Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page W1-W3.

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate around sustainability by proposing the need for an ecocentric stance to sustainability that reflexively embeds humans in—rather than detached from—nature. We argue that this requires a different way of thinking about our relationship with our world, necessitating a engagement with the sociomaterial world in which we live. We develop the notion of ecocentrism by drawing on insights from sociomateriality studies, and show how radical-reflexivity enables us to appreciate our embeddedness and responsibility for (...) sustainability by bringing attention to the interrelationship between values, actions and our social and material world. We examine the implications of an ecocentric radically reflexive approach to sustainability for management education. (shrink)

This book explores the impact of developments in pharmaceutical medicine in the twentieth century on a Christian ethical evaluation of transhumanism and future 'hi tech' medical enhancement technologies. It suggests that the Christian ethical assessment of proposed future radical transhumanist biomedical technologies should be conducted in the light of responses to past medical advances. Two specific case studies are featured, focusing on the oral contraceptive pill and on Prozac and SSRI antidepressants. Whilst future biomedical technologies may have therapeutic benefits for (...) the relief of disease and contribute to improving human health and welfare, the book considers the implications for society and their acceptability as therapies from a Christian perspective. Stressing the inadequacy of natural law alone, the author proposes an ethical framework for assessing novel biomedical technologies according to the effects on personal autonomy, embodiment and bodily life, and on the Imago Dei. (shrink)

We give a comparison inequality that allows one to estimate the tail probabilities of sums of independent Banach space valued random variables in terms of those of independent identically distributed random variables. More precisely, let X1, . . . , Xn be independent Banach-valued random variables. Let I be a random variable independent of X1, . . . , Xn and uniformly distributed over {1, . . . , n}. Put ˜.

What might a theory of mental imagery look like, and how might one begin formulating such a theory? These are the central questions addressed in the present paper. The first section outlines the general research direction taken here and provides an overview of the empirical foundations of our theory of image representation and processing. Four issues are considered in succession, and the relevant results of experiments are presented and discussed. The second section begins with a discussion of the proper form (...) for a cognitive theory, and the distinction between a theory and a model is developed. Following this, the present theory and computer simulation model are introduced. This theory specifies the nature of the internal representations (data structures) and the processes that operate on them when one generates, inspects, or transforms mental images. In the third, concluding, section we consider three very different kinds of objections to the present research program, one hinging on the possibility of experimental artifacts in the data, and the others turning on metatheoretical commitments about the form of a cognitive theory. Finally, we discuss how one ought best to evaluate theories and models of the sort developed here. (shrink)

Power is an inescapable aspect of all socialrelationships, and inherently is neither goodnor evil. Doctors need power to fulfil theirprofessional obligations to multipleconstituencies including patients, thecommunity and themselves. Patients need powerto formulate their values, articulate andachieve health needs, and fulfil theirresponsibilities. However, both parties canuse or misuse power. The ethical effectivenessof a health system is maximised by empoweringdoctors and patients to develop `adult-adult'rather than `adult-child' relationships thatrespect and enable autonomy, accountability,fidelity and humanity. Even in adult-adultrelationships, conflicts and complexitiesarise. Lack of (...) concordance between doctors andpatients can encourage paternalism but may bebest resolved through negotiated care. Afurther area of conflict involves the `doubleagency' of doctors for both patients and thecommunity. Empowerment of all players is notalways possible but is most likely where eachparty considers and acknowledges power issues. (shrink)

We argue that Madole & Harden's distinction between shallow versus deep genetic causes can bring some clarity to causal claims arising from genome-wide association studies (GWASs). However, the authors argue that GWAS only finds shallow genetic causes, making GWAS commensurate with the environmental studies they hope to supplant. We also assess whether their distinction applies best to explanations or causes.

