In their paper exploring patient ambivalence in the context of medical decision-making Bryanna Moore, et al. state, “While bioethicists have not paid much attention to ambivalence and related menta...

The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true that God coexists with (...) gratuitous evil in some world or other. Since gratuitous evil cannot be eliminated from metaphysical space, the existence of gratuitous evil presents no objection to essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially morally perfect, and necessarily existing beings. (shrink)

In 1988 the philosopher Gilles Deleuze remarked that throughout his career he had always been 'circling around' a concept of nature. Showing how Deleuze weaves original readings of Plato, the Stoics, Aristotle, and Epicurus into some of his most famous arguments about event, difference, and problem, Michael James Bennett argues that these interpretations of ancient Greek physics provide vital clues for understanding Deleuze's own conception of nature. -/- "Deleuze and Ancient Greek Physics" delves into the original Greek and (...) Latin texts and situates Deleuze's interpretations in relation to contemporary scholarship on ancient philosophy. It reveals that these readings are both more complex and controversial than they may at first appear. Generating both new critical analyses of Deleuze and an appreciation for his classical erudition, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in ancient Greek philosophy, Deleuze's philosophical project, or his unique methodology in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This volume studies the origin and evolution of philosophical interest in Aristotle's Categories, and illuminates the earliest arguments for Aristotle's approach to logic as the foundation of higher education.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Texts and Icons in Heidegger’s Metaphysical TraditionMichael James Bennett (bio)[End Page 26]This essay is about texts that draw attention to themselves as texts, that is, as material, graphical figures, rather than as more or less efficiently pellucid semantic relays. In other words, it is about what happens when texts behave like images. In what follows I examine a series of philosophical contexts where this question appears to be (...) at issue. I claim that one way of understanding what’s going on in these contexts is that here the image-form of a text becomes a kind of icon. I begin by reflecting on a prejudice that belongs, according to Heidegger, to the “history of metaphysics”: the notion that it would be better, clearer, and less ambiguous to replace all reliance on images with self-effacing, transparent words. My goal here is to demonstrate the existence of an alternative historical trend that defends an opposite view. I compare a defense of iconography by Byzantine patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople, as well as the Neoplatonist Porphyry’s commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, with works by two latter-day Heideggerians, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, who respond to the inherited problematic of non-referential, iconic texts. These responses suggest that non-semantic image-creation, as much as non-semantic verbal play, is the pre-conceptual condition of conceptuality. This essay presents a new way of understanding the philosophical issues that connect ancient and medieval discussions about icons and images with twentieth-century concerns about language.In her study of medieval European manuscript illumination, Animating the Letter (1999), Laura Kendrick emphasizes the non-semantic character of illuminated texts. Kendrick argues that the basic distinction between text and image is fundamentally at stake in illumination, and that the distinction is inherited from the Christian church fathers who opposed text and image, privileging the former and denigrating the latter. According to this traditional view, texts are better suited than images to a consideration of the divine on account of writing’s ethereal quality, its “transparency,” which leads the reader beyond the material sign to the immaterial concept. The problem with images, on the other hand, is their materiality, which may lead viewers down a dark path toward an ultimately heretical veneration for the mere image instead of for its referent. It seems to me that we find in Kendrick’s argument an exact homology with the discourse on the icon in the Byzantine Christian church. Emperor Constantine V, for instance, at the time of the “first iconoclast crisis” (the mid-eighth century CE), expresses wariness about the potentially heterodox metaphysics underpinning iconophilia. He objects to icons on the basis that their veneration would be acceptable only if the icon were to share the essence of that of which it is an icon (God), but that this is impossible; infinite divine nature cannot be encompassed within the finite line of human composition. The Byzantine iconophile’s response to this objection is not to deny the infinite, uncircumscribable nature of God, but to affirm that the icon, bound though it is to the register of images, nevertheless does not function in the same manner as an ordinary image. That is, the icon does not refer to its model by means of resemblance alone. In the language of Nikephoros of Constantinople (758–828 CE), the character of the icon consists in consubstantiality (homoousia) prior to resemblance (homoiōsis).1 [End Page 27]The problem of the limits of reference unites the discourse on the icon and the flourishing of the illuminated text. Just as the icon does not refer in the normal way to its referent, so Kendrick contends that the “animated letter” is not reducible to its pure semantic quality, is not to be understood as if it were just a kind of significative relay through which a sublime quantity of something called “meaning” is obliged to pass. “Meaning,” conceived of in what I am inclined to call the narrowly economic sense as the cargo of material vehicles called “words,” meaning that is gambled in words and then “cashed out” again, is not always what is at stake when one writes. Something else is... (shrink)

