To counter the pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, some have proposed accelerating SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development through controlled human infection trials. These trials would involve the deliberate exposure of relatively few young, healthy volunteers to SARS-CoV-2. We defend this proposal against the charge that there is still too much uncertainty surrounding the risks of COVID-19 to responsibly run such a trial.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 18-29, May–June 2022.

Modern antiretroviral therapies are capable of suppressing HIV in the bloodstream to undetectable levels. Nonetheless, people living with HIV must maintain lifelong adherence to ART to avoid the re-emergence of the infection. So despite the existence and efficacy of ART, there is still substantial interest in development of a cure. But HIV cure trials can be risky, their success is as of yet unlikely, and the medical gain of being cured is limited against a baseline of ART access. The medical (...) prospect associated with participation in cure research thus look poor. Are the risks and burdens that HIV cure research places on participants so high that it is unethical, at present, to conduct it? In this paper, I answer ‘no’. I start my argument by describing a foundational way of thinking about the ethical justification for regulatory limits on research risk; I then apply this way of thinking to HIV cure trials. In offering this analysis, I confine my attention to studies enrolling competent adults and I also do not consider risks research may pose to third parties or society. Rather, my concern is to engage with the thought that some trials are so risky that performing them is an ethically unacceptable way to treat the participants themselves. I reject this thought and instead argue that there is no level of risk, no matter how high, that inherently mistreats a participant. (shrink)

I argue for a conciliationist treatment of peer disagreement, on the grounds that the evidence that non-conciliatory theorists point to--the evidence that conciliatory-friendly independence principles would rule out--bears a troubling relation to accuracy. Namely, we can anticipate that trying to respond to it is a bad deal with respect to our expected accuracy. I consequently argue that we shouldn't try to respond to it. Instead we should ignore it, and be conciliationists.

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 7, Page 757-764, September 2022.

I argue against ‘right reason’ style accounts of how we should manage our beliefs in the face of higher-order evidence. I start from the observation that such views seem to have bad practical consequences when we imagine someone acting on them. I then catalogs ways that Williamson, Weatherson, and Lasonen-Aarnio have tried to block objections based on these consequences; I argue all fail. I then move on to offer my own theoretical picture of a rational ‘should believe,’ and show that, (...) if such a picture is right, it can neatly explain why right reason isn't. I close by arguing that the extent to which anti-luminosity arguments motivate right reason has been overstated; the positive picture developed here, despite rejecting right reason, is nonetheless consistent with luminosity failures. (shrink)

This article considers the ethics of photojournalism from a television news perspective. The author, on the basis of his participant?observation study conducted at two major?market television stations, suggests that while most of the television news photographers he observed and interviewed expressed strong ethical beliefs and values, those same individuals admitted they often acted in contradiction to many of their personal ethical beliefs. Their actions in carrying out their work and their revelations on the structure of their ethical beliefs indicate they (...) face a dilemma in balancing values. They must deal with the often contradictory values of competition, careerism, journalistic norms, peer pressure, technology, and management and organizational expectations. (shrink)

Bioethicists broadly agree that there is a limit to the level of net risk that biomedical research may permissibly impose on participants, even in cases where the potential of that research to improve the health of the population health would be great. Although some may permissibly volunteer to take on some degree of pro‐social risk, no one, not even a willing volunteer, may ever be outright sacrificed for others. One might think this perspective, if correct, makes it effectively impossible to (...) study interventions with high intrinsic risks. But I describe a method – risk dilution – by which an extremely high‐risk intervention can nonetheless be effectively studied in the context of an acceptably low‐risk trial. I then defend risk dilution from objections. (shrink)

