicated genes are often inactivated to become pseudogenes, and it is proposed that such is the fate of the USP15 gene of zebrafish, a commonly used model system. As it is reviewed here, these observations have implications not only for the interpretation of model system phenotypes but also for therapeutic interventions designed to target DUBs. (shrink)

Basándome en la explicación que hace Jean-Paul Sartre de la violencia, sostengo que no solo la mala fe es inevitable en la práctica, sino que una mala fe limitada es necesaria para la autenticidad. Aunque violar la libertad de otros es mala fe, es imposible no violar nunca la libertad de alguien. Además, y de manera fundamental, la estructura ontológica del para-sí implica que este solo puede ser auténtico en el modo de no ser auténtico. Tratar de evitar por completo (...) la mala fe es, en sí mismo, un acto de mala fe, porque es un intento de constituirse como esencialmente auténtico, pero el para-sí no tiene esencia preexistente. Sin embargo, al reconocer la total responsabilidad de uno por elegir la mala fe, se limita su alcance. Esta mala fe limitada es, de hecho, necesaria para la autenticidad, un proyecto vivido en situaciones concretas y no una ley moral categórica que prohíbe la mala fe. [This is a Spanish translation by Leandro Sánchez Marín of the article "The Authentic Person's Limited Bad Faith".]. (shrink)

Aliénés: Une histoire sociale de la folie au xixe siècle dresse l’histoire – ou devrait-on dire les histoires – des aliénés du xixe siècle dans leurs dimensions les plus fines. Si l’histoire de l’asile se donne à voir à travers les trajectoires des aliénés, l’ambition de l’auteur est davantage de faire une histoire “des malades” que des maladies et des institutions. Anatole Le Bras analyse les façons dont l’asile façonne et travaille les corps, interfère avec les classes sociales, les genres...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justice and Generality After CritiqueLisa Landoe Hedrick (bio)The context for my paper is Wesley J. Wildman's understanding of the dispute between modernity and postmodernity; namely, that it is fundamentally a dispute about generality and justice. Where postmodern critique goes wrong, he argues, is in failing to appreciate how a tireless commitment to self-criticism can manage the risks of assertion. We need both consciousness-raising critique and orienting conceptual interpretations of (...) the world—achieving such checks and balances is the promise of a pragmatic theory of inquiry. In contrast to postmodernist asceticism, Wildman invites us to build responsibly. I agree that constructive steps are needed after genealogical, post-colonial, feminist, and other such critical social theories. My concern, shared by several contributors to Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective, is that these steps can be taken too soon, meaning before they have been sufficiently retooled by way of such theories' concerns about the politics of discourse and inquiry and the conceptual tools with which we conceive comparative programs.I begin by detailing Wildman's position with respect to postmodern criticism. I then explore (and second) concerns voiced by LeRon Shults, Timothy Knepper, and Sarah Fredericks with respect to this position. I proceed to put them in constructive conversation with contemporary anthropologists striving for new conceptions of comparative inquiry in response to similar concerns. My purpose is to show how shame-induced asceticism about a certain type of assertion can create space, not just for greater readiness to revise, but for entirely new senses of assertion.Wildman regards the work of postmodernist critics as "far and away the most ascetic form of philosophy ever attempted."1 The contributions of these "philosophical analysts of ideology in politics and discourse" including thinkers "from Freud and before to Derrida and beyond" have greatly improved our awareness and understanding of "the power of narratives and theories to structure imaginations."2 But they have almost exclusively regarded this power in negative ways, as a subject of suspicion and enemy of an authentic [End Page 12] life. Attempting to systematically avoid ideology, these thinkers have developed highly "ritualized form[s] of discourse" as a way of habitually divulging and eliminating frameworks of understanding.This expectation, according to Wildman, is "impossible" to satisfy and is as such "disabling," not to mention "undesirable."3 Ideology can be as helpful as it can be hurtful and, in any case, it is unavoidable: "[these] coded frameworks of interpretation and meaning … are invaluable in helping us to engage our social worlds constructively." He continues, "Without partially hidden frameworks for orienting ourselves to the endless complexities of social life and politics, we have only painful exposure to the harsh light of more self-awareness than we can tolerate, producing paralysis and impotence. Thus, we need both partially submerged frameworks for social orientation and efficient mechanisms for correcting those frameworks when they produce undesirable or unjust effects."4 Bracketing the discussion about how we judge effects to be "undesirable" or "unjust," I wonder about what this statement implies regarding the placating function of frameworks against reality. What is it about which we become aware that produces paralysis? And what is the framework within which we can make such assessments?Wildman does not see any issue in answering such questions; he draws upon evolutionary biology to establish a positive valence for ideology to counterbalance postmodernist concerns.The ability to appeal to the natural sciences is central to Wildman's protest, since a one-sided account of the way power penetrates knowledge overestimates the arbitrariness and irrationality of that knowledge and invalidates any bid for authority on the part of the natural sciences. As I understand him, Wildman takes this postmodernist move to be symptomatic of a broader lack of self-awareness, which forgets that ideological criticism was itself a modern creation.5 He takes the very fact that ideological criticism has emerged to be a testament against postmodernist fatalism. A two-sided account of the way power penetrates knowledge would, presumably on his logic, admit partial arbitrariness and partial irrationality. (It is unclear to me what differentiates arbitrariness from irrationality here, and I'd be grateful for a lesson.)At least in this context... (shrink)