This paper investigates the connection between Henri Bergson’s biological epistemology and his moral theory. Specifically, it examines the distinction between the morality of what Bergson calls “closed” and “open” societies in his late work Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). I argue that “open” morality provides the moral correlate of a non-instrumentalizing orientation toward nature. Here Bergson’s thought is disposed toward a very specific kind of environmental ethic, an aesthetic one. Bergson’s characterization of open morality, especially in the image (...) of the mystic individual, indicates that through artistic consciousness open morality imitates the creative evolution of life. (shrink)

At Aristotle,MetaphysicsE.1, 1026a14, Schwegler’s conjectural emendation of the manuscript reading ἀχώριστα to χωριστά has been widely adopted. The objects of physical science are therefore here ‘separate’, or ‘independently existent’. By contrast, the manuscripts make them ‘not separate’, construed by earlier commentators as dependent on matter. In this paper, I offer a new defense of the manuscript reading. I review past defenses based on the internal consistency of the chapter, explore where they have left supporters of the emendation unpersuaded, and attempt (...) to strengthen their appeal. I challenge Schwegler’s central case, developed by Ross and others, that the construction μὲν ἀλλ’ οὐκ demands an implausible ‘logical antithesis’ between inseparability and mobility. This is arguably the fundamental obstacle to the manuscript reading, and counterexamples have not to date convinced emenders. I offer a new, systematic review of Aristotle’s use of the phrase, including relevant cases from theRhetoric, to show how its usual meaning in Aristotle supports the transmitted text; I also reply to possible objections. Finally, I explore the implications of this defense for the classification of the sciences in E.1. (shrink)

Deleuze and Guattari’s manner of distinguishing science from philosophy in their last collaboration What is Philosophy? seems to imply a hierarchy, according to which philosophy is more adequate to the reality of virtual events than science is. This suggests, in turn, that philosophy has a better claim than science to truth. This paper clarifies Deleuze‘s views about truth throughout his career. Deleuze equivocates over the term, using it in an “originary” and a “derived” sense, probably under the influence of Henri (...) Bergson, who does similarly. Moreover, William James and pragmatism were to Bergson what the early analytic philosophers Frege and Russell are to Deleuze: excessively scientistic foils whose confusions about truth arise as a result of failing to distinguish science from philosophy. By situating Deleuze’s conception of truth in relation to the early Heidegger’s, which it to some extent resembles, the paper concludes by suggesting that, surprisingly, neither kind of truth Deleuze licenses applies to science, while both apply to philosophy. Science is indifferent to truth in the way that some of Deleuze‘s readers have incorrectly wanted to say that he thinks philosophy is. (shrink)

Postmodern alienation -- Jameson's dialectical levels -- Baudrillard's hostile worlds -- Foucault's system of thought.

