Recently academic freedom and academic tenure have been in the media spotlight because of concerns that academic freedom is being misused and that academic tenure provides job security to a select few. First, this paper provides a brief history of these two institutions and follow with an analysis using Stone’s (2002) policy analysis format. Second, this paper examines the university through two lenses: (a) an economic market lens; and (b) a community lens. These two lenses offer contrasting views of the (...) university and help explain the different views of academic freedom and tenure. The authors suggest that faculty make use of the economic model to increase their chances of maintaining tenure in a university atmosphere frequently characterized by a business approach rather than a collegial one. Recommendations for future research are also provided. (shrink)

This book, written by four internationally renowned bioethicists and first published in 2000, was the first systematic treatment of the fundamental ethical issues underlying the application of genetic technologies to human beings. Probing the implications of the remarkable advances in genetics, the authors ask how should these affect our understanding of distributive justice, equality of opportunity, the rights and obligations as parents, the meaning of disability, and the role of the concept of human nature in ethical theory and practice. The (...) book offers a historical context to contemporary debate over the use of these technologies by examining the eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The questions raised in this book will be of interest to any reflective reader concerned about science and society and the rapid development of biotechnology, as well as to professionals in such areas as philosophy, bioethics, medical ethics, health management, law, and political science. (shrink)

Counterfactual scepticism holds that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. The main argument for this view appeals to a ‘chance undermines would’ principle: if ψ would have some chance of not obtaining had ϕ obtained, then ϕ □→ ψ is false. This principle seems to follow from two fairly weak principles, namely, that ‘chance ensures could’ and that ϕ □→ ψ and ϕ ⋄→ ¬ ψ clash. Despite their initial plausibility, I show that these principles are independently problematic: (...) given some modest closure principles, they entail absurdities. Moreover, on the most promising strategy for saving these principles, they do not, in the relevant sense, entail the chance-undermines-would principle. Instead, they entail a principle that only supports counterfactual indeterminism, the view that most ordinary counterfactuals are chancy, that is, not settled true. I demonstrate this by developing an indeterminist semantics that vindicates the clash and chance-ensures-could principles but not the chance-undermines-would principle. This view, I argue, offers a better account of our credal and linguistic judgements than counterfactual scepticism. (shrink)

'Uncertainty and chance' is a subject with a broad span, in that there is no academic discipline or walk of life that is not beset by uncertainty and chance. In this book a range of approaches is represented by authors from varied disciplines: natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences and medical sciences. At one extreme, this volume is concerned with the foundations of probability. At the other extreme, we have scholars who acknowledge the concept of chance and uncertainty (...) but do not cope with it by means of systematic measurement or quantative analysis. (shrink)

This book, written by four internationally renowned bioethicists and first published in 2000, was the first systematic treatment of the fundamental ethical issues underlying the application of genetic technologies to human beings. Probing the implications of the remarkable advances in genetics, the authors ask how should these affect our understanding of distributive justice, equality of opportunity, the rights and obligations as parents, the meaning of disability, and the role of the concept of human nature in ethical theory and practice. The (...) book offers a historical context to contemporary debate over the use of these technologies by examining the eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The questions raised in this book will be of interest to any reflective reader concerned about science and society and the rapid development of biotechnology, as well as to professionals in such areas as philosophy, bioethics, medical ethics, health management, law, and political science. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to explore the significance of the terms ‘accident’ and ‘chance’ when they are used in connection with events that are sometimes said to happen ‘by accident’ and sometimes ‘by chance’. The significance of these terms is not always made clear in everyday conversation, and here I shall try to discuss the distinction between them and the sorts of situation therefore to which they properly apply. Perhaps an example will show that these expressions are (...) different. Thus ‘I met Smith in the library by chance’ is different from ‘I met Smith in the library by accident’, different because these statements reflect different interpretations of the events referred to. We see accidental and chance events in a different light. And this is the point; ‘accident’ and ‘chance’ are terms of interpretation, not of description. And I hope to show that the expression ‘by chance’ is appropriate in contexts which develop as a result of human decisions and intentions in a way in which the expression ‘by accident’ is not appropriate. (shrink)

Besides serving us at the growing edge of science and beyond, metaphor figures even in our first learning of language; or, if not quite metaphor, something akin to it. We hear a word or phrase on some occasion, or by chance we babble a fair approximate ourselves on what happens to be a pat occasion and are applauded for it. On a later occasion, then, one that resembles the first occasion by our lights, we repeat the expression. Resemblance of (...) occasions is what matters, here as in metaphor. We generalize our application of the expression by degrees of subjective resemblance of occasions, until we discover from other people's behavior that we have pushed analogy too far and exceeded the established usage. If the crux of metaphor is creative extension through analogy, then we have forged a metaphor at each succeeding application of that early word of phrase. These primitive metaphors differ from the deliberate and sophisticated ones, however, in that they accrete directly to our growing store of standard usage. They are metaphors stillborn. It is a mistake, then, to think of linguistic usage as literalistic in its main body and metaphorical in its trimming. Metaphor, or something like it, governs both the growth of language and our acquisition of it. What comes as a subsequent refinement is rather cognitive discourse itself, at its most dryly literal. The neatly worked inner stretches of science are an open space in the tropical jungle, created by clearing tropes away. W. V. Quine is the Edgar Pierce professor emeritus of philosophy at Harvard University. His many influential works include Methods of Logic, Word and Object, and The Roots of Reference. "On the Nature of Moral Values," his previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, appeared in the Spring 1979 issue. (shrink)