Individuals do not have a right to participate in clinical trials. But, they do have a right against being denied participation for inappropriate reasons. Despite the widespread endorsement of these two claims, there has been little discussion regarding which conditions for participation in clinical trials are appropriate and which are inappropriate. The present manuscript attempts to address this gap in the literature. We first describe and then argue against the claim that conditions on enrollment or continued participation are appropriate only (...) when they are needed to answer the scientific question(s) posed by the trial. We then offer an alternative view according to which the appropriateness of conditions depends on whether they help to satisfy the ethical requirements of clinical research. Because these requirements include social value, the present view implies that promoting social value is an acceptable reason to impose conditions on research participation. With this in mind, we explain why it is not coercive to require potential participants to accept conditions on enrollment that promote a trial's social value, even when the participants find those conditions unwelcome. We conclude by evaluating the present proposal's implications for the common practice of requiring participants to agree to the possible use of their leftover biospecimens in a broad range of future research. We argue, contra current regulatory policy, that this practice can be acceptable even when the present trial offers participants the prospect of clinical benefit and the samples are being reserved for future research that is unrelated to the present trial. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 2, February 2020, Page 30-32.

The mechanisms by which most receptor protein‐tyrosine kinases (RTKs) transmit signals are now well established. Binding of ligand results in the dimerization of receptor monomers followed by transphosphorylation of tyrosine residues within the cytoplasmic domains of the receptors. This tidy picture has, however, some strange characters lurking around the edges. Cases have now been identified in which RTKs lack kinase activity, but, despite being “dead” appear to have roles in signal transduction. Even stranger are the cases in which genes encoding (...) RTKs produce protein products consisting of only a portion of the kinase domain. At least one such “fractured” RTK appears to be involved in signal transduction. Here we describe how these strange molecules might function and discuss the questions associated with their evolution. BioEssays 23:69–76, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Mesoscale modeling is often considered merely as a practical strategy used when information on lower-scale details is lacking, or when there is a need to make models cognitively or computationally tractable. Without dismissing the importance of practical constraints for modeling choices, we argue that mesoscale models should not just be considered as abbreviations or placeholders for more “complete” models. Because many systems exhibit different behaviors at various spatial and temporal scales, bottom-up approaches are almost always doomed to fail. Mesoscale models (...) capture aspects of multi-scale systems that cannot be parameterized by simple averaging of lower-scale details. To understand the behavior of multi-scale systems, it is essential to identify mesoscale parameters that “code for” lower-scale details in a way that relate phenomena intermediate between microscopic and macroscopic features. We illustrate this point using examples of modeling of multi-scale systems in materials science and biology, where identification of material parameters such as stiffness or strain is a central step. The examples illustrate important aspects of a so-called “middle-out” modeling strategy. Rather than attempting to model the system bottom-up, one starts at intermediate scales where systems exhibit behaviors distinct from those at the atomic and continuum scales. One then seeks to upscale and downscale to gain a more complete understanding of the multi-scale system. The cases highlight how parameterization of lower-scale details not only enables tractable modeling but is also central to understanding functional and organizational features of multi-scale systems. (shrink)

This paper argues for the importance of inner speech in a proper understanding of the structure of human conscious experience. It reviews one recent attempt to build a model of inner speech based on a grammaticization model (Steels, 2003) and compares it with a self-regulation model here proposed. This latter model is located within the broader literature on the role of language in cognition and the inner voice in consciousness. I argue that this role is not limited to checking the (...) grammatical correctness of prospective utterances before they are spoken. Rather, it is a more broadly activity-structuring role, regulating and shaping the ongoing shape of human activity in the world. Through linking inner speech to the control of attention, I argue that the study of the functional role of inner speech should be a central area of analysis in our attempt to understand the development and qualitative character of human consciousness and that modelling can play a central role in that understanding. (shrink)

