As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)

This book provides practical and research-based chapters that offer greater clarity about the particular kinds of teacher reflection that matter and avoids talking about teacher reflection generically, which implies that all kinds of reflection are of equal value.

In their landmark 2010 paper, “The weirdest people in the world?”, Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan outlined a serious methodological problem for the psychological and behavioural sciences. Most of the studies produced in the field use people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, yet inferences are often drawn to the species as a whole. In drawing such inferences, researchers implicitly assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that WEIRD populations are generally representative of the (...) species. Yet neither of these assumptions is justified. In many psychological and behavioural domains, cultural variation begets cognitive variation, and WEIRD samples are recurrently shown to be outliers. In the years since the article was published, attention has focused on the implications this has for research on extant human populations. Here we extend those implications to the study of ancient _H. sapiens_, their hominin forebears, and cousin lineages. We assess a range of characteristic arguments and key studies in the cognitive archaeology literature, identifying issues stemming from the problem of sample diversity. We then look at how worrying the problem is, and consider some conditions under which inferences to ancient populations via cognitive models might be provisionally justified. (shrink)

Since nothing about God is passive, and the perception of pain is inherently passive, then it seems that God does not know what it is like to experience pain. Nor would he be able to cause us to experience pain, for his experience would then be a sensation (which would require God to have senses, which he does not). My suggestion is that Berkeley avoids this situation by describing how God knows about pain “among other things” (...) (i.e. as something whose identity is intelligible in terms of the integrated network of things). This avoids having to assume that God has ideas (including pain) apart from his willing that there be perceivers who have specific ideas that are in harmony or not in harmony with one another. (shrink)

A moderately risk averse person may turn down a 50/50 gamble that either results in her winning $200 or losing $100. Such behaviour seems rational if, for instance, the pain of losing $100 is felt more strongly than the joy of winning $200. The aim of this paper is to examine an influential argument that some have interpreted as showing that such moderate risk aversion is irrational. After presenting an axiomatic argument that I take to be the strongest case (...) for the claim that moderate risk aversion is irrational, I show that it essentially depends on an assumption that those who think that risk aversion can be rational should be skeptical of. Hence, I conclude that risk aversion need not be irrational. (shrink)

In Section I, the purely conceptual issue as to whether animals other than human beings, all or some, may possess rights is examined. This is approached via a consideration of the concept of a moral right, and by way of examining the claims of sentience, consciousness, capacities for pleasure and pain, having desires, possessing interests, self-consciousness, rationality in various senses. It is argued that only beings possessed actually or potentially of the capacity to be morally self-determining can be possessors (...) of rights. In Section II, normative questions concerning the rights animals might possess if they were to be capable of possessing rights are discussed. The approach followed is that of considering the kinds of argument advanced in support of human rights, and whether these arguments, and the rights they are claimed to establish, are transferable to animals, and whether there are or might be specifically animal rights. In Section III the question of what is or could be the goal of one who recognizes and seeks to respect all rights, animal and human, is raised. In particular, the issue as to whether a goal of maximizing the satisfaction of rights could remain a coherent one if animal rights are acknowledged, is explored. (shrink)

Looking at current scholarship and opinion in American philosophy, one can easily conclude that there has been much more work done on studying the history of pragmatist philosophy than there has been on what pragmatist philosophy can give to the study of history. Ever since the resurrection of interest in pragmatism in the late twentieth century, we have seen a range of publications offering new interpretations for the ideas of the classical pragmatists, as well as important new applications for philosophical (...) pragmatism and the moving to center stage of historically sidelined individuals and groups. What we have seen relatively little of, however, aside from a 2016 symposium in the European Journal of Pragmatism... Read More. (shrink)

Liberalism is commonly believed, especially by its exponents, to be opposed to interference by way of enforcing value judgments or concerning itself with the individual's morality. My concern is to show that this is not so and that liberalism is all the better for this. Many elements have contributed to liberal thought as we know it today, the major elements being the liberalism of which Locke is the most celebrated exponent, which is based upon a belief in natural, human rights; (...) the liberalism of which Kant is the best known exponent, which is based on respect for persons as ends in themselves; and the liberalism of Bentham and the Mills, which is based upon utilitarian ethical theories and most especially with concern for pleasure and the reduction of pain. These different elements of liberalism have led to different emphases and different political and social arrangements, but all have involved a concern to safeguard values and to use force to that end. Today they constitute strands of thought which go to make up liberal thought as we now know it, hence it is not simply a historical fact about liberalism, but a fact about its philosophical basis, that liberalism is firmly involved in certain value and moral commitments. In the remainder of this paper I shall seek to bring this out. (shrink)