Most people believe that everything happens for a reason. Whether it is “God’s will,” “karma” or “fate,” we want to believe that an overarching purpose undergirds everything, that nothing in the world--especially a disaster or tragedy--is a random, meaningless event. This dilemma presents itself provocatively in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution that, in the conventional scientific understanding, is driven by random chance. Reconciling chance and divine purpose poses challenges to the Judeo-Christian tradition. But the Hebrew Scriptures, in the (...) ancient and powerful story of Job, reveal that questions of purpose and order have long been a part of the conversation. Although the Bible generally affirms that God blesses the righteous in an orderly way, the story of Job is a powerful counterexample to this orderly scheme. The achingly beautiful but tragic story of Job, in concert with the modern quantum picture of the world, push back against the idea that “everything happens for a reason.”. (shrink)

This paper estimates the effects of human capital skills largely created through education on life's chances over the life cycle. Qualifications as a measure of these skills affect earnings, and schooling affects private and social non-market benefits beyond earnings. Private non-market benefits include better own-health, child health, spousal health, infant mortality, longevity, fertility, household efficiency, asset management and happiness. Social benefits include increased democratisation, civil rights, political stability, reduced crime, lower prison, health and welfare costs, and new ideas. Individual benefits (...) enhance community-wide development. New 'narrow' social rates of return using UK Labour Force earnings correct for institutional costs, longitudinal trends and ability. The paper's objective, however, is to estimate these earnings plus non-market outcomes comprehensively without overlaps and also relative to costs. Non-market outcomes are measured by averaging regression coefficients from published studies that meet scientific standards. New UK 'narrow' social rates of return average 12.1 per cent for short-cycle and 13.6 per cent for bachelor's programmes. Augmented with non-market effects on life chances, they are over twice that. Short degrees are found effective for regional development and have potential for developing countries. (shrink)

During his lifetime Peirce was appreciated for his erudite and accurate thinking by experts in a few borderline philosophical subjects—in particular the history and philosophy of physics, semeiotics, mathematical logic, the theory of probability—and was suspected by a few prescient souls to be a general philosopher of outstanding genius; but by academic and other publishers he was consistently regarded as a bad bet. These facts largely explain the history of Peircean publication in the last few decades. It was only in (...) 1958, nearly fifty years since Peirce stopped writing, that the wealthiest university in the wealthiest nation in the world was able to complete its eight volume edition of his Collected Papers; but in the meanwhile at least three useful smaller anthologies of Peirce’s writings had been put before the public. Professor Wiener’s volume makes a fourth. And the obvious initial question is: was this additional anthology really necessary? (shrink)

Haeckels theory of recapitulation shall be extended by the following rule: During the ontogenetical recapitulation of the phenotypical effects, the recapitulation of the phylogenetical natural selection factors according to the genotypical potentials is a condition of manifestation. The phylogenetical natural selectionfactor produces the activation of the gen as ontogenetical manifestation-stimulus. Factor of natural selection is the one of the extern or intern environment to which has happened the adaption in the phylogenesis. Concerning the intern environments the phenotypical effect of the (...) preliminary phase of development is not only the phylogenetical factor of natural selection according to the genotypical potential of the following phase of development, but also the ontogenetical stimulus of manifestation for the phenotypical effect of the following phase of development. Phenotypical effects can present themselves as stimulus-dependencial modifications, which are bound to the manifestation-stimulus and cease after its disappearence. They can also present themselves as stimulus-independencial lasting modifications, which become independent from the manifestation-stimulus and remain preserved after its ceasing, because the gen once activated by the stimulus reproduces itself in the state of being activated and is so transmitted during the multiplication of cells from cell to cell and during the multiplication of organisms from generation to generation. This view gives new chances for interpretating causal connections of the phylogenetical evolution and involution as well as new possibilities for an explanation of evolutionary mechanism of maturation and of involutionary mechanism of ageing in the ontogenesis and also the occuring appearences of acceleration and retardation.DieHaeckel'sche Rekapitulationstheorie wird durch die folgende Rekapitulationsregel erweitert: Bei der ontogenetischen Rekapitulation der erscheinungsbildlichen Leistungen ist die Rekapitulation der phylogenetischen Auslesefaktoren der entsprechenden erbildlichen Fähigkeiten Manifestationsbedingung. Der phylogenetische Auslesefaktor bewirkt als ontogenetischer Manifestationsreiz die Genaktivierung. Auslesefaktor ist derjenige Faktor der äusseren oder inneren Umwelt, an den in der Phylogenese die Anpassung erfolgt ist. Im Bereich der inneren Umwelt ist daher die erscheinungsbildliche Leistung der vorhergehenden Entwicklungsstufe sowohl der phylogenetische Auslesefaktor für die erbbildliche Fähigkeit der nachfolgenden Entwicklungsstufe als auch der ontogenetische Manifestationsreiz für die erscheinungsbildliche Leistung der nachfolgenden Entwicklungsstufe. Die erscheinungsbildlichen Leistungen können als reizabhängige Modifikation auftreten, die also vom Manifestationsreiz abhängig bleibt und nach seinem Aufhören auch wieder verschwindet, sie können aber auch als reizunabhängige Dauermodifikation auftreten, die also vom Manifestationsreiz unabhängig wird und nach seinem Aufhören erhalten bleibt, weil das durch den Reiz einmal aktivierte Gen sich im Status des Aktiviertseins bei der Zellvermehrung von Zelle zu Zelle und bei der Vermehrung der Organismen von Generation zu Generation fortpflanzt. Damit ergeben sich neue Möglichkeiten einer Deutung der Kausalzusammenhänge bei der phylogenetischen Evolution und Involution, sowie neue Ansätze einer Erklärung des Evolutionsmechanismus der Reifung und des Involutionsmechanismus des Alterns in der Ontogenese, sowie der dabei auftretenden Erscheinungen der Acceleration und der Retardation. (shrink)

