Genetic research into ageing, longevity and late-onset disease is becoming increasingly common. Yet, there is a paucity of knowledge related to clinical actionability and the return of pathogenic variants to otherwise healthy elderly individuals. Whether or not genetic research in the elderly should be managed differently from standard practices adapted for younger populations has not yet been defined. In this article, we provide an overview of ethical and practical challenges in preparing for a genetic study of over 14 000 healthy (...) Australians aged 70 years or older enrolled in the ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly Healthy Ageing Biobank. At the time of consent, all participants in this study were free of life-threatening illness, cardiovascular disease or cognitive impairment. ASPREE is thus a cohort of healthy elderly individuals with seemingly minimal burden of genetic disease recruited without ascertainment bias. The cohort presents a unique opportunity to address the penetrance of known pathogenic variants in a population without disease symptoms; however, it also raises a number of ethical concerns regarding the interpretation and disclosure of variants with known clinical actionability. Some of the challenges include how to manage the interpretation, disclosure and actioning of pathogenic variants found in otherwise healthy elderly adults without disease symptoms, whether or not to disclose findings for the benefit of family members rather than elderly consented donors themselves, how to manage the return of genetic findings to the elderly individuals who are now in severe cognitive decline or terminal illness, how to ensure quality of information and clinical service upon disclosure of results to this demographic and how to prepare for the insurance implications of disclosing genetic information under Australian law. We discuss these and other dilemmas and propose a defensible plan of management. Trial registration number ISRCTN83772183. (shrink)

The overarching issue with this case study is poor regulation and quality control over direct-to-consumer genetic testing, delivered in the absence of any medical oversight.

fusion theory challenges efforts to see theory as inhibiting by presenting an approach that is innovative, eclectic, and subtle in order to draw out competing and constellating ideas and opinions. This collected volume of essays examines fusion theory and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to the reading of various works of Indian English novelists.

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline.

There is little empirical evidence showing a direct link between a capacity for statistical learning (SL) and proficiency with natural language. Moreover, discussion of the role of SL in language acquisition has seldom focused on literacy development. Our study addressed these issues by investigating the relationship between SL and reading ability in typically developing children and healthy adults. We tested SL using visually presented stimuli within a triplet learning paradigm and examined reading ability by administering the Wide Range Achievement Test (...) (WRAT-4; Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006). A total of 38 typically developing children (mean age of 9;5 years, range 6;4–12;5) and 37 healthy adults (mean age of 21 years, range 18–34) were assessed. In children, SL was significantly related to reading ability. Importantly, this relationship was independent of grade and also age. The adult data, too, revealed that SL was significantly related to reading ability. A regression analysis of the combined child and adult data revealed that SL accounted for a unique amount of variance in reading ability, after age and attention had been taken into consideration. For the first time, this study provides empirical evidence that a capacity for more effective SL is related to higher reading ability in the general population. (shrink)

The scope of the issues -- The moral relationship between leaders and followers -- The morality of leaders : motives and deeds -- Puzzles and perils of transformational leadership.

The essential guide to the life, thought, and legacy of Adam Smith Adam Smith (1723–90) is perhaps best known as one of the first champions of the free market and is widely regarded as the founding father of capitalism. From his ideas about the promise and pitfalls of globalization to his steadfast belief in the preservation of human dignity, his work is as relevant today as it was in the eighteenth century. Here, Ryan Hanley brings together some of the (...) world's finest scholars from across a variety of disciplines to offer new perspectives on Smith's life, thought, and enduring legacy. Contributors provide succinct and accessible discussions of Smith's landmark works and the historical context in which he wrote them, the core concepts of Smith's social vision, and the lasting impact of Smith's ideas in both academia and the broader world. They reveal other sides of Smith beyond the familiar portrayal of him as the author of the invisible hand, emphasizing his deep interests in such fields as rhetoric, ethics, and jurisprudence. Smith emerges not just as a champion of free markets but also as a thinker whose unique perspective encompasses broader commitments to virtue, justice, equality, and freedom. An essential introduction to Adam Smith's life and work, this incisive and thought-provoking book features contributions from leading figures such as Nicholas Phillipson, Amartya Sen, and John C. Bogle. It demonstrates how Smith's timeless insights speak to contemporary concerns such as growth in the developing world and the future of free trade, and how his influence extends to fields ranging from literature and philosophy to religion and law. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

