Artificial Intelligence has become big business in the military and in many industries. In spite of this growth there still remains no consensus about what AI really is. The major factor which seems to be responsible for this is the lack of agreement about the relationship between behavior and intelligence. In part certain ethical concerns generated from saying who, what and how intelligence is determined may be facilitating this lack of agreement.
It is shown how mathematical discoveries such as De Moivre's theorem can result from patterns among the symbols of existing formulae and that significant mathematical analogies are often syntactic rather than semantic, for the good reason that mathematical proofs are always syntactic, in the sense of employing only formal operations on symbols. This radically extends the Lakatos approach to mathematical discovery by allowing proof-directed concepts to generate new theorems from scratch instead of just as evolutionary modifications to some existing theorem. (...) The emphasis upon syntax and proof permits discoveries to go beyond the limits of any prevailing semantics. It also helps explain the shortcomings of inductive AI systems of mathematics learning such as Lenat's AM, in which proof has played no part in the formation of concepts and conjectures. (shrink)
Students coming into a third-year business ethics course I teach are often confused about the use and meaning of the terms social responsibility and ethics. This motivated me to take a closer look at a sample of the management and business ethics literature for an explanation of their confusion. I found that there are inconsistencies in the way the two terms are employed and the way the concepts are defined. This paper identifies the different ways the relationship between social responsibility (...) and ethics has been represented, the various uses of these two terms, and the contrasting views regarding the connection between morality and ethics. While this analysis does not resolve any difficult substantive questions, it does provide conceptual clarity as a necessary first step towards facilitating students critical engagement with the substantive issues. (shrink)
Attorneys increasingly rely on the services of mental health practitioners. Although some practitioners lack training, the promise of professional rewards lead some to accept opportunities with resulting ethical quandaries. Due to significant differences between the objectives of traditional mental health services and expert testimony, problems occur when clinicians venture into forensic services. Attorneys and judges, unfamiliar with mental health specialties, may seek to press a mental health practitioner into multiple roles. Although not all multiple roles are ethically inappropriate, caution demands (...) careful parsing of particular roles: (a) academic/behavioral science expert; (b) fact witness as a treating therapist; (c) expert witness based on a clinically oriented assessment; (d) pretrial and/or trial consultant; and (e) professional critic of other experts. Possible ethical issues and risks associated with accepting multiple roles are identified and strategies for avoiding or minimizing harm or exploitation are discussed. (shrink)
The publication in France of our book Impostures Intellectuelles [1] appears to have created a small storm in certain intellectual circles. According to Jon Henley in The Guardian, we have shown that ``modern French philosophy is a load of old tosh.''[2] According to Robert Maggiori in Libération, we are humourless scientistic pedants who correct grammatical errors in love letters.[3] We shall try to explain here why neither is the case.
This issue of the Hastings Center Report includes a special report that comes out of a three-year Hastings Center research project on controversies surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in children. Over the last couple of decades, the number of children diagnosed with mental disorders has risen significantly, and so, too, has the number of children prescribed medications. Some critics have accused psychiatry of overdiagnosis—of sometimes diagnosing children with psychiatric disorders when their behavior is actually within the range (...) of normal. This controversy led Erik Parens and Josie Johnston, authors of the report and the Hastings Center investigators in this project, to ask what a .. (shrink)
Many believe that innovation offers opportunities to create wealth through innovation in the form of new services and new technologies, an aspiration often not realised in practice. Nonetheless, organisations do possess unique advantages for governing certain types of economic activity through a logic very different from that of the market. This paper suggests that governing and guiding this 'organisational economy' of many and various stakeholders is essential to creating significant value from innovation, and that governance structures should be chosen which (...) align with the economic character of the organisation. This paper considers relationships between wealth creation through innovation, choices of governance structure and the nature of the organisation's relationships with its stakeholders. To inform the discussion, the paper draws on analysis and findings from recent applied doctoral research at Henley Management College into the creation of significant economic change in complex organisations which have a high dependence on technology. (shrink)
The current voluntary posthumous organ donation policy fails to provide sufficient organs to meet the demand. In these circumstances xenografts have been regarded as an expedient solution. The public perception seems to be that the only impediments to this technology are technical and biological. There are, however, important ethical issues raised by xenotransplantation that need to be considered as a matter of urgency. When the ethical issues raised by using non-human animals to provide replacement organs for human beings are considered (...) in a wider context and the possible alternatives to xenotransplantation are taken into account, a new dimension is added to the debate. In this broader context it is argued that a less ethically problematic solution is to adopt a presumed consent or opt-out organ procurement policy to regulate posthumous organ harvesting from humans. If there are still too few organs available, then the whole question of transplantation must be reassessed. (shrink)
Within an ethics framework, this article explores mental health practitioners' use of credentials that lack acceptable accreditation or authority. Increased competition among mental health care providers has elevated the importance of credentials for marketing professional services. Practitioners worried about economic survival, along with certain personality characteristics (e.g., sheer ego), are tempted to rely on credentials that lack proof of quality, thereby potentially jeopardizing professionalism. Specific assertions and recommendations are set forth in the interest of safe-guarding consumers and promoting professionalism.
A test of a biosocial model is reported in which we found no impact of circulating testosterone on either status-seeking or aggression. The fact that sex differences in competitiveness and aggression appear in childhood strongly suggests that the major impact of testosterone is organisational. Whereas dominance and resources are linked among males, female aggression may be a function of pure resource competition, with no element of status-seeking.
Three widely accepted principles – autonomy, beneficence and justice – provide a useful analytic framework for considering controversies and conflicts in bioethics. Since these principles capture key concepts found in diverse normative theories they provide a starting point from which consistent ethical analysis and comparison can begin. While justice is commonly discussed in the business ethics literature, the other two principles are not widely discussed. This paper investigates whether the principles of autonomy and beneficence provide a framework that is equally (...) useful for framing issues in business ethics. It is argued that they do. First, the principle of autonomy, with its associated notions of informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, voluntariness, self-mastery, and so on, provides a consistent approach to the analysis of diverse issues that arise in business ethics from market research to recruitment practices. Second, it is argued that the relationships between a business and its stakeholders ground duties of beneficence. The principle of beneficence provides a framework for considering the issues that arise in these relationships. (shrink)
MICHAEL D. RESNIK, Frege and the philosophy of mathematics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1980. 244 pp. $16.50. HANS D. SLUGA, Gottlob Frege. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. xi + 203 pp. £ 12.95.
Gareth Evans (1946-1980) was arguably the finest philosopher of his generation; he died tragically young, but the work he completed has had a seismic impact on the philosophies of language and mind. In this volume an outstanding international team of contributors offer illuminating perspectives on Evans's groundbreaking work, paying tribute to his achievements and leading his ideas in new directions. Contributors Josi Luis Bermzdez, John Campbell, Quassim Cassam, E. J. Lowe, John McDowell, Christopher Peacocke, Ian Rumfitt, Ken Safir, Mark Sainsbury.