This book encourages renewed attention by contemporary epistemologists to an area most of them overlook: ancient philosophy. Readers are invited to revisit writings by Plato, Aristotle, Pyrrho, and others, and to ask what new insights might be gained from those philosophical ancestors. Are there ideas, questions, or lines of thought that were present in some ancient philosophy and that have subsequently been overlooked? Are there contemporary epistemological ideas, questions, or lines of thought that can be deepened by gazing back upon (...) some ancient philosophy? The answers are 'yes' and 'yes', according to this book's 13 chapters, written by philosophers seeking to enrich contemporary epistemology through engaging with ancient epistemology. Key features: Blends ancient epistemology with contemporary epistemology, each reciprocally enriching each. Conceptually sensitive chapters by scholars of ancient epistemology. Historically sensitive chapters by scholars of contemporary epistemology. Clearly written chapters, guiding readers at once through central elements both of ancient and of contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper we review the factors alleged to be responsible for the creation of inaccurate reports among preschool-aged children, focusing on so-called "source misattribution errors." We present the first round of results from an ongoing program of research that suggests that source misattributions could be a powerful mechanism underlying children′s false beliefs about having experienced fictitious events. Preliminary findings from this program of research indicate that all children of all ages are equally susceptible to making source misattributions. Data from (...) a follow-up wave of data indicate that very young children may be disproportionately vulnerable to these kinds of errors when the procedure is changed slightly to create mental images more easily. This vulnerability leads younger preschoolers, on occasion, to claim that they actually experienced events that they only thought about. These preliminary findings are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate over the veracity and durability of delayed reports of early memories, repressed memories, dissociative states, and the validity risks posed by therapeutic techniques that entail repeated visually guided imagery inductions. (shrink)

A particular research program on mental imagery is defended against certain sweeping methodological criticisms that have been advanced against it. The central claim is that the approach taken in the program is an appropriate response to the problem of doing empirical research in a theoretical vacuum, and that when it is viewed in this perspective, the criticisms are not merely unfounded, they are inappropriate. The argument for this claim is developed by first describing the program and then analyzing the methodological (...) rationale behind it. (shrink)

Conscience and conscientious objections are important issues in medical law and ethics. However, discussions tend to focus on a particular type of conscience-based claim. These types of claims are based upon predictable, generalizable rules in which an individual practitioner objects to what is otherwise standard medical treatment. However, not all conscience based claims are of this type. There are other claims which are based not on an objection to a treatment in general but in individual cases. In other words, these (...) cases may involve practices which the doctor does not usually object to but does so in this instance on these facts. This paper will explore these types of conscience-based claims in two ways. First, it will explore whether these types of individualised conscience-based claims are really conscience claims at all. Second, it will explore how these claims interact with the other sorts of judgements we expect doctors to make in these cases. (shrink)

"Anton Wilhelm Amo is the first modern African philosopher to study and teach in a European university and write in the European philosophical tradition. We give an extensive historical and philosophical introduction to Amo's life and work, and provide Latin texts, with facing translations and explanatory notes, of Amo's two philosophical dissertations, On the Impassivity of the Human Mind and the Philosophical Disputation containing a Distinct Idea of those Things that Pertain either to the Mind or to our Living and (...) Organic Body, both published in 1734. The Impassivity is an extended argument that the mind cannot be acted on, that sensation is a being-acted-on by the sensed object, and therefore that sensation does not belong to the mind, and must belong instead to the body The Distinct Idea works out the implications for the mind's actions, and tries to show how the mind understands, wills, and effects things through the body by 'intentions' which direct motions in our body intentionally toward external things. Both dissertations try to show how far each type of human act belongs to the mind, how far to the body, and expose and resolve earlier philosophers' self-contradictions on these questions"--. (shrink)

This book provides a major review of the state of international theory. It is focused around the issue of whether the positivist phase of international theory is now over, or whether the subject remains mainly positivistic. Leading scholars analyse the traditional theoretical approaches in the discipline, then examine the issues and groups which are marginalised by mainstream theory, before turning to four important new developments in international theory (historical sociology, post-structuralism, feminism, and critical theory). The book concludes with five chapters (...) which look at the future of the subject and the practice of international relations. This survey brings together key figures who have made leading contributions to the development of mainstream and alternative theory, and will be a valuable text for both students and scholars of international relations. (shrink)

This article explores the use of empirical data when considering whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and voluntary euthanasia. In particular, it focuses on the evidence available to the Select Committee for the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill on whether or not covert euthanasia is taking place in the UK under the current prohibition of PAS and voluntary euthanasia. The article shows that there is an insufficient evidentiary basis to make any claims about the extent of covert euthanasia (...) within the UK, although there is sufficient evidence to conclude that instances of covert euthanasia do happen. The article also calls for more research to be conducted in order to determine the rate of covert euthanasia in order to inform debate about the legalization of end-of-life decisions such as PAS and voluntary euthanasia. (shrink)