Few people will easily admit to taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. But who doesn't enjoy it when an arrogant but untalented contestant is humiliated on American Idol, or when the embarrassing vice of a self-righteous politician is exposed, or even when an envied friend suffers a small setback? The truth is that joy in someone else's pain--known by the German word schadenfreude--permeates our society. In The Joy of Pain, psychologist Richard Smith, one of the world's foremost (...) authorities on envy and shame, sheds much light on a feeling we dare not admit. Smith argues that schadenfreude is a natural human emotion, one worth taking a closer look at, as it reveals much about who we are as human beings. We have a passion for justice. Sometimes, schadenfreude can feel like getting one's revenge, when the suffering person has previously harmed us. But most of us are also motivated to feel good about ourselves, Smith notes, and look for ways to maintain a positive sense of self. One common way to do this is to compare ourselves to others and find areas where we are better. Similarly, the downfall of others--especially when they have seemed superior to us--can lead to a boost in our self-esteem, a lessening of feelings of inferiority. This is often at the root of schadenfreude. As the author points out, most instances of schadenfreude are harmless, on par with the pleasures of light gossip. Yet we must also be mindful that envy can motivate, without full awareness, the engineering of the misfortune we delight in. And envy-induced aggression can take us into dark territory indeed, as Smith shows as he examines the role of envy and schadenfreude in the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Filled with engaging examples of schadenfreude, from popular reality shows to the Duke-Kentucky basketball rivalry, The Joy of Pain provides an intriguing glimpse into a hidden corner of the human psyche. (shrink)

If one compares the development of modern medical ethics in Germany with those in the Netherlands, what stands out are the cultural and intellectual differences between the two countries. Dealing with the problems involved in limiting medical treatment, the authors show the differing and the common standards and values on which the discussion of this is based in both countries. Three examples, active termination of life, the do-not-resuscitate order and pain management, which are examined from an historical, legal, philosophical (...) and ethical perspective, put this in concrete terms. The authors belong to different generations as well as different political and philosophical camps. Vergleicht man die Entwicklung der modernen Medizinethik in Deutschland mit jener in den Niederlanden, fallen die kulturellen und intellektuellen Unterschiede zwischen beiden Landern deutlich auf. Anhand der Problematik der Begrenzung medizinischen Handelns zeigen die Autoren die verschiedenen bzw. gemeinsamen Normen und Werte, die der Diskussion daruber in beiden Landern zugrunde liegen. Drei Beispiele, die aktive Lebensbeendigung, die Nicht-Reanimierung und die Schmerzbekampfung, die aus historischem, juristischem, philosophischem und ethischem Blickwinkel betrachtet werden, konkretisieren die Darstellung. Die Autoren gehoren unterschiedlichen Generationen, politischen und lebensanschaulichen Lagern an. (shrink)

Culling seems to be a cruel method of human interference in the lives of elephants. The method of culling is generally used to control population numbers of highly developed mammals to protect vegetation and habitat for other less important species. Many people are against human interference in the lives of elephants. In this article aspects of this highly controversial issue are explored. Three fascinating characteristics of this ethical dilemma are discussed in the introductory part, and then the major arguments raised (...) against human interference in the lives of elephants are evaluated. These arguments are the following: First, that nature should be allowed to run its course and establish its own balance; nature will thus solve the problem of elephant overpopulation. The second argument raised by animal-rights activists as well as by animal-welfare groups either claim that animals have rights that humans must respect at all times, or that all sentient beings have interests that humans ought to respect, as those beings can experience pleasure or pain. The third argument often associates culling elephants as method for population control with the commercial use and exploitation of wilderness areas. Many people argue that it is unethical to use wildlife as a sustainable resource for fighting poverty. In conclusion it is stated that despite these arguments human intervention in the lives of elephants are ethically justified. (shrink)

In this response, I discuss the roles of the peripheral afferent drive in the maintenance of persistent pain, the concept of pre-emptive analgesia and the importance of the brain, the detailed involvement of which in pain is far less well understood compared to the events in the spinal cord. A comparison of pain to other sensory modalities is then made together with a discussion of learning and pain. These facets of pain are discussed in the (...) light of treatment strategies for this condition. (shrink)