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment represents a turn toward experience, that is, toward the experiencing subject. Still the Enlightenment involves an aspiration toward objective truth in the ideals of the newly emerging sciences and in the experiments in democracy that were beginning to transform the political landscape of Europe and America. Immanuel Kant's towering philosophical achievement in his critical works helps to reformulate a meaning of objectivity that is congenial to the climate of inquiry and freedom in that remarkable century, a meaning (...) that is unburdened of the metaphysical commitments of many of his predecessors. Kant's revolution in philosophical thought gives us an objectivity that is crucially related to epistemic conditions rooted in subjectivity, a correlation between subjectivity and objectivity that carries over as well into his critical treatises concerned with ethics and aesthetics. This book of essays explores the tension between subjectivity and objectivity as it develops in the Enlightenment in Winkelmann, Hume, and Kant. The focus is upon aesthetic theories concerning the beautiful, the sublime, and the grotesque. The question by two of the authors as to whether aesthetic enjoyment of the blues is morally justified underscores an interest in these essays in the connection between aesthetics and ethics. This concern of the relation of aesthetics to judgments in cognition and in morality underlies an area of peculiar interest to Kant, and therefore to many of these essays. Finally the authors examine a turn toward the subjective in the Postmodern world of art and aesthetic theory, a turn that represents a relaxation of the original Enlightenment tension between subjectivity and objectivity. It also represents perhaps a grotesque turn toward the extreme of subjectivity in the realm of Postmodern theory, an extreme toward which at least one of the authors casts a critical eye. (shrink)

The arguments of the Stoic Chrysippus recorded in Cicero's De Fato are of great importance to Deleuze's conception of events in The Logic of Sense. The purpose of this paper is to explicate these arguments, to which Deleuze's allusions are extremely terse, and to situate them in the context of Deleuze's broader project in that book. Drawing on contemporary scholarship on the Stoics, I show the extent to which Chrysippus' views on compatibilism, hypothetical inference and astrology support Deleuze's claim that (...) the Stoics developed a theory of compatibilities and incompatibilities of events independent of corporeal states of affairs. (shrink)

James J. Gibson is one of the best known and perhaps most controversial visual theorists of the twentieth century. Writing in the vein of the American functionalists, and immersed in their profound sense of pragmatism, Gibson sought to establish a more rigorous foundation for the study of vision by reworking its most fundamental concepts. Over the five decades of his distinguished career, Gibson brought new clarity to the old problems of the tradition. He offered an alternative theory of perception (...) - one that could accommodate the experimental insights of contemporary research programs. He characterized this new theory as a version of direct perception in order to distinguish it from the traditional indirect approach of Rene Descartes. On Descartes' account, our perceptual awareness of reality comes through the representations we have formed of it within ourselves. In contrast, Gibson's theory of direct perception states that the environment contains all of the information needed to specify its properties. Hence, perceiving these properties is a matter of detecting the information available in the environment. This theory avoids the difficulty of explaining how the mind organizes holistic perceptions from atomic sensations. In what follows, I will attempt to make good these claims by situating the concept of "structure" at the heart of the ecological program. I will argue that this concept is significant precisely because it allows Gibson to locate the moving, perceiving body at the heart of meaningful perceptual experience; an experience which emerges in the dynamical structures that cross the body and the world. (shrink)

The problem of whether perception is direct or if it depends on additional, cognitive contributions made by the perceiving subject, is posed with particular force in an Essay towards a New Theory of Vision. It is evident from the recurrent treatment it receives therein that Berkeley considers it to be one of the central issues concerning perception. Fittingly, the NTV devotes the most attention to it. In this essay, I deal exclusively with Berkeley's treatment of the problem of indirect distance (...) perception, as it is presented in the context of that work. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Gilles Deleuze’s interpretation of Epicurean atomism, and explicates his claim that it represents a problematic idea, similar to the idea exemplified in early, “barbaric” accounts of the differential calculus. Deleuzian problematic ideas are characterized by a mechanism through whose activity the components of the idea become determinate in relating reciprocally to one another, rather than in being determined exclusively in relation to an extrinsic paradigm or framework. In Epicurean atomism, as Deleuze reads it, such a mechanism of (...) determination can be found in the famous atomic “swerve”. It is necessary to bear this interpretation of Epicurean atomism in mind when understanding Deleuze and Guattari’s promulgation of a new image of thought in What is Philosophy? , which has an explicitly Epicurean inspiration. The paper argues that this inspiration is particularly evident to the extent that Deleuze and Guattari identify the sub-representative feature that lies at the heart of their new image of thought with “chaos”, defined as “infinite speed”. I claim that infinite speed, this otherwise puzzling feature of What is Philosophy? , ought to be understood in the light of Deleuze’s interpretation of Epicurus. Moreover, the Epicurean distinctions between different speeds must be read together with Deleuze’s appropriation of the metaphysics of the ancient Stoics, who, although widely recognized as Deleuze’s Hellenistic counterparts, lack important theoretical resources that the Epicureans provide for Deleuze. (shrink)