Private law presents itself in normative language—in the language of rights, duties, obligations and so on. This language presumes that private law tells citizens how they ought to behave. It is striking, therefore, that contemporary legal theorists often explain and evaluate private law with little reference to normativity. Theorists who write from welfarist and other broadly utilitarian perspectives, in particular, typically analyse private law exclusively in terms of the material incentives that it creates. These writers focus on the material consequences (...) (penalties, rewards, costs, subsidies, etc) that the law attaches to actions and, in particular, on the ways in which the practice of attaching such consequences influences citizens’ behaviour. Against this background, this article makes three main arguments: (i) citizens sometimes do what legal rules stipulate simply because they are legal rules and not because of the incentives that the law offers for compliance; (ii) legal normativity is practically important for anyone interested in how the law influences behaviour because legal norms influence behaviour in different ways than legal incentives influence behaviour; and (iii) legal normativity is important not just for understanding private law rules, but also for understanding private law court orders. At its broadest, then, this article’s argument is that it is impossible to understand the structure and operation of private law without understanding the importance of legal norms qua norms—and that this is true for utilitarians as much as for anyone else. (shrink)

The “life phenomenology” theme of the 35th International Human Science Research Conference challenged participants to consider pressing questions of life and of living with others of our own and other-than-human kinds. The theme was addressed by keynote speakers Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Ralph Acampora and David Abram who invoked a motile, affective and linguistic awareness of how we might dwell actively and ethically amongst human communities and with the many life forms we encounter in the wider, wilder world we have in common. (...) Conference participants were provoked to consider the following questions: “How might phenomenology have us recognize a primacy of movement and bring us in touch with the motions and gestures of the multiple lifeworlds of daily living? What worlds from ecology to technology privilege certain animations? What are the affects and effects of an enhanced phenomenological sensitivity? What senses, feelings, emotions and moods of self-affirmation and responsiveness to others sustain us in our daily lives? And to what extent might the descriptive, invocative, provocative language of phenomenology infuse the human sciences and engender a language for speaking directly of life?”. (shrink)

This paper is based on the eco-pedagogical aspiration to live with domesticated animals in accordance with Alphonso Lingis's Community of those who have nothing in common. I draw upon this remarkable text as well as Lingis's animal writings in describing moments and movements of pathic community. Such a community in affective affiliation with one another, where symbiotic relations are possible and bodily kinships are exercised, exemplifies what is possible in more rational human communities where domesticating impulses seek to harness the (...) vital powers of coconstitutive life. Of telling significance are predatory threats, the manner in which they appear, and the protectionist responses they occasion. By recasting these threats and responses in terms of motional affordances, it may well be possible to move with non-human creatures, both literally and figuratively, beyond the anthropocentric confines of domestication. Animals with whom we appear to have nothing specifically, or in species terms, in common can show us how to cultivate more pathic communities of our own kind. (shrink)

This book discusses a strategy for the future adoption of human enhancement technologies in a pluralistic society. The book argues that biomedical technology capability, ethical evaluation and effective public policy are all needed to ensure that enhancement technologies are adopted as a common good, consistent with Christian ethical principles.

BackgroundOne of the next frontiers in HIV research is focused on finding a cure. A new priority includes people with HIV (PWH) with non-AIDS terminal illnesses who are willing to donate their bodies at the end-of-life (EOL) to advance the search towards an HIV cure. We endeavored to understand perceptions of this research and to identify ethical and practical considerations relevant to implementing it.MethodsWe conducted 20 in-depth interviews and 3 virtual focus groups among four types of key stakeholders in the (...) United States (PWH, biomedical HIV cure researchers, HIV clinicians, and bioethicists) to obtain triangulated viewpoints because little was known about the ethics of this topic. Each group was queried as to ethical considerations, safeguards, and protections for conducting HIV cure-related research at the EOL to ensure this research remains acceptable.ResultsAll four key stakeholder groups generally supported HIV cure-related research conducted at the EOL because of the history of altruism within the PWH community and the potential for substantial scientific knowledge to be gained. Our informants expressed that: (1) Strong stakeholder and community involvement are integral to the ethical and effective implementation, as well as the social acceptability of this research; (2) PWH approaching the EOL should not inherently be considered a vulnerable class and their autonomy must be respected when choosing to participate in HIV cure-related research at the EOL; (3) Greater diversity among study participants, as well as multi-disciplinary research teams, is necessitated by HIV cure-related research at the EOL; (4) The sensitive nature of this research warrants robust oversight to ensure a favorable risk/benefit balance and to minimize the possibility of therapeutic misconception or undue influence; and (5) Research protocols should remain flexible to accommodate participants’ comfort and needs at the EOL.ConclusionBecause of the ethical issues presented by HIV cure-related research at the EOL, robust ethical safeguards are of utmost importance. The proposed ethical and practical considerations presented herein is a first step in determining the best way to maximize this research’s impact and social value. More much inquiry will need to be directed towards understanding context-specific and cultural considerations for implementing EOL HIV cure research in diverse settings. (shrink)