In this paper we apply the popular Best System Account of laws to typical eternal worlds – both classical eternal worlds and eternal worlds of the kind posited by popular contemporary cosmological theories. We show that, according to the Best System Account, such worlds will have no laws that meaningfully constrain boundary conditions. It’s generally thought that lawful constraints on boundary conditions are required to avoid skeptical arguments. Thus the lack of such laws given the Best System Account may seem (...) like a severe problem for the view. We show, however, that at eternal worlds, lawful constraints on boundary conditions do little to help fend off skeptical worries. So with respect to handling these skeptical worries, the proponent of the Best System Account is no worse off than their competitors. (shrink)

Explores Russell's activities as a polemicist, agitator, educator, and popularizer and discusses the evolution of his moral philosophy and its application, including his final battle against American intervention in Vietnam.

How should you evaluate your choices when you’re unsure what their outcomes will be? One popular answer is to rank your options in terms of their expected utilities. But what should you do when you think that the value of their respective outcomes might be incommensurable? In the face of incommensurable values, it no longer makes sense to speak of ranking your options according to expected utility. Are there any general principles to guide us when facing decisions of this kind? (...) If only! This chapter develops an impossibility result: it holds that there are a handful of independently plausible constraints that no such decision theory can jointly satisfy. The result, while depressing, can be used to helpfully classify extant approaches based on which of the constraints they violate. (shrink)

That a standard of medical care must outline services that benefit the patient is relatively uncontroversial. However, one must determine how the practices outlined in a medical standard of care should benefit the patient. I will argue that practices outlined in a standard of medical care must not detract from the patient’s well-functioning and that clinicians can refuse to provide services that do. This paper, therefore, will advance the following two claims: (1) a standard of medical care must not cause (...) dysfunction, and (2) if a physician is medically rational to not provide some service which fails to meet the above condition (i.e. fails to be a standard of medical care), then she may refuse to do so. I then apply my thesis to the prescription of puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria. (shrink)

AI and people do not compete on a level-playing field. Self-driving vehicles may be safer than human drivers, but laws often penalize such technology. People may provide superior customer service, but businesses are automating to reduce their taxes. AI may innovate more effectively, but an antiquated legal framework constrains inventive AI. In The Reasonable Robot, Ryan Abbott argues that the law should not discriminate between AI and human behavior and proposes a new legal principle that will ultimately improve human (...) well-being. This work should be read by anyone interested in the rapidly evolving relationship between AI and the law. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel problem for representationalism (also known as "intentionalism"), a popular contemporary account of perception. We argue that representationalism is incompatible with supervaluationism, the leading contemporary account of vagueness. The problem generalizes to naive realism and related views, which are also incompatible with supervaluationism.

In his postapocalyptic novel, Those Who Remain, G. Michael Hopf (2016) makes an important observation about the effect crises can have on human psychology by noting that "hard times create strong [humans]" (loc. 200). While the catastrophic effects of the recent COVID-19 outbreak are incontestable, there are arguments to be made that the situation itself could be materia prima of a more grounded, and authentic generation of humanity, at least in theory. In this article I draw on Heidegger's early, implicit (...) ethic of finitude as well as his later work surrounding the nature of technology, and place them into dialogue with a global milieu contextualized by worldwide pandemic. I approach this discussion from two different angles: in the first part, I explicate the ethic of finitude, and use it as a framework to describe the observable behavior of communities worldwide in order to better understand how global crises impact the psychical welfare of individual human beings. In the second part, I apply lessons given to us by the later Heidegger, specifically those oriented around the movement away from calculative thinking, in an effort to define a loose, albeit fundamentally ennobling prescriptive aimed at easing the existential strain of the situation we have found ourselves in. *This is a pre-print of an article published in Human Arenas. The final authenticated version is available at DOI: 10.1007/s42087-020-00142-6. (shrink)

Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) originated in the 4thEuropean Research Framework Programme (1994) andresponsible research and innovation (RRI) from the EC researchagenda in 2010. ELSA has received renewed attention inEuropean funding schemes and research. This raises the questionof how these two approaches to social responsibility relate toone another and if there is the possibility to align. There is aneed to evaluate the relationship/overlap between ELSA and RRIbecause there is a possibility that new ELSA research will reinventthe wheel if it (...) does not engage with the body of literaturealready present in RRI research. This provides unneeded extrabureaucracy, reformulations of research agendas, extrainvestment, and an overabundance of frameworks to implement,and ELSA research does not take advantage of the body ofresearch developed in RRI. This paper evaluates how ELSA andRRI diverge, are complementary, and can be aligned. (shrink)

The puzzle of petitionary prayer: if we ask for the best thing, God was already going to do it, and if we ask for something that's not the best, God's not going to grant our request. In this paper, we give a new solution to the puzzle.

Can our beloved cats and dogs love us back? This chapter aims to find a satisfactory theory of love that substantiates the claim that they can. It begins by reconstructing and critically evaluating recent attempts by scientists to show that dogs can love humans back. Although these attempts are argued to be unsuccessful, it is further argued that they illuminate the need for an adequate theory of love and offer us some plausible ideas about love that direct us to two (...) recent philosophical theories of love that support the idea that dogs can love humans back. These two theories are discussed in detail before it is argued that dogs, but not cats, seem capable of loving humans under these theories. These theory-based defenses of the belief that dogs can love humans back are then criticized on the grounds that the theories they use are unsatisfactory because they fail to capture three central truths about love. This leads to a third theory of love that, after some friendly amendments, is argued to be a tentatively adequate theory that provisionally vindicates the claim that dogs, but not cats, can love humans back. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter is on some of the ethical and philosophical issues at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the health care sector and medical assistance in dying (e.g. physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia), including: (1) Is there a role for robotic systems/AI to play in the orchestration or delivery of assisted dying?; (2) Can the use of robotic systems/AI make the orchestration of assisted dying more ethical?; and (3) What insights can be generated in (...) the ethical debate on physician assisted suicide and euthanasia from considering the prospect of robotic systems/AI assisting with the provision of or providing assistance in dying? The prospect of including robotic systems/AI in the context of assisted dying provides opportunity to revisit longstanding philosophical and ethical issues under new light. Indeed, reflecting on these questions may invigorate debate, for example in reconsidering the de-medicalization of assisted dying, reconsidering whether assisted dying is within the proper scope of medicine, and reconsidering which normative approach to the ethics of assisted dying is the most appropriate. (shrink)

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their dynamics, (...) but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models' robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson challenges advocates of layered conceptions of reality to explain “how layers are distinguished” and “what holds them together” by “examining the world” (2014). One strategy for answering such questions is mereological, treating inter-layer relations as parthood relations, where layers exist whenever composition does, and the number of layers will be equivalent to the number of answers to Peter Van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question, while answers to his General Composition Question explain what holds the layers together (1987). Various answers (...) have been proffered for these questions, from the physicalist atomism of Richard Feynman (2015), Hilary Putnam (1958), and Kit Fine (1992) to the holism of Jonathan Schaffer (2010), the two-layer emergentism of Van Inwagen himself (1995), Tim Maudlin’s three-layered “flash ontology” (2011), and Rob Koons two-layered “thermal substances” (2019). In this PhD project, I seek to meet Thomasson’s challenge by identifying which of these proposals are compatible with plausible interpretations of quantum physics. Atomist answers may have difficulty with relativity, while holistic and emergentist models have trouble giving an account of experimental conditions. Maudlin and Koons’ views, meanwhile, may make testable predictions about the scope of entanglement. Examining the world can lead us to sharply winnow our theories about how layers are distinguished and what holds them together. (shrink)