Patients who search for a better treatment, an increased quality of life, or even a chance to preserve life itself may claim to have an interest in accessing investigational medicinal products (IMP), particularly when no validated treatment for their disease or condition exists. For many, awaiting the uncertain and time-consuming process of converting an IMP into an approved drug may not appear a realistic option, as prognoses may be grim and a dramatic outcome may seem hard to avert. Gaining (...) access to an IMP, however, often proves to be a difficult enterprise with a highly uncertain outcome. In addition, the process of seeking access to IMP is surrounded by various ethical issues that will be explored in this article. This paper explores the ethical concerns in two potential tracks of seeking access to IMP for minors: on an individual basis, or collectively, as a patient organisation. In this discourse, several unique ethical and regulatory concerns related to the direct negotiation of access to IMP for minor patients are identified, with a focus on product safety, the recruitment of research subjects, the unnoticed entry of market mechanisms in the recruitment of research subjects, and the sidelining of third parties in the recruitment process. The paper concludes with a concise reflection on the way forward. The quest for access to investigational drugs is particularly relevant to paediatric practice, in which a significant share of the drugs prescribed has never been tested in children or labelled for use in the paediatric population. (shrink)

356 nonquit O, oinquit Q, linquit Q corr., oinquid G, noscit Lachmann. 359 adsittens OQ, adsistens Q corr. In the summer of 1919, in the high Sierra of California, I chanced to talk with a cattleman who had driven his herd from the lower valleys to the highlands for summer pasture. When he had arrived at his destination he found a cow missing. He retraced his route, and forty miles below he found the cow by the roadside.Her calf, by reason (...) of its weakness, had been picked up by a waggoner and brought on, and the cow was found at the identical spot where the calf had been taken from the ground; the cow had found the place and had remained there for five days. The occurrence gave rise to a general discussion by the cattlemen present concerning the habits of these animals. When a cow misses her calf she will go by memory to the place where the calf was last seen by her, and will stay there for days; but she will graze and not go hungry herself. The cow will also search by smell; she can smell a herd or the odour left on bushes or that attached to footsteps for hours certainly, possibly for days. The calf also will stay for days where the mother left it. The bereaved cow will try to find her calf first by sight, then by memory, and lastly by smell. (shrink)

As I had rejected en bloc references to Bacchanalia as indications of date, it was a mere chance which led me, after the above had left my hands, to look up Cas. 980 ‘ nunc Bacchae nullae ludunt,’ quoted in Schanz, R. Lit.3, p. 78. As this affords an excellent opportunity of testing my conclusions, perhaps a word or two will not be out of place.

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

Odysseus' man, disguised as the captain of a merchant ship, is explaining to Neoptolemus how he chanced unexpectedly to meet Neoptolemus' sailors. Jebb's note, ‘the same land ; not, strictly, the same “spot” ’, and his rendering, ‘off the same coast’, somewhat contradict one another.

A probability distribution is regular if it does not assign probability zero to any possible event. Williamson argued that we should not require probabilities to be regular, for if we do, certain “isomorphic” physical events must have different probabilities, which is implausible. His remarks suggest an assumption that chances are determined by intrinsic, qualitative circumstances. Weintraub responds that Williamson’s coin flip events differ in their inclusion relations to each other, or the inclusion relations between their times, and this can account (...) for their differences in probability. Haverkamp and Schulz rebut Weintraub, but their rebuttal fails because the events in their example are even less symmetric than Williamson’s. However, Weintraub’s argument also fails, for it ignores the distinction between intrinsic, qualitative differences and relations of time and bare identity. Weintraub could rescue her argument by claiming that the events differ in duration, under a non-standard and problematic conception of duration. However, we can modify Williamson’s example with Special Relativity so that there is no absolute inclusion relation between the times, and neither event has longer duration except relative to certain reference frames. Hence, Weintraub’s responses do not apply unless chance is observer-relative, which is also problematic. Finally, another symmetry argument defeats even the appeal to frame-dependent durations, for there the events have the same finite duration and are entirely disjoint, as are their respective times and places. (shrink)

Due to restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators were not allowed to attend soccer matches at the end of the 2019/2020 season. Previous studies suggest that the absence of a home crowd changes the home field advantage in terms of match outcomes, offensive performance, and referee decisions. However, because of the small sample sizes, these changes may be random rather than meaningful. To test this, we created 1,000,000 randomized samples from the previous four seasons with the exact same number of (...) matches played behind closed doors in Europe’s four most elite soccer leagues at the end of the 2019/2020 season. We found that across countries, performance indices and referee decisions indeed changed to the detriment of the home team beyond the level of chance. However, this overall pattern could be ascribed to specific countries. Most importantly, the proportion of points won by the home teams declined significantly only in Germany, which was accompanied by a meaningful increase in the proportion of goals scored by the away teams and the proportion of yellow cards given to the home teams. We conclude that the home field advantage may indeed be lost when spectators are absent. However, in future studies, more detailed behavioral analyses are needed to determine the robustness and the behavioral determinants of this phenomenon across leagues and countries. (shrink)

