Rabbi Moses Cordoeiro was a towering mystical thinker in Safed and retains to this day a seat of honor in Jewish intellectual history. Ranking among the most prolific and lucid thinkers Judaism has ever known, Cordoeiro had an enormous impact on the trajectory of mystical philosophy from the 16th century onward. This book - the first extensive work on Cordoeiro in English sheds new and important light on his life, writings, practical piety, and, most importantly, systematic thought in Kabbalah. By (...) placing Cordoeiro's personal growth and conceptual evolution within sociopolitical and theoretical context, his works are thoroughly investigated with the aim of articulating his elaborate theoretical model and its relations to his mystical practices. Much attention has been given throughout this book to Cordoeiro's acute philological sensitivity, for his view of Hebrew as "God's Vernacular" had prompted him to introduce bold and often remarkably creative exegetical maneuvers. This book is a significant contribution to philosophical scholarship and to anyone interested in exploring the deeper realms of Jewish mystical thought. (shrink)

Social network structure has been argued to shape the structure of languages, as well as affect the spread of innovations and the formation of conventions in the community. Specifically, theoretical and computational models of language change predict that sparsely connected communities develop more systematic languages, while tightly knit communities can maintain high levels of linguistic complexity and variability. However, the role of social network structure in the cultural evolution of languages has never been tested experimentally. Here, we present results from (...) a behavioral group communication study, in which we examined the formation of new languages created in the lab by micro‐societies that varied in their network structure. We contrasted three types of social networks: fully connected, small‐world, and scale‐free. We examined the artificial languages created by these different networks with respect to their linguistic structure, communicative success, stability, and convergence. Results did not reveal any effect of network structure for any measure, with all languages becoming similarly more systematic, more accurate, more stable, and more shared over time. At the same time, small‐world networks showed the greatest variation in their convergence, stabilization, and emerging structure patterns, indicating that network structure can influence the community's susceptibility to random linguistic changes (i.e., drift). (shrink)

Loneliness is a major public health concern, particularly during pandemics such as Covid. It is extremely common, and it poses a major risk to human health. Technological solutions including social media, robots, and virtual reality have been advocated and implemented to relieve loneliness, and their use will undoubtedly increase in the near future. This paper explores the use of technological solutions from a normative perspective, asking whether and to what extent such measures should indeed be relied upon. The conclusion is (...) that technological solutions are unquestionably part of the solution to loneliness, but that they cannot and should not constitute the whole solution. It is important to note that this is not a straw‐man argument, as several organizations and scholars have strictly focused on such technological solutions for loneliness. (shrink)

In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modem physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life -- our relationships to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. Guiding us through the strange and fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to create a new model of human consciousness, the author addresses enduring philosophical questions. Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might continue beyond death? How does the material world (for (...) instance, ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self? Is there a subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others, and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?Most important, Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one expression. (shrink)

The distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness is a subject of intensive debate. According to one view, visual experience overflows the capacity of the attentional and working memory system: We see more than we can report. According to the opposed view, this perceived richness is an illusion—we are aware only of information that we can subsequently report. This debate remains unresolved because of the inevitable reliance on report, which is limited in capacity. To bypass this limitation, this study utilized (...) color diversity—a unique summary statistic—which is sensitive to detailed visual information. Participants were shown a Sperling-like array of colored letters, one row of which was precued. After reporting a letter from the cued row, participants estimated the color diversity of the noncued rows. Results showed that people could estimate the color diversity of the noncued array without a cost to letter report, which suggests that color diversity is registered automatically, outside focal attention, and without consuming additional working memory resources. (shrink)