Understanding the nature of science has long been a desired outcome of science education, despite ongoing disagreements about the content, structure, and focus of NOS expectations. Addressing the concern that teachers likely focus only on student learning expectations appearing in standards documents, this study examines the current state of NOS in science education standards documents from nine diverse countries to determine the overt NOS learning expectations that appeared, NOS statements provided near those learning expectations, but not identified as learning outcomes, (...) and NOS statements found in ancillary text. Findings indicate that NOS ideas rarely occur as expectations for student learning and are far more commonly found in ancillary material. Moreover, consensus was not apparent in the overt learning outcomes for students. Given the well-documented poor state of NOS instruction and the consistent lack of NOS appearing in published curriculum materials, the NOS standards appearing in nearly all documents analyzed are unlikely to provide sufficient conceptual or pedagogical support for NOS to be accurately interpreted or translated into meaningful experiences for students. (shrink)

For Plato and Aristotle, arete (traditionally translated as "virtue") was the essential object of human admiration and striving, and even the key to happiness. Their work continues to inspire reflection on fundamental questions of ethics and politics today, as the fourteen new essays collected here demonstrate. -/- Contributors: Lidia Palumbo, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Ryan M. Brown, Jay R. Elliott, Guilherme Domingues da Motta, Federico Casella, Jonathan A. Buttaci, George Harvey, Mark Ralkowski, Gary S. Beck, Paula Gottlieb, Giulio di Basilio, Audrey (...) L. Anton, and Elena Bartolini. (shrink)

The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill demonstrates that Mill both saw his views as part of a systematic defense of empiricist epistemology and utilitarian ethics, and was to a large extent successful in offering a coherent and connected defense of this system. At the time Alan Ryan's highly acclaimed study was first published, it was unusual in insisting on the systematic character of Mill's philosophy. Since 1970, however, many writers have contributed to a more systematic understanding of Mill's program (...) for philosophy, ethics and social science, and Alan Ryan's new preface to the second edition assesses the way Mill appears in this new climate of opinion. (shrink)

When thinking of Plato’s discussions of virtue, many dialogues come to mind, but, assuredly, the Phaedrus does not. The word ἀρετή is used only six times in the dialogue. Unlike other dialogues, the Phaedrus thematizes neither the general concept of virtue nor any of the particular virtues. Given the centrality of virtue to Plato’s ethics and politics, it is surprising to see little reference to virtue in a dialogue devoted to love and to rhetoric, topics that have deep ethical and (...) political significance. -/- I argue that the Phaedrus makes important contributions to our understanding of virtue in Plato despite the infrequency of references. First, the dialogue juxtaposes competing conceptions of virtue: the “urbane” (cf. 227d) capacity to make things conform to one’s happenstance desires, championed by Lysias, and the “manic” capacity to conform oneself to reality, championed by Socrates. After clarifying that enslavement to pleasure-lust is the underlying condition of soul for Lysianic virtue, Socrates reveals that the non-lover’s “virtue” is, in truth, virtue in name only. Rather, true virtue emerges only when the soul becomes harmoniously ordered under reason’s guidance, a condition which is achieved through the soul’s encounter with beauty. Second, in the process of articulating how true virtue comes to be in the soul, Socrates gives grounds for distinguishing it from “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), a condition of soul whose outward aspect may be indistinguishable from that of virtue. While a soul in which reason does not take the reins may act from self-restraint, it does not yet act from virtue. Third, the dialogue gives us resources for seeing how other people, such as artful rhetoricians, can influence one’s cultivation of virtue. At first glance, Socrates’s claim that artful rhetoricians can “hand over” virtue (270b) seems incompatible with his claim that virtue is unteachable (cf. Meno 86d-99e). However, the dialogue offers some resources for seeing that the unteachability of virtue and the capacity for rhetoricians to “hand over” virtue are not, in fact, incompatible. From these three points, we will see that the Phaedrus offers an intellectualist account of virtue reminiscent of what we see in other dialogues. The intellectualist vision here, however, is one that includes a positive role for the subrational elements of the soul rather than one that excludes them from relevance or actively seeks to suppress them. (shrink)