Our capabilities in space are growing almost as fast as our ambitions. Many nations, companies, and private actors are currently vying to secure historic “firsts” in space, raising complex social and ethical questions. There is surprisingly little serious analysis of these issues, however, and they are rarely discussed in undergraduate class discussions, despite their popularity with students. To help correct this deficit, a student research team designed 11 case studies to help instructors across the curriculum introduce space into their classes. (...) These are designed for ease of use, with self-contained background information, suggested readings/movies, and a series of juicy questions. (shrink)

What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work—a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature—offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the playwright (...) and his political-philosophical views. (shrink)

In The Foundations of Private Law James Gordley argues that the modern private law in common and civil law jurisdictions is best explained on the basis of a neo-Aristotelian theory first developed by a group of 16th century Spanish thinkers known as the ‘late scholastics’. The concepts of distributive and commutative justice that, according to Gordley, lay at core of the scholastics’ theory and that explain, respectively, modern property law and the law of obligations , though ignored and disparaged for (...) much of the 19th and 20th centuries, are today familiar to most private law scholars . Yet Gordley’s understanding of these concepts and, in particular, of their relationship both to one another and to the apex idea of ‘living a distinctively human life’ is unique, setting his account apart not just from utilitarian and other ‘modern’ accounts of private law, but also from other neo-Aristotelian theories . In Gordley’s presentation, commutative justice is derived from distributive justice and distributive justice is derived from the idea of the distinctively human life. Confidently traversing a wide range of historical, comparative and theoretical materials, the book’s argument is at once ambitious, learned, and elegantly presented. But as a theoretical account of the foundations of the modern private law it is unpersuasive. The book’s own account of property law suggests that in practice the idea of distributive justice does little, if any, work in explaining the rules we actually have. Nor is it clear how, if at all, distributive justice flows from the allegedly foundational idea of the ‘distinctively human life’. As for commutative justice, it is not clear why, if is derived from distributive justice in the way Gordley believes, the courts should care about it. Finally, but perhaps most significantly, Gordley’s conception of commutative justice is unable to account for central features of the law of obligations. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ‘flesh of the world’ speaks to an embodied connection to the spaces we inhabit deeply, primally, elementally. Flesh suggests water and its circulations, air and its respirations, earth and its conformations, fire and its inspirations. Flesh speaks to our bodily relations with the elements of a more-than-human world. This paper explores the felt imperative to these relations where, as Merleau-Ponty put it, ‘all distance is traversed’ and wherein movement arises not specifically in the body, but in the nexus (...) and intertwining of bodily engagement with the world. There is a primacy to movement that registers in the living body in its carnal ties to the elements of the world’s flesh. The ‘radical reflection’ on the ‘flesh of the world’ to which this analysis aspires in turn bears upon the general field of gestural reciprocities and connections, providing the insight that intimate gestures of the flesh, such as the embrace, are primordial attunements, motions of rhythm and reciprocity, that emanate from the world in identification with it. The embrace is fundamentally, elementally, a gesture of landscape dwelling. A phenomenology of elemental motions provides the textual reminder that to be at home in various landscapes means to know what it is to be embraced corporeally, sensually, within the human and especially the more-than-human folds of the world. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 6, Edition 1 May 2006. (shrink)

A fundamental understanding of gain provided by motion prediction in wireless ad hoc routing is currently lacking. This paper examines benefits in routing obtainable via prediction. A theoretical best-case non-predictive routing model is quantified in terms of both message overhead and update time for non-predictive routing. This best- case model of existing routing performance is compared with predictive routing. Several specific instances of predictive improvements in routing are examined. The primary contribution of this paper is quantification of predictive gain for (...) wireless ad hoc routing. (shrink)

Those involved in end-of-life decision making must take into account both legal and ethical issues. This book starts with a critical reflection of ethical principles including ideas such as moral status, the value of life, acts and omissions, harm, autonomy, dignity and paternalism. It then explores the practical difficulties of regulating end-of-life decisions, focusing on patients, healthcare professionals, the wider community and issues surrounding 'slippery slope' arguments. By evaluating the available empirical evidence, the author identifies preferred ways to regulate decisions (...) and minimise abuses at the end of life, and outlines an ethical theory which can provide practical guidance for those engaged in end-of-life decisions"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)