We study structures equipped with generic predicates and/or automorphisms, and show that in many cases we obtain simple theories. We also show that a bounded PAC field is simple. 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Bioethics has received important criticisms for its perceived privileging of biomedical authority with longstanding calls for greater recognition of the social, political, economic, historical, and...

Typescripts, essays, and an authoritative edition of Knowing and the known, Dewey's collaborative work with Arthur F. Bentley. In an illuminating Introduction T. Z. Lavine defines the collaboration's three goals-the construction of a new language for behavioral inquiry, a critique of formal logicians, in defense of Dewey's Logic, and a critique of logical positivism. In Dewey's words: Largely due to Bentley, I've finally got the nerve inside of me to do what I should have done years ago. What is it (...) to be a linguistic sign or name? and Values, valuations, and social facts, ' both written in 1945, are published here for the first time. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 70-72, December 2011.

Purpose. The aim of this article is an analysis of the main versions of the biodeterminist tradition of re­solving the issue of the nature of gender identity, as well as identification of the advantages of the new version of biodeterminism, which involves elements of social constructivism. Theoretical basis. Social norms determine the extent to which a person has the right to independently determine his or her gender identity, and even more so, to change his or her body according to such (...) gender concepts. Social norms regulate gender relations in society and direct the gender behavior of individuals. However, social norms do not create either the human body, or those biological laws, according to which it functions. Originality. The biodetermist theories of the gender were analyzed from the position of "week" social constructivism. The role of social norms as a factor of gender self-certification, as well as a factor of control over social interference in the functioning of human corporeality is considered. The role of modern medicine as an increasingly influential institutional means of control over the functioning of human corporeality, and therefore, indirectly, and for the implementation of gender identity self-identification is revealed. Conclusions. According to the "week" social constructivism the gender emerges as an integral result of biological, psychological and social construction. The role of personality in the design of the gender has historically grown, but this role can never exclude the influence of biological and social factors that are increasingly becoming the nature of biological and social technologies. Personality can become a victim of these technologies, but he/she can program them, or at any rate selectively use, combine, or to some extent adjust existing biological and social technologies. (shrink)

While solid organ transplantation for patients with substance use issues has attracted ethical discussion, a typology of the ethics themes has not been articulated in the literature. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed literature on solid organ transplantation and substance use published between January 1997 and April 2016. We aimed to identify and develop a typology of the main ethical themes discussed in this literature and to identify gaps worthy of future research. Seventy articles met inclusion criteria and underwent (...) inductive content analysis. Four main ethical themes were identified: (1) personal responsibility; (2) utility; (3) moral character; and (4) fairness. Each theme had multiple sub-themes and there was substantial overlap between themes. This scoping review identified a disproportionate emphasis in the literature regarding personal responsibility, which was referenced by each of the other themes, and a narrow focus on alcohol and liver. We recommend future research further investigate these connections between ethical themes and focus on ethical issues associated with transplants from organ groups other than liver for patients who use substances other than alcohol. (shrink)

“There's glory for you!”“I don't know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course, you dont—till I tell you. I meant ‘there's a nice knock-down argument.’”“But ‘glory’ doesn't mean a ‘nice knock-down argument,” Alice objected.“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”“The question is,” said (...) Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master, that's all.”When applied bioethics confronts the topic of futility, the question of who is to be master turns out to be central. Indeed, much of the literature on futility has focused on exactly this question: who gets to define the terms of the debate? Who gets to decide that treatment is “futile” and therefore allowably withheld or withdrawn? (shrink)

Company support for employee volunteerism (CSEV) benefits companies, employees, and society while helping companies meet the expectations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). A nationally representative telephone survey of 990 Canadian companies examined CSEV through the lens of Porter and Kramer's (2006, 'Strategy and society: the link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility', Harvard Business Review, 78-92.) CSR model. The results demonstrated that Canadian companies passively support employee volunteerism in a variety of ways, such as allowing employees to take time (...) off without pay (71%) or adjusting their work schedules (78%). These Responsive CSR efforts contribute to the company's value chain by enhancing employee morale, a perceived CSEV benefit. More active forms of support requiring company time or money are less common; for example, 29% allow time off with pay. Companies perceive that support for employee volunteering enhances their public image, a Responsive CSR strategy when employed to ameliorate a damaged reputation or a Strategic CSR strategy when contributing to a competitive position. A minority perceive challenges like covering the workload. Many companies target and/or exclude particular causes and link CSEV efforts with other philanthropic donations, suggesting a Strategic CSR application of CSEV. Where programs exist, they frequently are neither tracked nor evaluated, suggesting that companies are not using these programs as strategically as they might. (shrink)