Abstract: There has been an ongoing dispute between defenders of world disclosure (understood here in a loosely Heideggerian sense) and advocates of normative debate. I will take up a recent confrontation between Charles Taylor and Robert Brandom over this question as my point of departure for showing how world disclosure can expand the range of normative argument. I begin by distinguishing pre-reflective disclosure—the already interpreted, structured world in which we find ourselves—from reflective disclosure—the discrete intervention of a particular utterance (...) or text. I discuss Taylor’s notion of social imaginaries as a way of thematizing our pre-reflective background and Talal Asad’s critique of Taylor to show how this background can be one space of argument. I then develop my own understanding of reflective disclosure, of which Taylor gives an indequate account, developing my argument with help of literature, including a close analysis of Susan Glaspell short story “A Jury of Her Peers.” This story illustrates how world disclosure can make normative arguments without confining itself to Brandom’s or Habermas’s idea of the exchange of reasons. (shrink)

THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION by C. R. Hallpike New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 426pp., $59.00 CULTURE AND THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS by Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. 339pp., $29.95.

When speaking of the philosophical importance of James’s late style, critics and philosophers have taken two broad approaches. One route, exemplified by Martha Nussbaum, attributes this style to the sensitivity of the characters. The other, exemplified by Robert Pippin, attributes the writing’s complexity to the ambiguities of the moral codes during this period of history. In my reading, James’s texts address a more general problem of modernity, which is the flattening of the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) by disengaged approaches to both (...) epistemology and morality, the reduction of the lifeworld to the environment (Umwelt). James’s works open an ontological dimension to the question of language and normativity, a question that modernity’s moral languages—whether based on deontology, utility, or virtue—fail to articulate. His texts interrogate what normativity is rather than just portraying the sensitivity of the characters or uncertainty of the historical moment, although both of those readings are certainly justified. (shrink)

ONE OF THE MOST prominent theorists of anarcho-capitalism is Hans- Hermann Hoppe. In what is perhaps his most famous result, the argumentation ethic for libertarianism, he purports to establish an a priori defense of the justice of a social order based exclusively on pri- vate property. Hoppe claims that all participants in a debate must presuppose the libertarian principle that every person owns himself, since the principle underlies the very concept of argumentation. Some libertarians (e.g., Rothbard 1988) have celebrated Hoppe’s (...) argument as the final nail in the coffin for collectivism of any type; following Hoppe, they believe that to deny the libertarian ethic is not only wrong, but also internally contradictory. On the other hand, a number of other prominent libertarians characterized Hoppe’s initial statement of his case as “one muddle after another” (Steele 1988, p. 47) or “a tissue of bald assertions” (Yeager 1988, p. 45). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Objectivity and InterpretationRobert SteckerAccording to Gregory Currie, literary interpretation suffers from a failure of objectivity. 1 He does not claim that the failure is complete, that it is not an objective matter in the least degree which interpretations of a literary work are acceptable, but he does claim that the degree of objectivity is at best small.I believe that literary interpretation is capable of a high degree of objectivity (...) in the sense Currie specifies as well as in other senses. However, the same standard of objectivity is not properly applied to all interpretations, because there are many different aims or interests with which interpretations are advanced, and the requirements of objectivity on acceptability vary with aim.Currie’s argument for objectivity failure should not be accepted. The most important reason for this is that it is based on a faulty conception of the enterprise of literary interpretation. However, the argument is also questionable on that conception.IBefore examining Currie’s argument, it is best to be clear about the objectivity in question. Just what has, or lacks objectivity, and what makes it more or less objective? I confess to being less than completely clear about Currie’s answer to this question. Let us say that it is judgments that are or are not objective, leaving it open for now which literary judgments are in question in Currie’s claim about objectivity failure. Objectivity depends on the possibility of intersubjective agreement or “agreement across points of view” as Currie puts it. Judgments of taste (e.g., “sushi is delicious”) are common candidates for judgments [End Page 48] that are not objective. We can suppose judgments of leftness are objective because we can all agree with my judgment that the book is to my left even if it is to other people’s right and would be to my right were I to reorient myself. Of course, that we can (should?) all agree doesn’t mean we always will. For various reasons, not all of which are relevant to objectivity, some may refuse to agree.According to Currie, objectivity comes in degrees, and nothing said so far indicates how we assign a degree of objectivity to a judgment. Extent of agreement or probability of reaching agreement might be invoked here, but these are not what Currie has in mind. In Currie’s view, degree of objectivity depends on the degree to which a judgment needs to be relativized before it is capable of getting agreement. There is something intuitive in this, but it is tricky to spell out the relevant criterion. Suppose the sushi lovers of Osaka can pretty much agree among themselves about what is good sushi. So can the sushi lovers of Kyoto. However, they cannot agree with each other. What is good sushi is relative to different groups of sushi lovers and their different standards, and that seems to make the goodness of some sushi a less objective matter than if there were one overarching standard. On the other hand, judgments of leftness are also capable of receiving agreement only when relativized to an individual and her orientation. Yet that does not undermine their objectivity. Similarly, to use an example of Currie’s, judgments of velocity need to be made relative to a frame of reference if they are to receive agreement, but that does not undermine their objectivity. Hence relativizing does not always undermine objectivity. Perhaps the relevant difference is something like this. There is no such thing as leftness not relativized to individual and orientation. There is no such thing as velocity not relativized to frame of reference. But perhaps there is such a thing as being a good F not relativized to group standards. This may not be so with sushi, but perhaps it is with carving knives or with stainless steel. In that case judgments of goodness that are independent of group standards, and hence capable of receiving agreement across groups, are more objective than those that are not. However, if all judgments of goodness are by their nature relative to group standards, the above reasoning suggests that such judgments are just as objective as judgments about velocity. That seems wrong... (shrink)

