This paper examines the identity of Asian swamp buffalo ( Bubalus bubalis ) from different value orientations. Buffalo were introduced into Northern (Top End) Australia in the early nineteenth century. A team of transdisciplinary researchers, including an ethicist, has been engaged in field research on feral buffalo in Arnhem Land over the past three years. Using historical documents, literature review, field observations, interviews with key informants, and interaction with the Indigenous land owners, an understanding of the diverse views on the (...) scientific, cultural, and economic significance of buffalo was obtained. While the diverse stakeholders in buffalo exploitation and management have historically delivered divergent value orientations on the nature of the human–buffalo relationship, we argue that over time there is the possibility of values and ethical convergence. Such convergence is possible via transdisciplinary and transcultural agreement on the value stances that constitute the construction of the being or identity of buffalo in the face of the overwhelming need to manage population density and gross numbers. (shrink)
Nanotechnology: Considering the Complex Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues with the Parameters of Human Performance Content Type Journal Article Pages 265-275 DOI 10.1007/s11569-008-0047-6 Authors Linda MacDonald Glenn, Albany Medical College/Center Alden March Bioethics Institute Albany NY 12208 USA Jeanann S. Boyce, Montgomery College Dept. of Computer Science and Business 7600 Takoma Avenue Takoma Park MD 20912 USA Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757 Journal Volume Volume 2 Journal Issue Volume 2, Number 3.
Authors frequently refer to gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, and operant learning as exemplifying selection processes in the same sense of this term. However, as obvious as this claim may seem on the surface, setting out an account of “selection” that is general enough to incorporate all three of these processes without becoming so general as to be vacuous is far from easy. In this target article, we set out such a general (...) account of selection to see how well it accommodates these very different sorts of selection. The three fundamental elements of this account are replication, variation, and environmental interaction. For selection to occur, these three processes must be related in a very specific way. In particular, replication must alternate with environmental interaction so that any changes that occur in replication are passed on differentially because of environmental interaction. One of the main differences among the three sorts of selection that we investigate concerns the role of organisms. In traditional biological evolution, organisms play a central role with respect to environmental interaction. Although environmental interaction can occur at other levels of the organizational hierarchy, organisms are the primary focus of environmental interaction. In the functioning of the immune system, organisms function as containers. The interactions that result in selection of antibodies during a lifetime are between entities (antibodies and antigens) contained within the organism. Resulting changes in the immune system of one organism are not passed on to later organisms. Nor are changes in operant behavior resulting from behavioral selection passed on to later organisms. But operant behavior is not contained in the organism because most of the interactions that lead to differential replication include parts of the world outside the organism. Changes in the organism's nervous system are the effects of those interactions. The role of genes also varies in these three systems. Biological evolution is gene-based (i.e., genes are the primary replicators). Genes play very different roles in operant behavior and the immune system. However, in all three systems, iteration is central. All three selection processes are also incredibly wasteful and inefficient. They can generate complexity and novelty primarily because they are so wasteful and inefficient. Key Words: evolution; immunology; interaction; operant behavior; operant learning; replication; selection; variation. (shrink)
Offering an inside look at the hidden dimensions of teaching, this provocative text presents insight into, and analysis of, the work of teaching--from preparing ...
If selection is interpreted as involving repeated cycles of replication, variation, and environmental interaction so structured that environmental interaction causes replication to be differential, then selection in gene-based biological evolution and the reaction of the immune system to antigens are relatively unproblematic examples of selection processes. Operant learning and cultural evolution pose more serious problems. In this response we deal with operant learning as a selection process. Footnotes1 The authors regretfully inform readers that since the publication of our target article (...) in 2001, one of our coauthors, Rod Langman, has died. (shrink)
In the last two decades the composition of the labor force in the United States has changed significantly. Today, most employeesare mothers or fathers of children under eighteen in families where both parents are employed or where the employed parent is a single mother. This represents a reversal of the older family ideal in which a father worked to provide income and a mother performed the domestic work that sustained families. The practices of business and much of the attention of (...) business ethicists have assumed the older ideal. However, the wage work of mothers raises serious concerns about how business should view their parent-employees. Business has responded with family friendly corporate policies. This article analyzes these policies in light of two particular values: The social equality of women and the well-being of families. Finding current policies inadequate to meet these values, this paper calls for renewed ethical attention to the issues of time demands on employees and just wages. (shrink)
In this paper we 1. provide a natural deduction system for full first-order linear logic, 2. introduce Curry-Howard-style terms for this version of linear logic, 3. extend the notion of substitution of Curry-Howard terms for term variables, 4. define the reduction rules for the Curry-Howard terms and 5. outline a proof of the strong normalization for the full system of linear logic using a development of Girard's candidates for reducibility, thereby providing an alternative to Girard's proof using proof-nets.