Deleuze and Evolutionary Theory gathers together contributions by many of the central theorists in Deleuze studies who have led the way in breaking down the boundaries between philosophical and biological research. They focus on the significance of Deleuze and Guattari’s engagements with evolutionary theory across the full range of their work, from the interpretation of Darwin in Difference and Repetition to the symbiotic alliances of wasp and orchid in A Thousand Plateaus. In this way, they explore the anthropological, social and (...) biopolitical significance of the convergences and divergences between philosophy and evolutionary science. (shrink)

This paper reports on a case study which aims to recreate the hearing voices symptom in schizophrenia. The case study was submitted for a co-curricular module at King’s College London by a first-year undergraduate Music student, Bethany James, and was created using the web application, Mahara. The core of the case study consists of a soundscape of both everyday and unusual sounds, in conjunction with an original musical composition. The paper describes the case study and discusses it using chaos (...) narrative as an analytical lens. The paper argues that the case study effectively evokes the hearing voices symptom, conveying a lucid sense of the experience to non-sufferers and thus potentially creating use value for clinicians and care workers. (shrink)

In this paper, an ecologically extended ethic of authenticity is developed in dialogue with the Norwegian environmentalist Arne Naess and the Japanese ethicist Watsuji Tetsurō. More specifically, Naess’s concept of Self-realization is supplemented and supported with Watsuji’s ethic of authenticity and phenomenology of climate. And the ecological potential of Watsuji’s thought is realized in relation to Naess’s ideas of human responsibility and symbiosis. After establishing an ecologically extended ethic of authenticity, the practical application of this concept is then demonstrated in (...) relation to satoyama and the preservation of nature in Japan. Whilst the intended outcome is to develop an ecologically extended ethic of authenticity, a secondary aim is to illustrate the benefit and importance of cross-cultural dialogue to advance philosophical thought and understanding. (shrink)

Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth traces the historical development of the ethics of authenticity in relation to the rise of social freedom and individualism. Traversing the German Idealists, Habermas, Foucault, and MacIntyre, Shuttleworth proposes a socio-existential account of ethical authenticity, using Taylor and Sartre. Moving beyond virtue ethics, discourse ethics and Foucauldian notions of self-care, The History and Ethics of Authenticity constructs a practical ethics of authenticity which makes use of contemporary reference points, including the rise of social media, (...) capitalist branding, and competing appeals to identity, resulting in a presentation of the ethics of authenticity as an achievable ethical ideal. (shrink)

The following translation is an extract from the third chapter of Watsuji Tetsurō’s Hidden Japan [埋もれた日本] 1951. The translation is composed of two sections: “Until I met Sōseki” [漱石に逢うまで], and “Sōseki’s Character” [漱石の人物]. The former section discusses Watsuji’s indirect encounters with Natsume, namely, reading Natsume’s work as it was serialized in literary magazines during the Meiji era (1868–1912) and the impression Watsuji formed of Natsume as a teacher at Tokyo First Higher School (Ichikō). The latter section discusses Natsume as Watsuji’s (...) personal acquaintance. Here the focus is on how Watsuji came to know Natsume through participating in the famous Thursday Club [木曜会], which was held at Natsume’s home, Sōseki Sanbō [漱石山房]. The contributions of this translation to the literature are threefold: it i) provides a multidimensional account of Natsume, ii) offers insight into the legendary Thursday Club, and iii) also tells us about Watsuji himself. (shrink)

In the second volume of Rinrigaku, Watsuji Tetsurō focuses on developing his notion of betweenness through the ethical organisations of family, local commun...