Several bioethicists have recently advocated the force-feeding of prisoners, based on the assumption that prisoners have reduced or no autonomy. This assumed lack of autonomy follows from a decrease in cognitive competence, which, in turn, supposedly derives from imprisonment and/or being on hunger strike. In brief, causal links are made between imprisonment or voluntary total fasting and mental disorders and between mental disorders and lack of cognitive competence. I engage the bioethicists that support force-feeding by severing both of these causal (...) links. Specifically, I refute the claims that VTF automatically and necessarily causes mental disorders such as depression, and that these mental disorders necessarily or commonly entail cognitive impairment. Instead, I critically review more nuanced approaches to assessing mental competence in hunger strikes, urging that a diagnosis of incompetence be made on a case-by-case basis—a position that is widely shared by the medical community. (shrink)

In _The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan_, Ayelet Zohar addresses issues of Orientalism, colonialism, and exoticism in modern Japan, through images of camels – the epitome of Otherness, and a metonymy for Asia in the Japanese imagination.

This letter replies to the letter “Colonial and Neocolonial Barriers to Companion Digital Humans in Africa,” by Luís Cordeiro‐Rodrigues, in the same, May‐June 2024, issue of the Hastings Center Report.

The transient cellular organelles known as migrasomes, which form during cell migration along retraction fibers, have emerged as a crutial factor in various fundamental cellular processes and pathologies. These membrane vesicles originate from local membrane swellings, encapsulate specific cytoplasmic content, and are eventually released to the extracellular environment or taken up by recipient cells. Migrasome biogenesis entails a sequential membrane remodeling process involving a complex interplay between various molecular factors such as tetraspanin proteins, and mechanical properties like membrane tension and (...) bending rigidity. In this review, we summarize recent studies exploring the mechanism of migrasome formation. We emphasize how physical forces, together with molecular factors, shape migrasome biogenesis, and detail the involvement of migrasomes in various cellular processes and pathologies. A comprehensive understanding of the exact mechanism underlying migrasome formation and the identification of key molecules involved hold promise for advancing their therapeutic and diagnostic applications. (shrink)

This book is at once a deeply learned and original reading of Heidegger and a primary text in its own right. It demonstrates the relevance of Heidegger’s thought in responding to the moral and religious challenges of 21st century existence. It shows that Heidegger’s project can be defended against many criticisms once its existential character is taken seriously. What emerges is a powerful exercise in thinking, not about Heidegger, but with and against him. As such, Atkins engages Heidegger as a (...) means of advancing a defense of spirituality in the modern world that holds spirituality itself accountable for its lapses into the mundane. Addressing the most influential figures in recent Continental philosophy, such as Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, this is a work that will be of timely use to philosophers, theologians, artists, and seekers. (shrink)

Voting lies at the center of collective decision-making in corporate law. While scholars have identified various problems with the voting mechanism, insincere voting—in the forms of strategic voting and conflict of interests voting—is perhaps the most fundamental. This article shows that insincere voting distorts the voting mechanism at its core, undermining its ability to determine transaction efficiency. As further demonstrated, strategic and conflict of interests problems frequently coincide with one another: voting strategically often means being in conflict, and many fact (...) patterns present aspects of both problems. Finally, this article claims that although the two problems have seemingly different solutions, these solutions are essentially similar in nature: all solutions to insincere voting are variations on two basic rules, namely, property rules and liability rules. (shrink)

This paper offers a way to think philosophically about Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and in particular their ethical implications. I focus on how the faces of the Screen Tests’ participants appear on the screen, making a link to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. For Levinas, the human face signifies the possibility of transcending day-to-day structures of perception based on understanding, knowledge and visual representation, and can therefore invite an encounter with radical alterity. I make a connection between Levinas’s reading of (...) the face and the observations of a number of film theorists who see the cinematic close-up as a unique image, transcending the status of an ordinary perceptual phenomenon. I examine two Screen Tests, those of Bob Dylan and Ann Buchanan, using them as concrete examples of how film close-ups can open viewers to the face, in a Levinasian sense: the epiphany of radical alterity. This allows me to claim that despite Levinas’s declared hostility towards the visual, his philosophical articulation of the notion of the face helps to show the ethical implications of the appearance of the human face in cinema in general, and in Warhol’s Screen Tests in particular. (shrink)