Transcultural comparisons taking the differences and commonalities into consideration in the fields of mental health and ill mental health have always been a focus of scientific interest. The ‘East’ and ‘West’ comparisons in this regard, could be the one most widely deliberated. ‘East and West’, as a human-made conceptual construct, has evolved to signify many social, cultural, political, economic and psychological realities and meanings, beyond its geographical references. Such conceptualizations both reflect and re-construct our realities. -/- Beyond the inequalities and (...) discrepancies in resources, the ‘East and West’ dualism has an impact on mental health theory and praxis in a many different ways. The range, content, patterns and expression of psychopathology and psychiatric symptomatology; the explanatory models of mental disorders; the diagnostic and classification systems; the psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutical interventions; the role of family and psychosocial support systems; basic conceptualizations of mental health and disease are some of the main areas of diversity. -/- This chapter, after briefly discussing the historical roots of the conceptualization of ‘East and West’, will be focused on the relations of mental health and ill mental health with this and related conceptualizations. It is concluded that, in this day of globalization, to improve the quality of psychiatric theory and praxis within a framework of high ethical standards, a paradigm focusing on the unity in diversity and embracing a non-dualistic, non-categorical, and non-hierarchical humanistic approach to cultural differences would bring all the colours of humanity and therefore psychiatry onto the canvas. (shrink)

Routledge is proud to reissue these nine pivotal titles from the acclaimed series Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion. Including key works by Ahern, Beardsmore, Pike, and others, these books are essential for all serious collections. Available as single volumes or as a nine-volume set, the titles in this collection were originally published between 1950-1960 by Routledge and Kegan Paul: Volume 1: The Problem of Evil M.B. Ahern Hb: 0-415-31841-6 Volume 2: Moral Reasoning R.W. Beardsmore Hb:0-415-31842-4 Volume 3: (...) Theology and Intelligibility Michael Durrant Hb: 0-415-31843-2 Volume 4: Humanism and Ideology James R. Flynn Hb: 0-415-31844-0 Volume 5: The Five Ways: St.Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence Anthony Kenny Hb: 0-415-31845-9 Volume 6: Moral Practices D.Z. Phillips Hb: 0-415-31846-7 Volume 7: God and Timelessness Nelson Pike Hb: 0-415-31847-5 Volume 8: Without Answers Rush Rhees Hb: 0-415-31848-3 Volume 9: Morality and Purpose J.L. Stocks Hb: 0-415-31849-1. (shrink)

The advent of sales over the Internet has led to interesting developments in sales tax policy as states attempt to monitor, control, and collect revenue from illusive Internet tobacco vendors. Tobacco sales have been successfully monitored and regulated, to some extent, in convenience stores, grocery stores, and smoke shops, and in most cases sales taxes are collected. The Internet, however, is extremely difficult to regulate. States could use their regulatory powers to ban the sale of products such as tobacco and (...) alcohol over the Internet, but enforcement would be nearly impossible.The issue of enforcement of Internet sales is extremely difficult. Keeping the products out of the wrong hands, under aged children for example, is difficult. Also, it is difficult in terms of tax policy. (shrink)

Thank you so much for the invitation to be here with you. It is always a pleasure to be with people who understand, believe in, and know the importance of public health. Those of us who work in the legislative arena know how infrequent it is to have dialogue and conversation with people who really have a good, tangible, hands-on working knowledge of health care, and particularly of public health.The notion of public health is an interesting one. It will range—if (...) you talk to people in the legislature or out of the legislature—from just complete ignorance to total unawareness of what we mean by the words “public health.” When you talk to individuals like us in this room, we find a mixture of definitions, a mixture of understandings, and a mixture of appreciation as to what public health really is. (shrink)

This paper investigates the evaluation of ritual frame indicating expressions (RFIEs) in two groups of L2 learners: British English learners of Chinese and Mainland Chinese learners of English. RFIEs are expressions by means of which speakers confirm their awareness of rights and obligations in a particular standard situation. Previous research in applied linguistics has largely ignored the production and evaluation of such forms, despite the fact that they are pragmatically-loaded and, as such, are very important for the development of the (...) (meta)pragmatic competence of L2 learners. In our study, we have conducted an experiment in which we exposed our learners to both authentic and constructed uses of RFIEs. The evaluation of their (meta)pragmatic competence has revealed notable linguacultural differences between the two groups of L2 learners. (shrink)