_What is This Thing Called Love?_ provides a clear how-to guide for carrying out psychotherapy with couples from a psychoanalytic perspective. The book draws on both early and contemporary psychoanalytic knowledge, explaining how each theory described is useful in formulating couple dynamics and in working with them. The result is an extremely practical approach, with detailed step-by-step instructions on technique, illuminated throughout by vivid case studies. The book focuses on several key areas including: An initial discussion about theories of love. (...) Progression of therapy from beginning to termination. Transference and countertransference and their unique manifestations in couples therapy. Comparisons between couples therapy and individual therapy. Step-by-step instruction on technique. _What is This Thing Called Love?_ is enlivened with humour and humanness. It is crucial reading for psychoanalytic therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, couples therapists and students who want to learn about--or augment their skills in--this challenging modality. (shrink)

Summary 1. Ecologists and conservation biologists consider many issues when designing a field study, such as the expected value of the data, the interests of the study species, the welfare of individual organisms and the cost of the project. These different issues or values often conflict; however, neither animal ethics nor environmental ethics provides practical guidance on how to assess trade-offs between them. -/- 2. We developed a decision framework for considering trade-offs between values in ecological research, drawing on the (...) field of ecological ethics. We used a case study of the population genetics of three frog species, in which a researcher must choose between four methods of sampling DNA from the study animals. We measured species welfare as the reduction in population growth rate following sampling, and assessed individual welfare using two different definitions: (i) the level of suffering experienced by an animal, and (ii) the level of suffering combined with loss of future life. -/- 3. Tipping the tails of tadpoles ranked as the best sampling method for species welfare, while collecting whole tadpoles and buccal swabbing of adult frogs ranked best for the first and second definitions of individual welfare, respectively. Toe clipping of adult frogs ranked as the worst sampling method for species welfare and the first definition of individual welfare, and equal worst for the second definition of individual welfare. -/- 4. When considering species and individual welfare simultaneously, toe clipping was clearly inferior to the other sampling methods, but no single sampling method was clearly superior to the other three. Buccal swabbing, collecting tadpoles and tail tipping were all preferred options, depending on the definition of individual welfare and the level of precision with which we assessed species welfare. -/- 5.Synthesis and applications. The decision framework we present can be used by ecologists to assess ethical and other trade-offs when planning field studies. A formal decision analysis makes transparent how a researcher might negotiate competing ethical, financial and practical objectives. Defining the components of the decision in this way can help avoid errors associated with human judgement and linguistic uncertainty. (shrink)

This article focuses on faculty members’ allocation of time to teaching and research, conceptualizing these—and the mismatch between preferred and actual time allocations—as examples of gender inequality in academic employment. Utilizing data from the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, I find that women faculty members prefer to spend a greater percentage of their time on teaching, while men prefer to spend more time on research, although these preferences are themselves constrained; women faculty members spend a greater percentage of their (...) workweek on teaching and a smaller percentage on research than men, gaps that cannot be explained by preferences or educational and institutional attributes; and women faculty members have larger time allocation mismatches than men—that is, their actual time allocations to both teaching and research diverge more from their preferred time allocations than those of men. These findings shed light on how gender inequality is both produced and maintained in this aspect of academic employment and have implications for job satisfaction, productivity, and the recruitment and retention of current and future faculty members, especially women. (shrink)

A quest for information concerning one of the missing room interiors of Wray Castle, a Gothic villa near Windermere in Cumbria, built for a Liverpool surgeon in the 1840s, curiously led the National Trust to the wonderfully contrasting neo-classical Manchester Central Library, designed by E. Vincent Harris and completed in 1934. A trawl through the records revealed a keen donor but a reluctant architect. Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century carved oak panels from the library of Wray Castle were removed and donated for use (...) in the new Central Library by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Sir Robert Noton Barclay, before he gave the castle to the National Trust. Archive material held at Manchester shows that Harris was reluctant to accept the panels, stating his reasons firmly, but that he was prevailed upon to do so and finally incorporated them some years later. (shrink)

In this paper I will explore a phenomenology of the menstrual cycle, focusing on the cycle’s rhythm as a form of lived temporality. Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre and Thomas Fuchs I will outline a key connection between embodiment and rhythmic temporality more generally, before applying this analysis to the rhythm of the menstrual cycle specifically. I will consider the phenomenology of the experience of cycling through the phases of pre-ovulation, ovulation, pre-menstruation and menstruation as a pattern, or (...) specifically an embodied rhythm that constitutes a form of lived temporality. I will consider a way that the subject may potentially be alienated from this rhythm as a result of a dominant cultural narrative of “linear time”. I will argue further that this dissonance between the menstrual body and the contemporary world tends to be compounded by a lack of “menstrual literacy” in education and culture. (shrink)

The story of Anna is a brief description of a faithful prophetess which is consciously paired with the previous and more developed narrative of Simeon. Hannah’s story is significant to the Lukan Gospel and yet her voice, which men and women visiting the temple heard repeatedly, is not articulated by Luke. She has been the topic of much research, in as much as three verses in their context can provide, while no one has sought to let Hannah speak for herself. (...) This article aims to do this by exploring her story within the Lukan narrative, considering prophetesses in the Old Testament, and echoing the dynamics of the Jewish story of Judith with which she is intertextually paired. (shrink)

Identifying links between human personality and attributed robot personality is a relatively new area of human–robot interaction. In this paper we report on an exploratory study that investigates human and robot personality traits as part of a human–robot interaction trial. The trials took place in a simulated living-room scenario involving 28 participants and a human-sized robot of mechanical appearance. Participants interacted with the robot in two task scenarios relevant to a ‘robot in the home’ context. It was found that participants’ (...) evaluations of their own personality traits are related to their evaluations of the robot’s personality traits. The statistical analysis of questionnaire data yields several statistically significant results: Participants do not tend to assign their personality traits to match the robots’, For individual personality traits, participants rated themselves as having stronger personality characteristics compared to the robot, Specific significant correlations were found between participants’ and robot personality traits, and Significant group differences for participant gender, age and technological background are highlighted. The results are discussed in light of developing personalized robot companions. (shrink)