At the one extreme, social service provision by government may be seen as the work of benevolent professionals, and at the other as that of tyrannical social engineers. This paper examines the views of the libertarian economist, F.A. Hayek, and the British sociologist and philosopher, T.H. Marshall, on such provision. Marshall takes an optimistic view of the development of the professional classes in Britain and elsewhere; he sees social welfare specialists as essential to the preservation of social rights and argues (...) they should be given powers that sometimes supersede democratic preferences. Hayek, however, sees these professionals, in their drive to promote social equality, as a danger to liberty in Western democracies; he thus opposes a democratic system in which such people are allowed to attain influence. Both Hayek and Marshall raise questions about welfare and inequality and about the degree of authority social welfare professionals should be given. However, they take opposing views on the proper role of what Burke called ?natural aristocracy? (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 5, October 2020, Page 171-174.

Sexual selection provides an adequate partial explanation for the difference in means between the distributions, but fails to explain the difference in variance, that is, the overrepresentation of both boys with outstanding mathematical reasoning ability and boys with mental retardation. Other genetic factors are probably at work. While spatial ability is correlated with OMRA, so are other cognitive abilities. OMRA is not reducible to spatial ability; hence selection for navigational skill is unlikely to be the only mechanism by which males (...) have gained an advantage in OMRA. (shrink)

In this paper, the author reports on a One Health trip to India that he recently led as part of Yale-NUS Learning Across Boundaries Program. It is an attempt not only to integrate OH education into non-medical programs but also to integrate environmental ethics education into OH curricula.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 5, Page 6-7, September–October 2022.

Political interaction among citizens who hold opposing moral views commonly requires reaching beyond toleration, toward actual co‐operation with policies one opposes. On the more personal level, however, regarding (e.g.) interactions between healthcare providers and patients, several authors emphasise the importance of preserving integrity. But those who oppose any ‘complicity in evil’ often wrongly conflate instances in which the other's position is (and should be) totally rejected with instances of legitimate, although deep, disagreement. Starting with a striking example from the context (...) of a particular tradition, I argue generally that in the latter sort of disagreements, talk of ‘complicity’ should be largely replaced with a more co‐operative moral stance, grounded in a pluralistic framework. Co‐operation Despite Disagreement (CDD) should be sought either for institutional reasons – akin to the political – or for relational reasons. CDD involves sharing another's perspective and sometimes calls for adopting another's moral judgements in preference to one's own. I seek to identify some of the conditions and circumstances that would justify such a shift, particularly in scenarios involving assistance, such as physician‐assisted suicide (PAS) or the role of an anaesthesiologist in abortion. This discussion is meant to provide examples of the kind of second‐order reasons appropriate for determining the terms for CDD – in distinction from first‐order considerations (e.g., the much‐contested ‘active/passive’ distinction) which are likely to be the subject of the initial disagreement and hence cannot serve to resolve it. (shrink)

Culling is used in traditional public health policies to control animal populations. These policies aim primarily to protect human interests but often fail to provide scientific evidence of effectiveness. In this article, we defend the need to move from a strictly anthropocentric approach to disease control towards a One Health ethics, using culling practices as an example. We focus on the recent badger culls in the UK, claiming that, based on data provided by the English Government, these culls may be (...) unjustified, all thing considered. We highlight the relevance of ethical reasoning rooted in One Health for this discussion, and make several suggestions including a moratorium on culling until data are provided to support the effectiveness of culling; to conduct a randomized trial to compare proactive culling with alternative methods; to apply deliberative democratic methods to assess public opinion towards the culls, and to find in Brexit an opportunity for aiming for more effective control measures. (shrink)