In many cases, the “therapeutic misconception” may be an unavoidable part of the imperfect process of recruitment and consent in medical researchPaul Appelbaum, Loren Roth, and Charles Lidz coined the term “therapeutic misconception” in 1982.1 They described it as the misconception that participating in research is the same as receiving individualised treatment from a physician. It referred to the research subject’s failure to appreciate that the aim of research is to obtain scientific knowledge, and that any benefit to the subject (...) is a by-product of that knowledge. More recent studies by Appelbaum and Lidz have shown that this phenomenon is just as pervasive now as it was twenty four years ago.2 The problem pertains not to any duty of care for researchers but to participants’ unfounded belief in the therapeutic potential of research.3 It is especially acute in phase I oncology trials, which aim to test the toxicity and highest tolerable dose of anticancer drugs.To remedy this situation, many have argued that both clinicians and researchers need to do more in explaining to subjects the differences between experimental research and standard care. Clinicians and researchers recruiting potential subjects for research must present information about the expected risks and benefits of participation in research in a more realistic and straightforward way.4 In one recent examination of consent forms for phase I oncology trials, Sam Horng et al found that, in the section on “benefit”, only one of 272 forms stated that the subjects were expected to benefit. They also found that 11 consent forms stated clearly that subjects would not benefit, 25 forms communicated uncertainty about benefit, and 5 forms said nothing about the chance of benefit. Interestingly, 139 forms alluded to the …. (shrink)

This research examined how strongly appraisals can differentiate positive emotions and how they differentiate positive emotions. Thirteen positive emotions were examined, namely, amusement, awe, challenge, compassion, contentment, gratitude, hope, interest, joy, pride, relief, romantic love and serenity. Participants from Singapore and the USA recalled an experience of each emotion and thereafter rated their appraisals of the experience. In general, the appraisals accurately classified the positive emotions at rates above chance levels, and the appraisal–emotion relationships conformed to predictions. Also, the (...) appraisals were largely judged by participants as relevant to their positive emotion experiences, and the appraisal–emotion relationships were largely consistent across the two countries. (shrink)

A probability distribution is regular if no possible event is assigned probability zero. While some hold that probabilities should always be regular, three counter-arguments have been posed based on examples where, if regularity holds, then perfectly similar events must have different probabilities. Howson (2017) and Benci et al. (2016) have raised technical objections to these symmetry arguments, but we see here that their objections fail. Howson says that Williamson’s (2007) “isomorphic” events are not in fact isomorphic, but Howson is speaking (...) of set-theoretic representations of events in a probability model. While those sets are not isomorphic, Williamson’s physical events are, in the relevant sense. Benci et al. claim that all three arguments rest on a conflation of different models, but they do not. They are founded on the premise that similar events should have the same probability in the same model, or in one case, on the assumption that a single rotation-invariant distribution is possible. Having failed to refute the symmetry arguments on such technical grounds, one could deny their implicit premises, which is a heavy cost, or adopt varying degrees of instrumentalism or pluralism about regularity, but that would not serve the project of accurately modelling chances. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Receiving the Gift of Life: My Kidney Transplant StoryJudith W. RyanAs one of three siblings who all inherited an unfortunate gene from our mother, I was born with polycystic kidney disease (PKD). None of us knew of this, however, until later middle age, and my mother not until she was 76. I was the last sibling diagnosed at the age of 56. My brothers had been diagnosed some years (...) before and jokingly started to look at me as a universal donor. Since I had a 50-50 chance of having PKD and with a mother who was one of eight children with none of her siblings known to have the disease, I had not felt an urgency to be tested. Besides, I had no signs or symptoms. But now there was a reason. I made an appointment for a renal ultrasound and while having the procedure, I tipped the screen so that I could see the results. Although the technician was not happy with this, I was repaid with the view of my kidneys looking full of bubbles. Yes, our family was three for three in the genetic game of roulette.I knew immediately how I was going to navigate this health issue. As an adult nurse practitioner I had a very good understanding of what was to come. I knew my blood type “O” was the most common and would mean the longest wait for a deceased donor transplant, at least five years if I were lucky and only after enduring several years of progressing renal failure. In addition, I had cared for dialysis patients and watched my mother endure with difficulty both peritoneal and hemodialysis prior to her death a year before my diagnosis. Knowing I would not choose dialysis left me hoping for a miracle of a living donor or, more realistically, managing my disease as best I could until I died.The next step was managing PKD symptoms and issues as my kidneys continued to fail. One of the errors in my thinking during this time turned out to be that because I had two brothers who had the same disease and were ahead of me in their disease progression, I could follow their lead. It turned out that we manifested our disease very differently. My younger brother, who was diagnosed first, had to deal with significant pain from persistent cyst ruptures, monthly, biweekly then weekly. This continued even after his transplant until he had his native kidneys removed. The other two of us did not have to deal with cyst ruptures. Additionally, anemia was no problem for my younger brother but was for us older siblings. Significant fatigue and weariness were a problem for both of my brothers but not for me.And so it went, as we compared our blood test results, that the idea of a living donor entered the conversation. I knew this would be a problem for me because how do you ask people to consider being a donor? I had difficulty asking friends for a ride to the airport. This is where the grace and kindness of others and divine intervention enter [End Page 107] our story—word about our medical dilemma spread through the visibility of my younger brother, a minister in New England.Fortunately for me, my much beloved younger brother had dozens of people who wanted to be his donor. About 12 of these potential donors were actually tested before finding a match. One of his unmatched donors became the donor for my older brother (our first family transplant). Two years later, my other brother received his transplant. Three years later, after being told he was not a good match for my brother, this dear man came forward to be a possible donor for me. Hence, I got my transplant from an unused donor from my younger brother’s group. Overall, we had living donors from three different churches located within an hour of each other in New England. I even lucked out and acquired the minister of one of the churches as my donor. All three of us received kidneys over five years from living donors who did not know my older brother... (shrink)