English eighteenth-century aesthetic writers from Hume to Alison made it their aim to establish “a standard of taste by unfolding those principles that ought to govern the taste of every individual”, to set out as it were a blue-print of “a just relish” which would serve as a basis for criticism and appreciation. They thought to do this by exhibiting in the field of appreciation permanent uniformities of affective behaviour behind the conflicting idiosyn-cracies of temperament and fashion. It was a (...) psychological programme, “to explain the nature of man considered as a sensitive being capable of pleasure and pain,” a science of “apolaustics” as Hamilton would have preferred to call it. But the most that could be achieved through an empirical sociological investigation was to set up sanctions of restricted social approval for selected norms of taste and conformities of emotional response. As an approach to the problem of a rational criticism it could seem plausible only in an age where philosophical outlook was confined within the narrowly coherent traditions of a small cultivated class. (shrink)

The problem is pain. Patients and their families tell the story:He is your son. You love him. You want to help him in every way you can, but when he is in that kind of pain, you are helpless in a sense. Im his daddy. It was-what was I supposed to do for him? I felt, you know, helpless.It terrifies you. You want to run away from it. Pain is something you wish would kill you but does (...) not. Agony results from the pain that does not have the decency to knock you out.[W]e had a good family, but how much can you watch? How much suffering can you watch from your child, your 7-year-old child, and still keep your mind?I am a forty-six-year-old registered nurse who specializes in oncology care and education. I am also a patient who suffers from chronic nonmalignant pain, and this malady has been the most frightening, the most humiliating, and the most difficult ordeal of my life. (shrink)

The problem is pain. Patients and their families tell the story:He is your son. You love him. You want to help him in every way you can, but when he is in that kind of pain, you are helpless in a sense. Im his daddy. It was-what was I supposed to do for him? I felt, you know, helpless.It terrifies you. You want to run away from it. Pain is something you wish would kill you but does (...) not. Agony results from the pain that does not have the decency to knock you out.[W]e had a good family, but how much can you watch? How much suffering can you watch from your child, your 7-year-old child, and still keep your mind?I am a forty-six-year-old registered nurse who specializes in oncology care and education. I am also a patient who suffers from chronic nonmalignant pain, and this malady has been the most frightening, the most humiliating, and the most difficult ordeal of my life. (shrink)

The reluctance to eradicate poverty shown by citizens and governments of many modern constitutional democracies is puzzling. If poverty threatens societies in various ways, why would many countries with a strongly agreed upon system of democratic governance fail so painfully to find the commitment and appropriate action to eradicate poverty? In this essay I want to investigate the discordance between poverty and democracy. I will first briefly articulate the broad underlying values of modern constitutional democracies. Then I will analyze the (...) ways in which poverty violates the underlying values of democracy. Next I will try to explain why poverty is still widespread in democracies, despite the multiple ways it violates democratic values. Finally I will look at the implications of my findings in terms of the functions of democratic values in contemporary democracies. (shrink)

Adequate treatment of pain is essential to alleviate suffering, yet studies show that patients with terminal or serious illness receive inadequate pain relief. In the case of terminally ill patients, adequate palliation of pain may be likely to reduce requests for physician-assisted suicide. This issue of the journal addresses barriers to effective pain relief and suggests how treatment of pain can be improved. The symposium features the Pain Relief Act, which is designed to provide (...) practitioners who prescribe controlled substances for pain with protection from inappropriate legal sanctions. The Act is the product of the Project on Legal Constraints on Access to Effective Pain Relief, whose principal investigators were Nancy Neveloff Dubler, LL.B., Sandra H. Johnson, J.D., LL.M., Robert J. Levine, M.D., and Benjamin W. Moulton, J.D., M.P.H.The Project was supported by the Mayday Fund and the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation. (shrink)

Adequate treatment of pain is essential to alleviate suffering, yet studies show that patients with terminal or serious illness receive inadequate pain relief. In the case of terminally ill patients, adequate palliation of pain may be likely to reduce requests for physician-assisted suicide. This issue of the journal addresses barriers to effective pain relief and suggests how treatment of pain can be improved. The symposium features the Pain Relief Act, which is designed to provide (...) practitioners who prescribe controlled substances for pain with protection from inappropriate legal sanctions. The Act is the product of the Project on Legal Constraints on Access to Effective Pain Relief, whose principal investigators were Nancy Neveloff Dubler, LL.B., Sandra H. Johnson, J.D., LL.M., Robert J. Levine, M.D., and Benjamin W. Moulton, J.D., M.P.H.The Project was supported by the Mayday Fund and the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation. (shrink)