The Flats, a district near downtown Cleveland, was once was the vibrant heart of Midwestern industry and is now in the throes of change: Some of its warehouses and factories have been transformed into nightclubs and restaurants, while homes in adjacent neighborhoods have been replaced by mini-mansions. In Cleveland, photographer Andrew Borowiec documents the Flats today and evokes the way of life they once embodied. Given the rare opportunity to access one of Cleveland's vast steel mills before it was modernized (...) or destroyed, Borowiec employed his camera to explore the Flats and its monuments of American industry. His striking black and white images reveal the broken power and vulnerability of the once-mighty mill as well as its relation to the surrounding city and its neighborhoods. The commercial buildings, factories, warehouses, and iron bridges that sustained Cleveland's industrial pulse convey a quiet dignity in these compelling photographs, as do the modest frame houses that sheltered those who labored for decades in the Flats. As Clevelanders struggle to redefine themselves as citizens of a twenty-first-century corporate metropolis, the Flats stand as a haunting testament to a time when men worked with their hands and steel was indeed the backbone of our nation. Borowiec's compassionate but unflinchingly honest gaze challenges us to look both at and beyond the images of Cleveland and to meditate on our common history of loss and rebirth. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band umfasst Beitrage zu einem zentralen Thema bei Platon: 'Physis' kann bei Platon im naturwissenschaftlichen Sinne als physische, biologische, materielle Natur oder im ubertragenen Sinne als eigenes Wesen, etwa hinsichtlich Seele, Kosmos oder Gottlichem, verstanden werden. So werden in diesem Band medizinische, biologische und kosmologische Ansatze ebenso wie ontologische, epistemologische und padagogische Themen zu Platons 'Physis'-Konzept fokussiert. Die zeitgenossische Nomos-Physis-Diskussion Platons mit den Sophisten sowie seine sprach- und kulturphilosophischen Uberlegungen spielen hier eine wichtige Rolle. Die anspruchsvolle literarische Gestaltung (...) der Platonischen Dialoge ist fur die genannten Fragestellungen hochst relevant, ebenso die Auseinandersetzung spaterer platonischer Philosophen mit Platons Physis-Konzept. Mit Beitragen von:Michele Abbate, Christian Brockmann, Ramon Cornavaca, Diego De Brasi, Pantelis Golitsis, Julia Knauss, Dietmar Koch, Mai Oki-Suga, Irmgard Mannlein-Robert, Oliver Primavesi, Mario Regali, Carlos Steel, Angela Ulacco. (shrink)