For a long time, several natural phenomena have been considered unproblematically selection processes in the same sense of “selection.” In our target article we dealt with three of these phenomena: gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, and operant learning. We characterize selection in terms of three processes (variation, replication, and environmental interaction) resulting in the evolution of lineages via differential replication. Our commentators were largely supportive with respect to variation and environmental interaction but (...) critical with respect to replication, in particular its appeal to information. With some reservations, our commentators think that our general analysis of selection may fit gene-based selection in biological evolution and the reaction of the immune system but not operant learning. If nothing else, this article shows that the notion of selection is not as straightforward as it may seem. (shrink)
Richard Rorty places William James in the same category of thinkers as Hegel. These thinkers, he claims, do not believe that philosophical discussion involves any reference to a reality external to their dialogue. Rorty’s claim initially seems justified, for Jamesdoes after all speak of the malleability of reality and insists that reality is part of experience. However, the fact that reality is part of experience does not necessarily mean that it is created by experience. Indeed, James insists that the reality (...) that limits truth is “found, not manufactured,” and the flexibility of truth cannot be attributed to the lack of an external reality but rather results from the interplay of thought and reality in determining truth. (shrink)
Introduction : "Individualism has never been tried": toward a pragmatic individualism -- Pt. 1. Emerson -- What's the use of reading Emerson pragmatically?: the example of William James -- "Let us have worse cotton and better men": Emerson's ethics of self-culture -- Pt. 2. Pragmatism: James and Dewey -- "Moments in the world's salvation": James's pragmatic individualism -- Character and community: Dewey's model of moral selfhood -- "The local is the ultimate universal": Dewey on reconstructing individuality and community -- Pt. (...) 3. A tragic-comic ethics in the Emersonian vein: Kenneth Burke and Ralph Ellison -- "Saying 'yes' and saying 'no'": individualist ethics in Ellison and Burke. (shrink)
This paper reports the results of a four year study to measure the effect of a Business and Society course on the ethical judgment of students. The research involves a matched pre/post survey with control design, with the Business and Society course functioning as the treatment variable. The subjects were undergraduate and graduate (M.B.A.) business students (n=460). The answer to the question posed by the title of this paper is yes, in a more ethical direction.
Nietzsche's harsh attacks on modernity suggest a problem: if the modern age is so diseased, can we overcome it and move on to something higher? Or is the disease too severe? I examine the question by studying Nietzsche's view of spiritual health. Spiritual illness, even in the highest man, is nothing unusual or necessarily debilitating. Even the strongest have been infected since the earliest days of civilization. Indeed, infection with slave morality and bad conscience are requirements for spiritual elevation. And (...) the disease serves life by giving the strong something to struggle against, as well as making possible the spiritual greatness required to revalue all values. The higher man, then, is a mixture of health and disease. The revaluation of values is extraordinarily dangerous, but not impossible. Key Words: great politics • Nietzsche's revaluation of all values • On the Genealogy of Morals • spiritual health. (shrink)
The case for the value of self-experimentation in advancing science is convincing. Important features of the method include (1) repeated measures of individual behavior, over extended time, to discover cause/effect relations, and (2) vivid graphical presentations. Large-scale research on Pavlovian conditioning and weight control is needed because verification could result in easy and inexpensive mitigation of a serious public health problem.