This paper considers parental duties of beneficence and non-maleficence to use prenatal genetic testing for non-treatable conditions. It is proposed that this can be a duty only if the testing is essential to protect the interests of the child ie only if there is a risk of the child being born to a life worse than non-existence. It is argued here that non-existence can be rationally preferred to a severely impaired life. Uncontrollable pain and a lack of any opportunity (...) to develop a continuous self are considered to be sufficient criteria for such preference. When parents are at risk of having a child whose life would be worse than non-existence, the parents have a duty to use prenatal testing and a duty to terminate an affected pregnancy. Further, such duty does not apply to any conditions where the resulting life can be considered better than non-existence. (shrink)

Further, we come here to what for the purpose of our present argument is the most important consideration of all, viz. that if we could show that there were two kinds of neural or physiological processess, occurring respectively on all occasions of pleasure and pain, the fact would be valueless for proving that life must be predominantly pleasant. It is perhaps intelligible that to succeed or fail in purposive activity should bring respectively contentment and discontent rather than vice-versa; but (...) that of two kinds of neural or physiological process, one should be accompanied by pleasure and the other by pain, is no more intelligible than if the connection were reversed. If the behaviour of any creature is affected by desires and aversions, by judgments, by feelings: if its desires and aversions or its judgments are connected with or affected by its pleasures and pains, then indeed the question with what bodily conditions its pleasures and pains are connected is part of the problem that interests the biologist—viz. what the conditions are under which the species can continue. But in that case the biologist must not claim that all the conditons of life and reproduction can be found in what happens in the body. Pleasures and pains, desires and aversions, purposes are not events that happen in the body. If they are the mere “apparence or sense” of what happens there, and alone determines survival or extinction, then what happens there to determine survival might, for all we can see, equally appear as pain or pleasure. (shrink)

Further, we come here to what for the purpose of our present argument is the most important consideration of all, viz. that if we could show that there were two kinds of neural or physiological processess, occurring respectively on all occasions of pleasure and pain, the fact would be valueless for proving that life must be predominantly pleasant. It is perhaps intelligible that to succeed or fail in purposive activity should bring respectively contentment and discontent rather than vice-versa; but (...) that of two kinds of neural or physiological process, one should be accompanied by pleasure and the other by pain, is no more intelligible than if the connection were reversed. If the behaviour of any creature is affected by desires and aversions, by judgments, by feelings: if its desires and aversions or its judgments are connected with or affected by its pleasures and pains, then indeed the question with what bodily conditions its pleasures and pains are connected is part of the problem that interests the biologist—viz. what the conditions are under which the species can continue. But in that case the biologist must not claim that all the conditons of life and reproduction can be found in what happens in the body. Pleasures and pains, desires and aversions, purposes are not events that happen in the body. If they are the mere “apparence or sense” of what happens there, and alone determines survival or extinction, then what happens there to determine survival might, for all we can see, equally appear as pain or pleasure. (shrink)

In patients with pain characterized by a painful focus and allodynia, the painful symptoms arise from altered central processing that is initiated and subsequently maintained by persistent input from nociceptive afferents. Treatments directed at this normal consequence of persistent input are inherently limited. The most efficacious treatments will target the pathology, the various sources of ongoing nociceptor input. [blumberg et al.; coderre & katz; dickenson].

Pain is the single most common reason patients seek care in the emergency department. Given the prevalence of pain as a presenting complaint, one might expect emergency physicians to assign its treatment a high priority; however, pain is often seemingly invisible to the emergency physician. Multiple research studies have documented that the undertreatment of pain, or oligoanalgesia, is a frequent occurrence. Pain that is not acknowledged and managed appropriately causes dissatisfaction with medical care, hostility toward (...) the physician, unscheduled returns to the emergency department, delayed return to full function, and potentially, an increased risk of litigation. Failure to recognize and treat pain may result in anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, increased oxygen demands with the potential for end organ ischemia, and decreased movement with an increased risk of venous thrombosis. (shrink)

Pain is the single most common reason patients seek care in the emergency department. Given the prevalence of pain as a presenting complaint, one might expect emergency physicians to assign its treatment a high priority; however, pain is often seemingly invisible to the emergency physician. Multiple research studies have documented that the undertreatment of pain, or oligoanalgesia, is a frequent occurrence. Pain that is not acknowledged and managed appropriately causes dissatisfaction with medical care, hostility toward (...) the physician, unscheduled returns to the emergency department, delayed return to full function, and potentially, an increased risk of litigation. Failure to recognize and treat pain may result in anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, increased oxygen demands with the potential for end organ ischemia, and decreased movement with an increased risk of venous thrombosis. (shrink)