Kopec and Titelbaum collect five alleged counterexamples to Uniqueness, the thesis that it is impossible for agents who have the same total evidence to be ideally rational in having different doxastic attitudes toward the same proposition. I argue that four of the alleged counterexamples fail, and that Uniqueness should be slightly modified to accommodate the fifth example.

This book explores the constraints which justice imposes on immigration policy. Like liberal nationalists, Ryan Pevnick argues that citizens have special claims to the institutions of their states. However, the source of these special claims is located in the citizenry's ownership of state institutions rather than in a shared national identity. Citizens contribute to the construction and maintenance of institutions, and as a result they have special claims to these institutions and a limited right to exclude outsiders. Pevnick shows (...) that the resulting view justifies a set of policies - including support for certain types of guest worker programs - which is distinct from those supported by either liberal nationalists or advocates of open borders. His book provides a framework for considering a number of connected topics including issues related to self-determination, the scope of distributive justice and the significance of shared national identity. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease 2019 can lead to respiratory failure. Some patients require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. During the current pandemic, health care resources in some cities have been overwhelmed, and doctors have faced complex decisions about resource allocation. We present a case in which a pediatric hospital caring for both children and adults seeks to establish guidelines for the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation if there are not enough resources to treat every patient. Experts in critical care, end-of-life care, bioethics, and (...) health policy discuss if age should guide rationing decisions. (shrink)

Nichols offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's theory of perception - by far the most important feature of his philosophical system. Nichols's consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, lively examples, and plainspoken style make this book especially readable. It will be the definitive analysis for a long time to come.

The frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan is justly renowned as a powerful visual advertisement for his political philosophy. Consequently, its rich imagery has been the subject of extensive scholarly commentary. Surprisingly, then, its gendered dimensions have received relatively limited attention. This essay explores this neglected facet of the frontispiece. I argue that the image initially appears to present a hypermasculine sovereign. However, upon closer inspection, and considered alongside Hobbes's economic theory, it yields to a reading of the sovereign as an ambiguously (...) gendered figure. Reading the frontispiece through the prism of gender and the economy reveals not a static image of unwavering male power but rather one of an equivocally-sexed creature teeming with life, contradictions, and complexities worthy of continued examination. (shrink)

The business and human rights movement shares several goals with the Benefit Corporation movement: corporations respecting human rights; maintaining a “wide aperture” so that all impacts of a company on people and communities are addressed; and creating rigorous standards of conduct and means of accountability. This paper argues that nonetheless the movements are traveling along parallel tracks and thus missing an opportunity for mutual learning that can improve their effectiveness. The BHR movement can look to B Corps for concrete examples (...) of viable companies that value human rights intrinsically and not just where there is a “business case” to do so. The B Impact Assessment, the B Corp certification tool, can better ensure that B Corps are in fact respecting human rights by adopting BHR standards. And both movements must give greater consideration to the potential contradiction between unlimited scaling—a key goal of B Corps—and the ability of large multinational corporations to respect human rights. (shrink)

Scholars have typically regarded Confucius as an ethical thinker broadly construed and not as an epistemological thinker. This chapter seeks to overturn that view and, in doing so, has three basic goals. The first goal is to make the case that Confucian thought is of epistemological significance. Goal two is to locate the significance of Confucian thought within epistemology while accounting for the past overlooking of this significance. The third goal is to show that Confucian thought is not only of (...) epistemological significance, but that it can make a contribution to progressing contemporary epistemology. (shrink)

These essays strike a judicious yet thought-provoking balance between theoretical and historical perspectives.