It is widely recognized that prioritizing health care resources by their relative cost-effectiveness can result in lower priority for the treatment of disabled persons than otherwise similar non-disabled persons. I distinguish six different ways in which this discrimination against the disabled can occur. I then spell out and evaluate the following moral objections to this discrimination, most of which capture an aspect of its unethical character: it implies that disabled persons' lives are of lesser value than those of non-disabled persons; (...) it constitutes “double jeopardy” or violates Frances Kamm's non-linkage principle; it conflicts with equality of opportunity; it conflicts with fairness, which requires ignoring (some/most) differential impacts of treatment; it wrongly gives lower priority to disabled persons for equally effective treatment; it conflicts with giving all persons an equal chance to reach their full potential; and, it is in conflict with giving priority to the worse off. (shrink)

Suppose we agree to reject the view that privacy has narrow scope and consequently is irrelevant to the constitutional privacy cases. We then have (at least) these two options: (1) We might further emphasize and draw out similarities between tort and constitutional privacy claims in order to develop a notion of privacy fundamental to informational and Fourth Amendment privacy concerns as well as the constitutional cases. We can cite examples indicating this is a promising position. Consider consenting homosexuality conducted in (...) one's home, for instance. We view it as a private matter, whether the state is seeking to regulate the behavior, or if others are attempting to gain or exploit information about it. I believe basic conceptual similarities between tort and constitutional interests can be identified by showing that there is a range of similar reasons for protecting both tort and constitutional privacy concerns. We might worry, however, that a comprehensive concept of privacy may be too general to be very useful, given that privacy violations can be so diverse, and can arise, for example, from misuse of confidential information, from conduct that is intrusive even if no information is gained or disclosed, from disturbance of an intimate relationship, or from disruption of various other important aspects of one's life.(2) We could concede that whatever “privacy” means in the tort and Fourth Amendment cases, it means something different in the constitutional cases. Nevertheless, we might take that “something else” seriously as a distinct but legitimate use of the term which is not “spurious” but is reflected in our ordinary language. This appears to me to be a fruitful alternative. After all, contrary to Henkin's view that tort privacy is “what most people mean by privacy,” the term is often used in contexts beyond informational privacy and clearly related to the interests at stake in the constitutional cases. Thus, for example, in a pamphlet explaining how to protect children by teaching them how to say “No!” to strangers without making them paranoid or antisocial, parents and teachers are told, Children have a right to privacy. Teach it. Reinforce it. One of the ways to help children prevent sexual assault is to encourage them to develop a sense of physical integrity. A sense that they have a right to their own body space and privacy. Just as we allow them to close the door when they use the bathroom, we must allow them to say no to any unwanted physical affection and touch. Flora Calao and Tamar Hosansky, “The Key to Having Fun is Being Safe: Teaching Personal Safety to Children,” The Safety and Fitness Exchange, 1123 Broadway, N.Y., N.Y. 10010. Unfortunately, the most obvious starting point for identifying the sense of private relevant to the constitutional cases is extremely worrisome. The Court itself has said ... only personal rights that can be deemed “fundamental”...are included in this guarantee of personal privacy...the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage...procreation...contraception...family relationships... and child rearing and education.Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).The difficulty, of course, is that little more is offered by way of explanation of which rights are “personal” or “fundamental” or both. Focusing on marriage makes Roe v. Wade difficult to understand given that Ms. Roe was unmarried, and attending only to family issues does not help us make sense of the Stanley case protecting one's right to view pornography in one's home. It is perhaps more problematic that decisions such as what color shoes to wear are reasonably viewed as personal, yet are far from fundamental enough to warrant protection. And regulations governing the draft and employment, for example, are not viewed as privacy invasions although they might be said to interfere with matters of one's life that are both fundamental and personal in the vague sense described.Before we give up in frustration, however, I would urge that we recall that even in tort law the notion of privacy has been evolving through a constellation of judgments. Although there is no fixed way of using the term which we then proceed to analyze, the concept of privacy has not in those cases been taken to be meaningless or empty. Similarly, there is reason to believe that the scope of a “personal and fundamental” notion of privacy relevant to the constitutional cases can be further delineated through a consideration of cases, especially since it seems to me that in many cases application of the term is clear and unproblematic. A decision to have a vasectomy, for example, can uncontroversially be said to be a personal and fundamental one, and it is in that sense private. We fail to acknowledge the personal significance in an individual's life of forcing or refusing him the operation if we deny that this important sense of privacy is relevant to such a decision merely because an interest in determining for oneself what one ought to do is also at risk.Of course, once it is settled that something is a private matter, it is a separate issue to decide whether or not, in some social context, an invasion of it can be justified. Thus, I would claim, a mandatory sterilization program for male recidivists or for those in a country suffering grave poverty and overpopulation does invade privacy, and the social or legal question is whether or not the invasion can, in the particular circumstances, be justified. Although all will agree that both individual and social interests must be balanced by moral philosophers as well as the courts, in conflicts we will not always agree on the weight to be accorded individual claims.I have not provided a constitutional defense for citing privacy as one right at stake in the constitutional privacy cases. Nor have I attempted to enter the debate about how strictly to interpret the Constitution. But if I am correct, then we can agree there is an important interest in privacy at issue in those cases without merely conflating privacy and autonomy or liberty, and can continue the process of marking out its boundaries. If we reach such agreement, we will have made considerable progress. Moreover, the implications of this view are significant. Current constitutional standards, controversial though they may be, require “strict scrutiny” for cases concerning “fundamental values,” and privacy has been judged to be one such value. Thus these privacy claims have a greater chance of being protected when they conflict with other rights or general interests than they would have if only liberty, or freedom from governmental interference, were involved. (shrink)