In this translation, Watsuji Tetsurō sets out to clarify that which is entailed by “national character”. In his analysis of this idea, Watsuji critically analyses the Marxist interpretation from the perspective of Martin Heidegger. After articulating Heidegger’s concept of being-there [Dasein], Watsuji then criticizes Heidegger’s approach in three regards. Firstly, Watsuji questions whether the most accessible way of encountering things in the world is through concern with work and use. Watsuji’s counter-claim is that protection from the cold itself is more (...) primordial that wearing clothes. Secondly, Watsuji questions whether within-the-world is only to be found in equipment. Watsuji claims that although the cold can be treated as equipment, it is more primordially encountered directly, such as in the form of a cold breeze. And thirdly, Watsuji asks whether being-in-the-world should only be grasped as concern. For Watsuji, we not only encounter things in the world to be used, such as for protection against the cold, but also in terms of “enjoyment” or “sensation.” The importance of this essay is that it provides a link between Watsuji’s early engagement with Heidegger and the development of Watsuji’s own concept of fudō (風土). In this regard, this translation fills a gap in the primary sources available in English and provides the means to understand Watsuji’s critique of Heidegger and how this critique shapes the development of Watsuji’s mature thought. (shrink)

One of the more draining aspects of being a clinical ethicist is dealing with the emotions of patients, family members, as well as healthcare providers. Generally, by the time a clinical ethicist is called into a case, stress levels are running high, patience is low, and interpersonal communication is strained. Management of this emotional burden of clinical ethics is an underexamined aspect of the profession and academic literature. The emotional nature of doing clinical ethics consultation may be better addressed by (...) utilizing concepts and tools from clinical psychology. Management of countertransference, the natural emotional reaction by the therapist toward the patient, is a widely discussed topic in the psychotherapeutic literature. This concept can be adapted to the clinical ethics encounter by broadening it beyond the patient-therapist relationship to refer to the ethics consultant's emotional response toward the patient, the family, or other members the healthcare team. Further, it may aid the consultant because a recognition of the source and nature of these reactions can help maintain ‘critical distance’ and minimize bias in the same way that a psychologist maintains neutrality in psychotherapy. This paper will offer suggestions on how to manage these emotional responses and their burden in the clinical ethics encounter, drawing upon techniques and strategies recommended in the psychotherapeutic literature. Using these techniques may improve consultation outcomes and reduce the emotional burden on the clinical ethicist. (shrink)

Despite the lack of evidence for their effectiveness, the use of physical restraints for patients is widespread. The best ethical justification for restraining patients is that it prevents them from harming themselves. We argue that even if the empirical evidence supported their effectiveness in achieving this aim, their use would nevertheless be unethical, so long as well known exceptions to informed consent fail to apply. Specifically, we argue that ethically justifiable restraint use demands certain necessary and sufficient conditions. These conditions (...) are that the physician obtain informed consent for their application, that their application be medically appropriate, and that restraints be the least liberty-restricting way of achieving the intended benefit. It is a further question whether their application is ever medically appropriate, given the dearth of evidence for their effectiveness. (shrink)

These 17 essays covers all aspects of Bernard Stiegler's work, from poststructuralism, anthropology and psychoanalysis to his work on the politics of memory, 'libidinal economy', technoscience and aesthetics, keeping a focus on his key theory of technics throughout. Stiegler brings together key concepts from Plato, Freud, Derrida and Simondon to argue that the human is 'invented' through technics rather than a product of purely biological evolution. Stiegler is a thinker at the forefront of our contemporary concerns with consumerism, technology, inter-generational (...) division, political apathy and economic crisis. His ambitious project is to go beyond these sources of social distress to uncover and examine precisely 'what makes life worth living'. Contributors include: Stephen Barker, University of California Irvine and translator of Steigler; Richard Beardsworth, American University of Paris and translator of Stiegler; Miguel de Beistegui; University of Warwick; Marc Crepon, Ecole normale superieure and co-founder of Stiegler's think tank, Ars Industrialis and Daniel Ross, co-director of 'The Ister', the award-winning film on Heidegger, and translator of Stiegler. (shrink)

The practice of medicine frequently involves the unconsented restriction of liberty. The reasons for unilateral liberty restrictions are typically that being confined, strapped down, or sedated are necessary to prevent the person from harming themselves or others. In this paper, we target the ethics of chemical restraints, which are medications that are used to intentionally restrict the mental states associated with the unwanted behaviors, and are typically not specifically indicated for the condition for which the patient is being treated. Specifically, (...) we aim to identify the conditions under which chemical restraints are ethically permissible. It is wrong to assume that what is morally true of physical restraints is also true of chemical restraints. Our aim is thus to identify the conditions under which chemical restraints are permissible while distinguishing these conditions from those of the application of physical restraints. (shrink)

Fiester and Yuan offer several critiques of the use of behavior contracts in managing difficult patients and families (Fiester and Yuan 2023). This open peer commentary is not intended to refute ea...

