The prospect of using cell-based interventions to treat neurological conditions raises several important ethical and policy questions. In this target article, we focus on issues related to the unique constellation of traits that characterize CBIs targeted at the central nervous system. In particular, there is at least a theoretical prospect that these cells will alter the recipients' cognition, mood, and behavior—brain functions that are central to our concept of the self. The potential for such changes, although perhaps remote, is cause (...) for concern and careful ethical analysis. Both to enable better informed consent in the future and as an end in itself, we argue that early human trials of CBIs for neurological conditions must monitor subjects for changes in cognition, mood, and behavior; further, we recommend concrete steps for that monitoring. Such steps will help better characterize the potential risks and benefits of CBIs as they are tested and potentially used for treatment. (shrink)

[Open access] In this book symposium the author takes up questions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethical theory, and intellectual history raised by a group of scholarly interlocutors from a range of backgrounds. In the course of engaging with these issues, he discusses, inter alia, McDowell’s realism, Jonathon Lear’s work on the end of a world, Michael Oakeshott’s view of selfhood, Heidegger’s conception of Jemeinigkeit, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of truth.

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

This paper attempts to reconcile two ideas that seem fundamentally opposed to one another: the reality of the self and the doctrine of no-self. Buddhism offers a form of spiritual equanimity that turns on the denial of a self. Nonetheless, there seem to be good reasons to hold onto the reality of the self. The existence of a self enables us to account for praise and blame, the hopes for oneself that motivate actions, and attachments to the selves of others (...) in bonds of love and affection. I show how it may be possible to reconcile the reality of the self with a particular interpretation of the no-self doctrine by engaging with the work of thinkers from the phenomenological tradition such as Merleau-Ponty, Zahavi, Gallagher, and Petitmengin. (shrink)

Although advertisements for jobs in academe increasingly suggest that mentoring students is a job requirement, and although academic institutions are increasingly prone to consider a faculty member's performance as a mentor at promotion and tenure junctures, there is currently no common approach to conceptualizing or evaluating mentor competence. This article proposes the triangular model of mentor competence as a preliminary framework for conceptualizing specific components of faculty competence in the mentor role. The triangular model includes mentor character virtues and intellectual/emotional (...) abilities, as well as knowledge and skills (competencies) that are seen as expressions of training and experience. The article concludes with discussion of the implications of this model for faculty hiring, training, and evaluation. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the relationships among corporate accountability, reputation, and tax behavior as a corporate social responsibility issue. As part of our investigation, we provide empirical examples of corporate reputation and corporate tax behaviors using a sample of large, U.S.-based multinational companies. In addition, we utilize corporate tax controversies to illustrate possibilities for aggressive corporate tax behaviors of high-profile multinationals to become a reputation threat. Finally, we consider whether reputation serves as an accountability mechanism for corporate tax behaviors (...) among other mechanisms for holding firms accountable for corporate tax behaviors. Our conceptual work points to a complicated relationship among shareholder, stakeholder, and civic responsibilities in the development and execution of firm’s corporate tax strategies. Building on those insights, our empirical illustration considers corporate reputation data alongside data which reflects corporate tax behavior. Based on this work, we find no clear trend or pattern indicating that reputation is associated with or affected by certain types of corporate tax behaviors. That is, our exploratory empirical illustration suggests that corporate tax behavior does not produce broad reputational consequences that would motivate a change in firm behavior. Drawing from celebrity and strategic silence research, we then suggest that reputation may not be a well-functioning mechanism for holding corporations to account for contributing their fair share of the resources used by government for the benefit of society and offer-related theoretical insights. (shrink)

This study examines firms that have experienced an industrial and/or environ-mental crisis and proposes that top management team (TMT) characteristics will affect a firm's ability to minimize the severity of these crisis events. Specifically, heterogeneity in the TMT will exhibit a curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship with the severity of firm crises. Our results suggest that a moderate level of age and tenure heterogeneity are positively related to a firm's ability to successfully minimize the severity of crises. Variance in educational backgrounds was (...) unrelated to crisis severity. Functional background heterogeneity exhibited a curvilinear relationship with crisis severity but was not U-shaped as hypothesized. (shrink)