Youniverse is about you and the way things really are--how to improve your chances of a much longer and more satisfying life.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Abnegation as Key to Providence:Six Spiritual Theologians on ProvidenceDavid W. FagerbergIf a contest were held for the most difficult doctrine, I suppose it would be a toss-up between Trinity, Incarnation, and transubstantiation. But if the contest were over the most awkward doctrine, I predict that providence would take the prize. We believe it; we want to believe it; we find it difficult to believe it. In the continuing friction (...) between Christian faith and a modern worldview, the rivalry seems sharpest between providence and modernity's footings in secularity (no divine reality), autonomy (no divine interference), and chance (no divine steering).Several reactions might follow. One might ignore the issue; one might house the viewpoints in two heterogeneous spheres; one could believe the one but live under the regulation of the other; perhaps one would call in philosophy to conduct a workaround by metaphysics, or linguistic analysis of determinism and freedom. I do not propose to follow any of these paths, but to rather turn to a different resource, namely, consult some classic Catholic spiritual writers to examine how they treat the doctrine of providence. They believed it; they wanted to believe it; they found less difficulty in believing it than we do. In fact, they seem to find joy in the doctrine of providence. My suspicion as to why this is so is because they place the difficulty of believing providence in the heart, and not in the head, and so attunement to providence is less an intellectual struggle and more an interior accomplishment. They gazed fixedly at what God wants for the soul. Most of the actions taken by a parent might be misunderstood by the child if the child does not know the actions were designed to encourage and support coming to maturity. [End Page 343] Most of the actions taken by God might be misunderstood by the soul if the soul does not believe these graces were designed to bring about deification. Providence is the execution of God's design for the perfection of a human being as a mystical liturgist living in union with him.I have recently been researching a cast of characters I have been calling "theologians of liturgical abnegation," for whom providence is undergirded by an act of liturgical abnegation.1 Although all speak of providence, six of these authors have given significant attention to the doctrine of providence, either in a separate monograph or in large portions of their corpus, and for an understanding of providence I propose to listen to these spiritual writers instead of to the philosophers. Providence is being "abyssed" in love (de Sales), and it requires particular and personal faith (Grou), which means we do not choose our own crosses (Fénelon), but instead make trustful surrender (Saint-Jure and de la Colombière) because we prefer God's will to our own (de Caussade).Francis de Sales—Being Abyssed in Love"It is our duty to adore this amiable Providence, by casting ourselves into its arms."2 We cannot worship God as God without acknowledging his providence. The obligation to daily liturgize God with adoration, glory, and thanksgiving requires delight in his daily providence, but such acknowledgment is not primarily a rational act, it is an act of liturgical abnegation that consists of casting ourselves into God's arms in a way that will contribute to his greater glory. Even sorrow, trial, and tempest can contribute to God's glory. "I am expecting a great tempest to burst over me, but I await it joyously; and looking to the Providence of God, I hope that this will conduce to His greater glory, and the more perfect repose of my soul."3 Providence operates differently in each life because God desires a different measure of [End Page 344] glory from each life. If we are confused about providence's work in a life, it is because we are ignorant of the glory to which each life will contribute. Our life-liturgies will not be the same, but they will each delight God, who is their source. "Every one will see and love him, according to the particular measure of glory which the divine Providence... (shrink)

Let me attempt a drastic summary, or symbolic reduction, of Mr. Foss's adeptly metaphorical exposition. The use of the copula is, implicit in the appositive series, will do some violence to the complexity of the argument, but since causes and parts are frowned on by the same argument, the simpler arrangement cannot be altogether out of keeping. In logical and grammatical terms, we have on two sides of a profound ledger: "symbolic reduction," the divisive subject and predicate,--and "metaphoric process," the (...) underlying and unifying energy of the proposition, the subjectum. The negations of dialectic operate to show the insufficiency of symbolic concepts and are the "door to philosophic truth." And in ontological terms, we have on the one hand number, time, space, cause and effect, coincidence and contingency; and on the other the different, the naught, the apeiron, the potential, the tension of process, freedom and necessity in metaphoric lawful unity. There are two closely similar extremes of reduction between which one locates the transcendent philosophy of metaphor: that of sensationalism, the philosophy of the brute and atomic, and that of rationalism, the philosophy of expedient action. And in more or less theological terms, we have on the one hand the environment and its complement the ego, purposive and possessive; on the other, World, the I and the Thou, prayer, sin and grace in the metaphorical unity of consciousness, the widening power of personality in intercession or metaphorical representation. On the one hand, birth and death, past and future, and a present extending ad libitum into either; on the other, the eternal present of the integrated process stretching over past and future, expressed in its purest form in art. And so in aesthetic terms: on the one hand catharsis, a rationalized mixture of the ego's pleasure and pain, asceticism and hedonism, play; on the other, drama--especially tragedy, which par excellence action--Eudaimonia, purification, artistic distance, stylization, imagination, conscience, love. On the one hand, comedy in the sense of farce, environment symbolically reduced, actions and persons according to type, the mechanism of means and ends, rules, rituals, tricks, chance, the caricature of symbolic fixation--producing laughter: on the other hand, true and great comedy, the attempt to understand life in all its contradictions, producing the smile. (shrink)