In this article we examine the sonic framing of place. Our theoretical approach combines Goffman’s microsociology (and its sociology of music/sound studies off-shoots) with an account of sound in the urban atmospheres literature. Drawing on the work of French urban sociologist Jean-Paul Thibaud and associated work on sound in urban environments by the CRESSON research centre, we propose that sound frames activity in particular ways, including by infusing self and space with a certain tone, and by rendering places more or (...) less hospitable. In the latter part of the article, we examine Quiet Hour shopping as a case study in the sonic constitution and transformation of places. We conclude by reflecting on whether the social and cultural theoretical analysis of sound has suffered from a ‘noise bias’, and whether the ‘resonances’ of public places is a new frontier in both sociological research and in the politics of cities. (shrink)

This introduction positions the special issue by highlighting the inherent relationality of place as well as how place is not just an object of analysis but something that shapes thinking, writing and experiences of the world. We reflect on why sociology has found it somewhat more difficult than its social science counterparts to give place the centrality it merits, and discuss whether this reflects a problem with dealing with questions of ‘scale’ and thinking the ‘in-betweenness’ of place. We assess important (...) formulations of place in recent place theories, including non-essentialist framings of place such as ‘progressive’ and as ‘assemblage’. We make a case for seeing the articles in this special issue (and Thesis Eleven’s own long history of publishing writing on the topic of place) as resonating with the themes of place as materiality, atmospheres and spaces of belonging. (shrink)

For many years there has been a debate about the role of the parietal lobe in the generation of behavior. Does it generate movement plans (intention) or choose objects in the environment for further processing? To answer this, we focus on the lateral intraparietal area (LIP), an area that has been shown to play independent roles in target selection for saccades and the generation of visual attention. Based on results from a variety of tasks, we propose that LIP acts as (...) a priority map in which objects are represented by activity proportional to their behavioral priority. We present evidence to show that the priority map combines bottom-up inputs like a rapid visual response with an array of top-down signals like a saccade plan. The spatial location representing the peak of the map is used by the oculomotor system to target saccades and by the visual system to guide visual attention. (shrink)

We thank all the thoughtful authors for their insightful comments. In this response, we try to address some of themes that emerged from the commentaries. We leave aside some of those comments that...

This is the introduction to the Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments.

What is the primary intellectual aim of philosophy? The standard view is that philosophy aims to provide true answers to philosophical questions. But if our aim is to settle controversy by answering such questions, our discipline is an embarrassing failure. Moreover, taking philosophy to aim at providing true answers to these questions leads to a variety of puzzles: How do we account for philosophical expertise? How is philosophical progress possible? Why do job search committees not care about the truth or (...) falsity of a candidate’s philosophical views? We argue that philosophy does not aim at discovering true answers to philosophical questions. Instead, its primary intellectual aim is understanding. We argue that many familiar aspects of philosophy become intelligible once we accept this hypothesis. (shrink)

Drawing upon the unfolding model of turnover and the dual-process theory of information processing, we examined the roles which ethical leadership and abusive supervision play in the turnover process. The central conclusion of this study is that ethical leadership influences job satisfaction, which then influences intentions to quit, which then impacts job search behaviors. Conversely, abusive supervision, which is the conceptual opposite of ethical leadership, has a negative influence on job satisfaction with corresponding impacts on intentions to quit and job (...) search behavior. But, unlike ethical leadership, which does not directly lead to job search behavior, abusive supervision can also directly make people so upset that they initiate job search behaviors. Moreover, findings indicate that even low levels of abusive supervision can neutralize high levels of ethical leadership. Implications for research and practice in human resource management are discussed. (shrink)