This article poses an invitation for bioethicists to engage with loneliness as a bioethics and public health concern. I argue that loneliness is a relevant issue for bioethicists for three main reasons: it causes ill‐health; particularly in the age of Covid‐19, it is becoming prominent on the clinical and public health agenda, affecting millions worldwide; and it engenders several ethical and philosophical questions as a social determinant of health with a rich conceptual background. In what follows I first review the (...) link between loneliness and ill‐health and argue that it should concern bioethicists because of this link. I also demonstrate how pertinent the issue of loneliness is being considered nowadays, and mark this as another reason for bioethicists to become engaged. I then move on to define loneliness and its various forms, drawing from modern and contemporary philosophers. The way we choose to cope with the pandemic of loneliness depends in part on its theoretical underpinnings, as well as its empirical scope. Theory thus combines with empirical data in order to devise and implement a rational public health policy, necessitating the kind of interdisciplinary approach that is the bedrock of bioethics. I conclude by suggesting future areas of research and recommendations. (shrink)

In this essay we discuss an ethical dilemma that recently arose in our institution, involving healthcare workers who lamented the requirement to shave their facial hair as a condition to care for COVID-19 patients. The essay represents a genuine attempt to grapple with the dilemma sensibly and vigorously. We first provide a brief introduction, focusing on the tension between religious tolerance and the institutional obligation to optimize patient care and public health in the age of COVID-19. We then discuss the (...) complex relationship between facial hair and cultural as well as religious factors throughout history. Next, we make a case, based on several principles in Islam jurisprudence, that Muslim healthcare professionals in our institution should be expected to shave their facial hair so they could care for COVID patients. We end with considering two alternative solutions that were offered in the literature. (shrink)

The question of whether conscious experience is restricted by cognitive access and exhausted by report, or whether it overflows it—comprising more information than can be reported—is hotly debated. Recently, we provided evidence in favor of Overflow, showing that observers discriminated the color‐diversity (CD) of letters in an array, while their working‐memory and attention were dedicated to encoding and reporting a set of cued letters. An alternative interpretation is that CD‐discriminations do not entail conscious experience of the underlying colors. Here we (...) argue, based on conceptual considerations and consistency with neuroscience and phenomenology, in favor of the Overflow interpretation. (shrink)

Whether to allow the presence of family members during cardiopulmonary resuscitation has been a highly contentious topic in recent years. Even though a great deal of evidence and professional guidelines support the option of family presence during resuscitation , many healthcare professionals still oppose it. One of the main arguments espoused by the latter is that family members should not be allowed for the sake of the patient's best interests, whether it is to increase his chances of survival, respect his (...) privacy or leave his family with a last positive impression of him. In this paper, we examine the issue of FPDR from the patient's point of view. Since the patient requires CPR, he is invariably unconscious and therefore incompetent. We discuss the Autonomy Principle and the Three-Tiered process for surrogate decision making, as well as the Beneficence Principle and show that these are limited in providing us with an adequate tool for decision making in this particular case. Rather, we rely on a novel principle and a novel integrated model for surrogate decision making. We show that this model is more satisfactory in taking the patient's true wishes under consideration and encourages a joint decision making process by all parties involved. (shrink)

This paper argue that loneliness is a public health ethics issue and maps a research agenda for bioethicists.