Despite the importance of linguistic disclosure for philosophical hermeneutics there has been a conspicuous lack of attention to the question of how linguistic disclosure actually works. I examine the mechanics of disclosure by drawing on Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics as well as Ricoeur’s concept of translation and his theory of metaphor. My claim is that the background horizon of the unsaid that differs between languages enables each to disclose different things. This situation underscores the importance of engaging in East-West comparative philosophy, (...) of philosophizing across what Ricoeur calls the radical “fold” (pli) in what can be thought and experienced. (shrink)

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of the lives of most psychotherapy clients. Unfortunately, many psychotherapists lack the training to effectively and ethically address these issues with their clients. At times, religious or spiritual concerns may be relevant to the reasons clients seek treatment, either as areas of conflict or distress for clients or as sources of strength and support that the psychotherapist may access to enhance the benefit of psychotherapy. This article reviews persistent ethical issues and dilemmas relevant to (...) providing psychotherapy to clients for whom issues of religion and spirituality are clinically relevant. Ethical considerations include assessment, advertising and public statements, informed consent, competence, boundary issues and multiple relationships, cooperation with other professionals, and how to effectively integrate religious and spiritual interventions into ongoing psychotherapy. A decision-making process is presented to guide psychotherapists in their clinical work with clients for whom religious and spiritual issues are salient or clearly linked to their presenting problems. (shrink)

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

SummaryThe effects of infant suckling patterns on the post-partum resumption of ovulation and on birth-spacing are investigated among the Gainj of highland New Guinea. Based on hormonal evidence, the median duration of lactational anovulation is 20·4 months, accounting for about 75% of the median interval between live birth and next successful conception. Throughout lactation, suckling episodes are short and frequent, the interval changing slowly over time, from 24 minutes in newborns to 80 minutes in 3-year olds. Maternal serum prolactin concentrations (...) decline in parallel with the changes in suckling patterns, approaching the level observed in non-nursing women by about 24 months post-partum. A path analysis indicates that the interval between suckling episodes is the principal determinant of maternal prolactin concentration, with time since parturition affecting prolactin secretion only in so far as it affects suckling frequency. The extremely prolonged contraceptive effect of breast-feeding in this population thus appears to be due to a slow decline in suckling frequency with time since parturition and absence of a decline over time in hypothalamic–pituitary responsiveness to the suckling stimulus. (shrink)

William Ernest Johnson was a renowned British logician and economist, and also a fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Originally published in 1921, this book forms the first of a three-volume series by Johnson relating to 'the whole field of logic as ordinarily understood'. The series is widely regarded as Johnson's greatest achievement, making a significant contribution to the tradition of philosophical logic. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Johnson's theories, philosophy (...) and the historical development of logic. (shrink)

This note analyses a recent case of the English Court of Appeal in which the applicant, R.G., a gay, H.I.V. positive Colombian claimed asylum on grounds of persecution due to his sexuality. Both the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and the Court of Appeal rejected R.G.’s claim for asylum. The Court of Appeal’s first and most significant reason was that the alleged persecution was not sufficiently serious or life threatening, since R.G. had not suffered actual physical violence throughout the 13 years (...) that he had lived as a closeted gay man in Colombia. Secondly, the court considered the real reason for R.G.’s seeking asylum was his desire to access free health care in order to manage his H.I.V. His allegations of persecution on the grounds of sexuality were viewed as a sham. This note is critical of the approach taken by the Court, which, it is argued, displays an insensitivity to the complexity of sexual identity and its performance and has the effect of perpetuating and legitimating discrimination against lesbians and gay men. (shrink)

Following a clarification of the nature of the “sightedness” and “blindness” which Wittgenstein associated with religious and mystical apprehenson, I argue that his account fails in both its visual and its religious senses. I close with an assessment of the extent to which descriptive language can be used to induce a religious perspective in someone who presently lacks it.

Is it ethical to treat a death row inmate only to stabilize him or her for eventual execution? What happens when a military provider receives highly sensitive intelligence from a client?