In any list of famous last words, Socrates' are likely to figure near the top. Details of the final moments of celebrities tend anyway to exert a peculiar fascination upon the rest of us: life's very contingency provokes a need to see lives nevertheless as meaningful organic wholes, defined as such precisely by their final closure; so that even the most trivial aspects of their ending can come to seem bearers of profound significance, soliciting moral reflections apparently not less urgent (...) for their being quite unwarranted. From earliest times, this fascination with last moments has come to be concentrated in particular upon last words: situated at that most mysterious of borders, between life and death, they seem to look backwards and forwards at once, judging the speaker's own past life from the vantage-point of a future realm he is about to attain and hinting at the nature of what awaits us all from the perspective of that past life he still – however tenuously – shares with us. A moment earlier, and there is no reason to privilege any one discourse of the speaker's above another; a moment later, and his lips are sealed for ever. Only in that final moment can he seem to pass an unappealable judgement on himself, to combine in a single body two incompatible subjectivities, the one suffering and extremely mortal, the other dispassionate and transcendent. If he is a thinker or a man of action, this is his last chance to summarize a lifetime's meditation or experience in a pithy, memorable aphorism.If he is a celebrated poet, he can be imagined to have composed his own epitaph; if he is a Hellenistic poet, he may even in fact have done so. (shrink)

The claims that Dr. F. H. George makes on behalf of his machines are obscurely stated. Does he claim that a machine has been made and has actually produced a kind of response which is incalculable, given the specification to which it has been built and also the prescribed conditions, what is put in for the particular performance in question? “Incalculable” does not mean that nobody has bothered to calculate, but that somebody has bothered, that the calculations show that the (...) response in question is not among the calculated ones, that it is not chance or mechanical breakdown, but a specific response to something specific among the given conditions. If he could substantiate this claim, then I would reluctantly agree that some machines are cleverer and more thoughtful than I thought possible, and some men sillier and less thoughtful, for they deliberately design machines to do they know not what. (shrink)

In modern approaches to phonology a lack of clarity exists on the issue of whether phonetic facts are psychological or physical realities. The results from an experiment suggest that phonetic facts can be considered as psychological realities, but with the restriction that they can take acoustical shape. More specifically, the syntactic material consisted of ambiguous French sentences of the following sort: On a tourné ce film intéressant pour les étudiants. They were spoken in disambiguating contexts, without the readers noticing the (...) ambiguities, and without context, but with the instruction to make a conscious effort to disambiguate. By tape splicing, the contexts were removed from the context-embedded sentences. Twenty-eight native speakers of French listened to the sentences and judged whether one or the other meaning had been intended by the speaker. Subjects performed significantly above chance: 60% correct identifications for context-embedded sentences, 75% for context-free sentences. Pitch-amplitude analyses were made to determine the acoustical differences involved. (shrink)

I begin by recounting the market demands that created an opportunity for me to teach business ethics in the College of Business at St. Cloud State University. The AACSB and my educational institution focused amorphous social demands for better business practices into a specific demand for a philosophy Ph.D. to teach business ethics. I felt frustrated teaching business ethics because of my inexperience and the eclectic nature of the field. I, and many others, searched for something to unify the many (...) topics of the field. This search was one of the factors that led to BEQ’s appearance in 1991. The first issue marked a milestone in the continuing search fortheory and the legitimization of the field. It focused previous discussions and was remarkably prescient. While it is unlikely that we will reach a consensus about how to understand the field, if consensus ever comes close to occurring, I argue that it will not coalesce over stakeholder theory. I examine two theories that could be used as a grand unified theory (GUT) of business ethics: Integrated Social Contracts Theory and my own institutional theory that expands on the work of Douglass North’s view of economic institutions. I usethe discussion of these GUTs to develop criteria of what a successful GUT might look like. Based on these criteria, I argue that theinstitutional theory has a better chance of succeeding, but recognize that business ethics GUTs are primarily heuristic; many different types of theories can be helpful. Lastly, I discuss whether it is pretentious and overbearing to argue for a GUT. I argue that it need not be. (shrink)

As an application of his Material Theory of Induction, Norton (2018; manuscript) argues that the correct inductive logic for a fair infinite lottery, and also for evaluating eternal inflation multiverse models, is radically different from standard probability theory. This is due to a requirement of label independence. It follows, Norton argues, that finite additivity fails, and any two sets of outcomes with the same cardinality and co-cardinality have the same chance. This makes the logic useless for evaluating multiverse models (...) based on self-locating chances, so Norton claims that we should despair of such attempts. However, his negative results depend on a certain reification of chance, consisting in the treatment of inductive support as the value of a function, a value not itself affected by relabeling. Here we define a purely comparative infinite lottery logic, where there are no primitive chances but only a relation of ‘at most as likely’ and its derivatives. This logic satisfies both label independence and a comparative version of additivity as well as several other desirable properties, and it draws finer distinctions between events than Norton's. Consequently, it yields better advice about choosing between sets of lottery tickets than Norton's, but it does not appear to be any more helpful for evaluating multiverse models. Hence, the limitations of Norton's logic are not entirely due to the failure of additivity, nor to the fact that all infinite, co-infinite sets of outcomes have the same chance, but to a more fundamental problem: We have no well-motivated way of comparing disjoint countably infinite sets. (shrink)