We develop an account of laboratory models, which have been central to the group selection controversy. We compare arguments for group selection in nature with Darwin's arguments for natural selection to argue that laboratory models provide important grounds for causal claims about selection. Biologists get information about causes and cause-effect relationships in the laboratory because of the special role their own causal agency plays there. They can also get information about patterns of effects and antecedent conditions in nature. But to (...) argue that some cause is actually responsible in nature, they require an inference from knowledge of causes in the laboratory context and of effects in the natural context. This process, cause detection, forms the core of an analogical argument for group selection. We discuss the differing roles of mathematical and laboratory models in constructing selective explanations at the group level and apply our discussion to the units of selection controversy to distinguish between the related problems of cause determination and evaluation of evidence. Because laboratory models are at the intersection of the two problems, their study is crucial for framing a coherent theory of explanation for evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Default positions, predetermined starting points that aid in complex decision-making, are common in clinical medicine. In this article, we identify and critically examine common default positions in clinical ethics practice. Whether default positions ought to be held is an important normative question, but here we are primarily interested in the descriptive, rather than normative, properties of default positions. We argue that default positions in clinical ethics function to protect and promote important values in medicine—respect for persons, utility, and justice. Further, (...) default positions in clinical ethics may also guard against harm. Where default positions exist, there are epistemic burdens to overturn them. The person wishing to reject the default position, rather than the person endorsing it, bears this burden. The person who bears the burden of meeting the epistemic requirements must provide evidence proportional to the degree of harm the default position protects against. Default positions that protect against significant harm impose significant epistemic requirements to overturn. This asymmetry not only makes medical decision-making more economical but also serves to promote and protect certain values. The identification and analysis of common and recognizable default positions can help to identify other default positions and the conditions under which their associated epistemic requirements are met. The article concludes with considerations of potential problems with the use of default positions in clinical ethics. (shrink)

Thought experiments are a means of imaginative reasoning that lie at the heart of philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to the modern era, and they also play central roles in a range of fields, from physics to politics. The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments is an invaluable guide and reference source to this multifaceted subject. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Companion covers the following important areas: -/- · the history of thought experiments, from antiquity to (...) the trolley problem and quantum non-locality; -/- · thought experiments in the humanities, arts, and sciences, including ethics, physics, theology, biology, mathematics, economics, and politics; -/- · theories about the nature of thought experiments; -/- · new discussions concerning the impact of experimental philosophy, cross-cultural comparison studies, metaphilosophy, computer simulations, idealization, dialectics, cognitive science, the artistic nature of thought experiments, and metaphysical issues. -/- This broad ranging Companion goes backwards through history and sideways across disciplines. It also engages with philosophical perspectives from empiricism, rationalism, naturalism, skepticism, pluralism, contextualism, and neo-Kantianism to phenomenology. This volume will be valuable for anyone studying the methods of philosophy or any discipline that employs thought experiments, as well as anyone interested in the power and limits of the mind. (shrink)

In this paper, we report on the development and validity of the Professional Decision-Making in Research measure, a vignette-based test that examines decision-making strategies used by investigators when confronted with challenging situations in the context of empirical research. The PDR was administered online with a battery of validity measures to a group of NIH-funded researchers and research trainees who were diverse in terms of age, years of experience, types of research, and race. The PDR demonstrated adequate reliability and parallel form (...) correlation. As hypothesized, the PDR was significantly negatively correlated with narcissism, cynicism, moral disengagement, and compliance disengagement; it was not correlated with socially desirable responding. In regression analysis, the strongest predictors of higher PDR scores were low compliance disengagement, speaking English as a native language, conducting clinical research with human subjects, and low levels of narcissism. Given that the PDR was written at an eighth grade reading level to be suitable for use with English as a second language participants and that only one-fourth of items focused on clinical research, further research into the possible roles of culture and research ethics training across specialties is warranted. This initial validity study demonstrates the potential usefulness of the PDR as an educational outcome assessment measure and a research instrument for studies on professionalism and integrity in research. (shrink)