In this paper we 1. provide a natural deduction system for full first-order linear logic, 2. introduce Curry-Howard-style terms for this version of linear logic, 3. extend the notion of substitution of Curry-Howard terms for term variables, 4. define the reduction rules for the Curry-Howard terms and 5. outline a proof of the strong normalization for the full system of linear logic using a development of Girard's candidates for reducibility, thereby providing an alternative to Girard's proof using (...) proof-nets. (shrink)
This paper compares the ethical decisions and attitudes of business students and practitioners. Recent unpublished data from a national study of over 1600 students are contrasted with information reported previously. Students are found consistently to make less ethical choices than practitioners, and there is some indication that students are making less ethical choices in the 1980s than in the 1960s. In addition, both students and practitioners agree that buyers should beware, view the role of business more narrowly, and find fewer (...) incentives to behave ethically over time. Codes of ethics appear to be less influential than the individual''s strong personal value system and one''s superiors behaving ethically; support for codes is declining. The paper concludes with observations about the limitations and possibilities for survey research in this area drawing on other studies that used the same instrument utilized for this paper. Some implications for future research are suggested. (shrink)
H. Patrick Glenn (2012). Sustainable Diversity in Law. In Brian Z. Tamanaha, Caroline Mary Sage & Michael J. V. Woolcock (eds.), Legal Pluralism and Development: Scholars and Practitioners in Dialogue. Cambridge University Press.score: 30.0
This article examines the difficulties encountered in teaching professionalism to medical students in the current social and political climate where economic considerations take top priority in health care decision making. The conflict between the commitment to advocate at all times the interests of one’s patients over one’s own interests is discussed. With personal, institutional, tech industry, pharmaceutical industry, and third-party payer financial imperatives that stand between patients and the delivery of health care, this article investigates how medical ethics instructors are (...) to teach professionalism in a responsible way that does not avoid dealing with the principle of justice. (shrink)
This paper examines the identity of Asian swamp buffalo ( Bubalus bubalis ) from different value orientations. Buffalo were introduced into Northern (Top End) Australia in the early nineteenth century. A team of transdisciplinary researchers, including an ethicist, has been engaged in field research on feral buffalo in Arnhem Land over the past three years. Using historical documents, literature review, field observations, interviews with key informants, and interaction with the Indigenous land owners, an understanding of the diverse views on the (...) scientific, cultural, and economic significance of buffalo was obtained. While the diverse stakeholders in buffalo exploitation and management have historically delivered divergent value orientations on the nature of the human–buffalo relationship, we argue that over time there is the possibility of values and ethical convergence. Such convergence is possible via transdisciplinary and transcultural agreement on the value stances that constitute the construction of the being or identity of buffalo in the face of the overwhelming need to manage population density and gross numbers. (shrink)
Lang, B. Philosophy and the manners of art.--Hofstadter, A. Freedom, enownment, and philosophy.--Mehta, J. L. A stranger from Asia.--Fox, D. A. A passage past India.--Rucker, D. Philosophy and the constitution of Emerson's world.--Schneider, H. W. The pragmatic movement in historical perspective.--Barnes, H. E. Reflections on myth and magic.--Cauvel, J. The imperious presence of theater.--Seay, A. Musical conservatism in the fourteenth century.--Hochman, W. R. The enduring fascination of war.--Davenport, M. M. J. Glenn Gray and the promise of wisdom.
The National School Boards Association enlisted Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch to criticize intelligent design bullet point fashion. Here I want to respond to these bullet-point assertions. I would repeat the entire article, but copyright restrictions prevent me. The article is available at http://nsba.org/sbn/02-jul/070202-8.htm.
Resenha do livro de Erickson, Glenn W.; e Fossa, John A.. A linha dividida : uma abordagem matemática à filosofia platônica . Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 2006. 186 páginas. [Coleçáo Metafísica, n. 4].
Resenha do livro de E rickson, Glenn W. e Fossa, John A.. Número e razáo : os fundamentos matemáticos da metafísica platônica. Natal: EDUFRN, 2005. 252 páginas.
Glen Hartz argues, that neuroscience reveals that persons moved or frightened by fictional characters believe that they are real, so such behaviour is not irrational. But these beliefs, if they exist, are not rational and, in any case inconsistent with our conscious rational beliefs that fictional characters are not real. So his argument fails to establish that we are not irrational or incoherent when moved or frightened by such characters. It powerfully reinforces the contrary view.
If truth is not unproblematic, then neither is it inaccessible. And, telling the truth is decidedly a political act. "From the viewpoint of politics, truth has a despotic character," declared Hannah Arendt, in her essay, "Truth and Politics." "Unwelcome opinion can be argued with, rejected, or compromised upon," she goes on, "but unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies." Moreover, at this late date in the twentieth century, we know that social justice is impossible (...) unless intellectuals tell the truth. This is a lesson which Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright turned politician, teaches as well as anyone. In "The Power of the Powerless," his classic essay on the intellectual's role in opposing totalitarianism, he observes that: "Under the orderly surface of the life of lies... there slumbers the hidden sphere of life in its real aims, of its hidden openness to truth.". (shrink)