The spinal mechanisms of action of opioids under normal conditions are reasonably well understood. The spinal effects of opioids can be enhanced or reduced depending on pathology and activity in other segmental and nonsegmental pathways. This plasticity will be considered in relation to the control of different pain states using opioids. The complex and contradictory findings on the supraspinal actions of opioids are explicable in terms of heterogeneous descending pathways to different spinal targets using multiple transmitters and receptors – (...) therefore opioids can both increase and decrease activity in descending pathways. These pathways could exhibit considerable plasticity. There is increasing evidence that delta opioid receptor agonists have the potential to replace morphine as major analgesics with reduced side-effect profiles. The concept of preemptive analgesia, based on preventing the induction of some of the negative plastic influences on opioid controls and the detrimental effects of pain, is sound, but experimental verification in the clinical setting is difficult. For example, a delayed compensatory upregulation of inhibitory systems, particularly in inflammation, may counter persistent painful inputs. Combination therapy with opioids may be beneficial in many pain states where either negative influences are blocked or inhibitory controls are enhanced. Finally, developmental aspects of these systems are discussed in connection with the treatment of pain in young children, where inhibitory systems in the spinal cord are immature. (shrink)

In _The Analyst’s Experience of the Depressive Position: The Melancholic Errand of Psychoanalysis_, Steven Cooper explores a subject matter previously applied more exclusively to patients, but rarely to psychoanalysts. Cooper probes the analyst’s experience of the depressive position in the analytic situation. These experiences include the pleasures and warmth of helping patients to bear what appears unbearable as well as the poignant experiences of, limitation, incompleteness, repetition and disappointment as a vital part of clinical work. He describes a seam in (...) clinical work in which the analyst is always trying to find and refind a position from which he can help patients to work with these experiences. The Analyst’s Experience of the Depressive Position includes: An exploration of the analyst’s participation and resistance to helping patients hold some of the most unsettling parts of their experience. Cooper draws some analogies between elements of theory about aesthetic experience in terms of how we bear new and old experience. An examination of the patient as an artist of sorts and the analyst as a form of psychic boundary artist: just as the creative act of art involves the capacity to transform pain and ruin into the depressive position, so does the co-creation of how we understand the patient’s mind through the mind of the analyst. Clinical chapters which focus on helping patients move from paranoid to depressive positions, with an emphasis on the analyst’s personal participation in that process. The Analyst’s Experience of the Depressive Position explores a rich, provocative and long overdue topic relevant to psychoanalysts, psychodynamically oriented psychotherapists, as well as students and teachers of both psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. (shrink)

Further, we come here to what for the purpose of our present argument is the most important consideration of all, viz. that if we could show that there were two kinds of neural or physiological processess, occurring respectively on all occasions of pleasure and pain, the fact would be valueless for proving that life must be predominantly pleasant. It is perhaps intelligible that to succeed or fail in purposive activity should bring respectively contentment and discontent rather than vice-versa; but (...) that of two kinds of neural or physiological process, one should be accompanied by pleasure and the other by pain, is no more intelligible than if the connection were reversed. If the behaviour of any creature is affected by desires and aversions, by judgments, by feelings: if its desires and aversions or its judgments are connected with or affected by its pleasures and pains, then indeed the question with what bodily conditions its pleasures and pains are connected is part of the problem that interests the biologist—viz. what the conditions are under which the species can continue. But in that case the biologist must not claim that all the conditons of life and reproduction can be found in what happens in the body. Pleasures and pains, desires and aversions, purposes are not events that happen in the body. If they are the mere “apparence or sense” of what happens there, and alone determines survival or extinction, then what happens there to determine survival might, for all we can see, equally appear as pain or pleasure. (shrink)

In hume's dialogues, Part x, Philo presents the trilemma attributed to epicurus: "is God willing but unable to prevent evil? able but unwilling? both willing and able? whence, Then is evil?" some critics say philo is trying to disprove god's existence. Some say he is not. I say he grants God exists as the first cause in order to show natural religion is impossible. For natural religion must establish god's benevolence, But it cannot combat "moderate scepticism" to establish any moral (...) attribute of god. It would have to show first that men are for the most part happy--A proposition no one can prove both because it is contrary to everyone's feeling and experience and because it is impossible to compute all the pains and pleasures of all men. Philo's argument stands independently of the more frequently discussed four causes argument of part xi. (shrink)