This article focuses on the significance of acoustical phenomena in the development of the subjectivity of the infant. An attribute of that development, beginning with the breakdown of psychological symbiosis for the infant, is the loss implicit in the eventual participation of the subject in a symbolic order and the consequent acquisition of language. The essay examines how such loss can contribute to the constitution of the subject and the ego of the subject. Two aspects of language, metaphor and metonymy, (...) are examined in regard to their fundamental relationship to subjectivity. The character Echo, from the myth of Narcissus and Echo, is the namesake for a phase of development, the Echo Phase, which is postulated to begin after the third month of life. During this phase, to some extent the development of the subject depends upon intersubjectivity and concomitant auditory and linguistic phenomena. It is an implicit purpose of this essay to understand the advent of the ego as the expression of a phenomenological structure, dependent upon language and intersubjectivity, that mediates between subject and world. ... By chance Narcissus lost track of his companions, started calling "Is anybody here?" and "Here!" said Echo. He looked around in wonderment, called louder "Come to me!" "Come to me!" came back the answer. He looked behind him, and saw no one coming; "Why do you run from me?" and heard his question Repeated in the woods. "Let us get together!" There was nothing Echo would ever say more gladly, "Let us get together!" And to help her words, Out of the woods she came, with arms all ready To fling around his neck. But he retreated: "Keep your hands off," he cried, "and do not touch me! I would die before I give you a chance at me." "I give you a chance at me," and that was all She ever said thereafter, spurned and hiding, Ashamed, in the leafy forests, in lonely caverns. She frets and pines, becomes all gaunt and haggard, Her body dries and shrivels till voice only And bones remain, and then she is voice only For the bones are turned to stone. She hides in woods And no one sees her now along the mountains, But all may hear her, for her voice is living. Ovid, Metamorphoses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Politics and Eros in Aristophanes' Speech:Symposium 191E–192A and the ComediesPaul W. LudwigFor many of Plato's modern readers, Aristophanes' encomium of eros is the most memorablnvincing speech in the Symposium. Yet a key passage in the speech is not well understood. About three–fifths of the way through the speech, Aristophanes asserts that boys who are unashamed to lie with men are the most manly boys by nature. A great proof (...) of this, he says, is the fact that they alone end up in politics, where they become "real men."1 Since the same connection between sex and politics is the object of derision in Aristophanes' comedies, 2 many commentators have seen irony in this assertion.3 More have implicitly favored a straight reading, however, relying on the strength of the speech taken at face value. The type of irony at issue, dramatic or verbal, is also open to competing interpretations. Nor have the implications of either type of irony for the rest of the speech and for the dialogue as a whole been adequately treated. Does Plato make his character Aristophanes speak more wisely than he is aware of, in playful revenge for the comedian's own distorted portrait of Socrates?4 Or does Plato make use of the professional jester to clear the way for Socratic morality, on the assumption that Aristophanes' views about male homosexual eros were sufficiently well known to leave little doubt that his explicit praise of pederasty was tongue–in–cheek? [End Page 537]I. The Passage in ContextSymp. 191e–192aThe safest exegesis would first make sense of what Aristophanes professes to mean, comparing the philosophic content, which ought to stand or fall on its own merits, with the rest of the speech and with the other speeches in the dialogue, especially Socrates'. Irony could then emerge either as an alternative or as a supplement to the face–value reading. Assessment of the dialogue's own internal logic, as well as comparison with other Platonic dialogues, should precede recourse outside the authorship of Plato, viz. to the Aristophanic comedies.Aristophanes not only legitimates male–male desire, he asserts that it is best. He argues for his assertion on the grounds that male–male desire is connected to politics. This argument resonates with two themes sounded earlier in the dialogue, by Phaedrus and by Pausanias. The former praises male–male relations by saying that if by some chance a city or armed camp could come into being made up entirely of lovers and their boyfriends, their desire to refrain from all that is shameful and to seek honor in one another's eyes would result in their city's having the best possible government. If such were to fight side by side, even if their city or army happened to be small, they would well nigh conquer all mankind. For an in love would rather die than be seen in any act of cowardice () by his boyfriend (178d 4–179a 2). In other words, lovers make the best citizen–soldiers because the private aim of impressing the beloved serves the public goal of bravery in battle.Pausanias plays a variation on the same theme. He argues that barbarian tyrants outlaw pederasty because they are afraid of strong attachments arising among their subjects. Since proud thoughts are engendered by love, Pausanias reformulates the unwillingness to tolerate disgrace in battle into an unwillingness to acquiesce in tyranny. He cites the example of Harmodius and his lover Aristogeiton, who, in popular lore, dissolved the tyranny of the Peisistratids at Athens, thus clearing [End Page 538] the way for democracy (182b 6–c 7). Like Phaedrus, he mentions unmanliness as the crucial political defect that breeds tyranny (cf. 178d 4–6 with 182c 7–d 2). Like Phaedrus, he sees manliness as the willingness to take up arms, this time not in battle, but in a tyrannicide. And like Phaedrus, he sees male–male relations as the breeding ground for manliness.Unlike Phaedrus, Pausanias is especially concerned with education. The mature lover is assumed to possess already the civic virtues as well as a modicum of philosophy.5 He can initiate his younger... (shrink)