Many commentators have contrasted the way that sociability is theorized in the writings of Mary Astell and Damaris Masham, emphasizing the extent to which Masham is more interested in embodied, worldly existence. I argue, by contrast, that Astell's own interest in imagining a constitutively relational individual emerges once we pay attention to her use of religious texts and tropes. To explore the relevance of Astell's Christianity, I emphasize both how Astell's Christianity shapes her view of the individual's relation to society (...) and how Masham's contrasting views can be analyzed through the lens of her charge that Astell is an “enthusiast.” In late seventeenth-century England, “enthusiasm” was a term of abuse that, commentators have recently argued, could function polemically to dismiss those deemed either excessively social or antisocial. By accusing Astell of enthusiasm, I claim, Masham seeks to marginalize the relational self that Astell imagines and to promote a more instrumental view of social ties. I suggest some aspects of Astell's thought that may have struck contemporaries as “enthusiastic” and contrast her vision of the self with Masham's more hedonistic subject. I conclude that, although each woman differently configures the relation between self and society, they share a desire to imagine autonomy within a relational framework. (shrink)

To say Early Confucians advocated the possession of a sense of shame as a means to moral virtue underestimates the tact and forethought they used successfully to mold natural dispositions to experience shame into a system of self, familial, and social governance. Shame represents an adaptive system of emotion, cognition, perception, and behavior in social primates for measurement of social rank. Early Confucians understood the utility of the shame system for promotion of cooperation, and they build and deploy cultural modules (...) – e.g., rituals, titles, punishments – with this in mind. These policies result in subtle alterations to components of the evolved shame system that are detectable in data form contemporary cross-cultural psychology that show that populations in the Confucian diaspora have a unique shame profile compared to Western and non-Western populations. The status of Confucian diaspora populations as outliers in the context of shame is partially explained by appeal to the cultural transmission and historical endurance of relevant Early Confucian cultural modules. (shrink)

For the successful achievement of evidence-based practice, clinicians, managers and purchasers need evidence on whether a particular intervention works and ways to judge the appropriateness of the outcome criteria and measures used. Guidance is needed on what outcome measure to use, especially within routine clinical care settings. Beginning with a re-clarification of the difference between a health status and an outcome measure, the paper presents an evaluative checklist for use by clinical audit and research staff to review outcome measures for (...) use in routine care settings. Central features include the user-centredness of the measure, its psychometric properties, feasibility of use and utility. The applicability of the checklist is illustrated for outcome measurement in diabetes and stroke care. A modified form of the checklist is proposed for use by the busy clinician as an aid to the critical review of research papers within the context of evidence-based practice and to aid health care practitioners' choice of which outcome measure(s) to use within routine clinical care. (shrink)

The chapter begins by providing an overview of epistemic environmentalism, a meta-theory in applied epistemology. The Greater Value Thesis and the Greater Value Activism Thesis are offered in support of epistemic environmentalism. This leads to a discussion of the significance of epistemic value theory to epistemic environmentalism. Based on this examination, the case is made for the permissibility of state intervention in the epistemic environment. The permissibility of state intervention in the epistemic environment is defended against two liberal challenges.

This wide-ranging history of ancient Greek political thought shows what ancient political texts might mean to citizens of the twenty-first century. A provocative and wide-ranging history of ancient Greek political thought Demonstrates what ancient Greek works of political philosophy might mean to citizens of the twenty-first century Examines an array of poetic, historical, and philosophical texts in an effort to locate Greek political thought in its cultural context Pays careful attention to the distinctively ancient connections between politics and ethics Structured (...) around key themes such as the origins of political thought, political self-definition, revolutions in political thought, democracy and imperialism. (shrink)