This paper focuses on one of the mainstays of Japanese psychiatrist and philosopher Kimura Bin’s (1931–2021) philosophical approach. Kimura’s work is characterized by the intersection of therapeutic, philosophical, and intercultural dimensions in ways that enable his clinical practice and philosophical investigations to mutually inform one another. I examine how this dialectic comes together with his conversion of ordinary Japanese words into philosophical concepts. Explicating the concepts Kimura deploys in developing a phenomenology of the self allows us to make new sense (...) of phenomena ranging from the process of individuation to the collective subjectivity of group life, from the breakdown of the self to its fuller realization. (shrink)

It has often been argued that if a clinician cannot decide which of two treatments to offer, a trial may be ethical, but it is unethical if she/he has a preference. Since individual clinicians usually have a preference, most trials could be judged unethical according to this line of argument. A recent important article in the New England Journal of Medicine argued that individual preferences are not as important as the collective uncertainty of informed clinicians. If clinicians are equally divided, (...) there is a state of collective equipoise and a trial is ethical. However, clinicians will seldom be exactly equally divided. We conducted an ethometric study to find out how much collective equipoise can be disturbed before the potential subjects in a trial think that it is unethical. Half of our subjects perceived a trial as unethical when equipoise was disturbed beyond 70:30. In other words, when 70 per cent of experts favour one treatment, 50 per cent of subjects would prefer that treatment to be administered rather than subjected to critical assessment. When equipoise is disturbed beyond 80:20, less than 3 per cent of subjects would consider human trials morally justifiable. (shrink)

"In the first study of its kind, David W. Johnson's "Watsuji on Nature" reconstructs the astonishing philosophy of nature of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), situating it in relation both to his reception of the thought of Heidegger and to his renewal of core ontological positions in classical Confucian and Buddhist philosophy. Johnson shows that for Watsuji we have our being in the lived experience of nature, one in which nature and culture compose a tightly interwoven texture called "fūdo". By (...) fully unfolding Watsuji's novel and radical claim that this is a setting that is neither fully external to human subjectivity nor merely a product of it, this book also sets out what still remains unthought in this concept, as well as in the relational structure that underwrites it. Johnson argues that what remains unarticulated is nothing less than the recovery of a reenchanted conception of nature and an elucidation of the wide-ranging implications of a relational conception of the self for questions about the disclosive character of experience, the distinction between fact and value, and the possibility of a place-based ecological ethics. In an engagingly lucid and deft analysis, "Watsuji on Nature" radically expands our appreciation of twentieth-century Japanese philosophy and shows what it has to offer to a global philosophical conversation"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

I consider the direct product algebra formed from two isomorphic Clifford algebras. More specifically, for an element x in each of the two component algebras I consider elements in the direct product space with the form x ⊗ x. I show how this construction can be used to model the algebraic structure of particular vector spaces with metric, to describe the relationship between wavefunction and observable in examples from quantum mechanics, and to express the relationship between the electromagnetic field tensor (...) and the stress-energy tensor in electromagnetism. To enable this analysis I introduce a particular decomposition of the direct product algebra. (shrink)

Floridi and Sanders, seminal work, “On the morality of artificial agents” has catalyzed attention around the moral status of computer systems that perform tasks for humans, effectively acting as “artificial agents.” Floridi and Sanders argue that the class of entities considered moral agents can be expanded to include computers if we adopt the appropriate level of abstraction. In this paper we argue that the move to distinguish levels of abstraction is far from decisive on this issue. We also argue that (...) adopting certain levels of abstraction out of context can be dangerous when the level of abstraction obscures the humans who constitute computer systems. We arrive at this critique of Floridi and Sanders by examining the debate over the moral status of computer systems using the notion of interpretive flexibility. We frame the debate as a struggle over the meaning and significance of computer systems that behave independently, and not as a debate about the ‘true’ status of autonomous systems. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that while levels of abstraction are useful for particular purposes, when it comes to agency and responsibility, computer systems should be conceptualized and identified in ways that keep them tethered to the humans who create and deploy them. (shrink)

One of the most suggestive points of contact between the thought of the Japanese philosopher and psychiatrist Kimura Bin and the phenomenology of Renaud Barbaras is the parallel between the way the concepts of life as a movement (of becoming) and as an event (of individuation) function in Barbaras’s work, and the way that Kimura employs the terms bios (the individuated life of the organism) and zoē (life as the shared power in all living things). This conceptual frame enables both (...) thinkers to give an account of life as an event that itself is caught up in the ongoing activity of the world. The article shows that bringing Kimura’s work together with Barbaras’s allows us to apprehend something that neither alone could fully grasp: the character of human life as an unfolding event that, as continuous with the life of the world, can be more fully effectuated as a movement of self-realization. (shrink)