This paper criticizes one of Vlastos’ well-known articles, in which he purports to reveal what he takes to be one of Socrates’ great achievements in ethics. By using what I take to be a more appropriate way of analysing Plato’s dialogues, I show how the same paragraph which is used by Vlastos to corroborate his case proves, in fact, the opposite. What Vlastos regards as “Socrates’ Rejection of Retaliation” turns out to be nothing but an instrument used by Socrates to (...) make Crito look at his own behavior towards the polis. In a wider context, Plato’s Crito is shown to be a severe criticism of democracy, where the lex talionis is rather one of its dominant tools used both by the state and its citizens. (shrink)

PAULI MURRAY WAS AN ACTIVIST, LAWYER, AND PRIEST WHOSE AVocation was writing. In this essay I first contextualize Murray's life and works, and I analyze her poetry and ethical vision. I focus on three themes in her poetry: race and interlocking oppressions, the "dream" of America and historiography, and the creative ethical power of productive anger. I engage womanist scholarship as a conversation partner throughout the essay. Moving inductively from my analysis of Murray's poetry, I offer several constructive suggestions about (...) the role and heuristic of poetry in contemporary theological and social ethics. (shrink)

The contributions in our contemporary era have been tremendous: atomic energy for generating electricity, jet travel, near-instant communications, great advancements in medicine and treatment of diseases, and advances in education. For all these advancements, there is still poverty, ignorance, bigotry, and the call for a new religious domination. For all the brilliance demonstrated in our era, there are signs of darkness lurking not far away. These are the factors that will bring our era to a close, and another era--perhaps of (...) the darkness of religious domination and intolerance of the past in the form of another Dark Ages to rise in its place The contributions in our contemporary era have been tremendous: atomic energy for generating electricity, jet travel, near-instant communications, great advancements in medicine and treatment of diseases, and advances in education. For all these advancements, there is still poverty, ignorance, bigotry, and the call for a new religious domination. For all the brilliance demonstrated in our era, there are signs of darkness lurking not far away. These are the factors that will bring our era to a close, and another era--perhaps of the darkness of religious domination and intolerance of the past in the form of another Dark Ages to rise in its place. (shrink)

Religions, ideologies try to give a complete vision of the world a vision containing both its origin, explanation and a “normative kit”: a collection of precepts and rules, which should regulate human activities and behavior. Their synergetic meaning is clear: if embraced by all they allow for development of strong synergetic effects on the social macro scales. These in turn may lead to creation of order and beauty, of intellectual, spiritual and moral development within men and in society. In this (...) consist the elements of their natural—i.e. not explicitly reasoned out—wisdom. However, as they contain also some elements of harmful consequences—at least if they are literally accepted and in a fundamentalist manner practiced—they cannot be universally accepted. But—rejecting them we lose also the important sourcesof natural—or should we say instinctive—wisdom.Could the solution of this contradiction, of this one of the basic human sources of suffering be looked for in the modern science of complexity?Synergetics and the sciences of complex systems in general offer a solid scientific base for a meta-philosophical, universalist intellectual framework. Its offspring the social synergetics offers concrete propositions of optimized social structures. Optimized in the sense of espousing the main synergetic effects with being at the same time free of the negative “side effects” happening when religions or ideologies are the source of synergism.Finally a connection is discussed between the presented ideas and the concept of “love of wisdom”. The term “love of wisdom” may be understood as striving not only to possess a “sound and serene judgment regarding the conduct of life” but also a practical ability to act according to that judgment.This ability may be also expressed using the information-thermodynamic concepts of synergetics. Indeed without the ever continuing negentropy transformation neither survival of a complex system like man or society nor its continuing development—uncovering of all his “hidden potentials” is possible.To assure maximization of this transformation process creation of strong synergetic effects—of reinforcement, of positive feedback—between all human beings—i.e. not excluding any nations, any social groups, and any individuals—are necessary. Acting towards local and global realization of such a structure everywhere on our planet constitutes the essence of social wisdom.Removing all obstacles towards this goal—obstacles existing on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual level—should be one of the most important tasks of various institutions, of state structures, of purified from mythical elements ideologies, of man oriented sciences and above all of the modern universalism.Thus striving towards its realization is an expression of the love of wisdom. Of wisdom once based on the elements of mythos and now regained in the full light of Logos. (shrink)