In this article, we describe in detail the health and general living conditions resulting from the ongoing armed conflict in Yemen, including the historical and geopolitical underpinnings. In addition to mere reporting, we use Yemen as a case study to examine the responsibility of bioethicists in general. We find it unacceptable that bioethics neglects the largest humanitarian crisis taking place in the world at the moment as well as the largest Cholera outbreak in history. We argue that bioethicists should do (...) more to address armed conflicts and their resulting basic human rights violations. We end with a few recommendations to prevent such neglect. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Social robots are increasingly being deployed to address social isolation and loneliness, particularly among older adults. Clips on social media attest that individuals availing themselves of this option are pleased with their robot companions. Yet, some people find the use of social robots to meet fundamental human emotional needs disturbing. This article clarifies and critically evaluates this response. It sets forth a framework for loneliness, which characterizes one kind of loneliness as involving an affective experience of lacking human relations (...) that provide certain social goods. Next, the article discusses social robots and critically reviews the literature on the ethics of using them in light of this loneliness characterization. Third, we present a normative argument connecting the philosophical critique of loneliness-as-absence with the design and deployment of social robots. Finally, we draw out the implications of our analysis for public health and for interrogating the aims of commercial companies who make social robots. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest in corporate law can be addressed by two main alternatives: a requirement of a majority of the minority vote or the imposition of duties of loyalty and fairness. A comparison of Delaware, the UK, Canada, and Israel reveals that while the conflicts of interest problem within publicly-traded corporations receives different treatment in the different jurisdictions — either a fairness rule or a majority of the minority rule — closely-held corporations receive the same treatment of an imposition of (...) duties of loyalty and fairness. This article explains this finding, demonstrating that determining which of these rules is adopted is, in fact, a choice between liability rule protection and property rule protection. This choice depends on the total and relative transaction costs. These costs include both the negotiation costs attendant upon a property rule, as well as the adjudication costs associated with a liability rule. The sum of these costs is influenced by the efficacy of the judicial system and of extralegal mechanisms such as the market for corporate control, the capital market, and the types of investors active in the market. Because the different jurisdictions have different relative costs, due to differences in the economy and the legal systems, publicly-traded corporations are treated differently in each system. However, sometimes conflict of interest situations share the same main characteristics — as with closely-held corporations—leading to the domination of one solution, and thus the same solution is applied for closely-held corporations in the different jurisdictions. (shrink)

The argument advanced by Giubilini and Minerva is an important one, but it suffers from some shortcomings. I briefly criticise their reasoning and method and argue that after birth abortion should be limited largely to infants with disabilities. My argument is based not on solid scientific evidence or cold rational reasoning but on intuition, something that has long been discounted as irrelevant in biomedical discourse. I end with a recommendation to all of us: in order to make a change, one (...) should not only choose one’s battles, but also one’s weapon and mode of attack. (shrink)

BackgroundFamily presence during adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation is still not widely implemented. Based on empirical evidence, various national and international professional organizations recommend allowing relatives to be present during resuscitation. However, healthcare providers worldwide are still reluctant to make it standard care.PurposeThis paper is a part of an ongoing cross-cultural study that aims to solicit attitudes of healthcare providers working in emergency departments towards family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This paper reports the qualitative data from surveying healthcare providers working in an (...) emergency department at a university-affiliated hospital in Singapore.MethodHealthcare workers were asked to fill out an online survey, including both quantitative and qualitative questions. Their attitudes were critically analyzed and compared with existing empirical data.ResultsMajority of healthcare workers believed that relatives should not be present during c... (shrink)

Can anyone doubt that the Jewish tradition mandates universal access to healthcare? In a comprehensive and illuminating discussion, A.L. Mackler seems to have already said all that needs to be said. After aptly analyzing the principles of the traditional institutions and norms relating to tzedakah, Mackler proceeded to apply these traditions to the context of healthcare, concluding that.

The mitigation of pandemics like that caused by the current COVID-19 virus is largely dependent on voluntary public adherence to government rules and regulations. Recent research has identified various individual covariates that account for some of the variance in compliance with COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. However, despite considerable research, our understanding of how and why these factors are related to adherence behavior is limited. Additionally, it is less clear whether disease-transmitting behaviors during a pandemic can be understood in terms of more (...) general behavioral tendencies. The current research has examined the utility of a behavioral-failure lens in predicting adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and in illuminating mechanisms underlying the previously established relationship between Conscientiousness and adherence. In the two studies reported here, individual variations in the predisposition to behavioral failures predicted adherence to COVID-19 measures, and mediated the relationships between Conscientiousness and adherence. The Failure Proneness questionnaire predicted compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, while the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire did not. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that COVID-19 behavior was predicted only through the intentional factors. Hence, our data lend support to the notion that noncompliance with official COVID-19 prevention guidelines is driven mainly by intentional factors related to violation of norms and rules. The theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed. (shrink)