The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 26-27, December 2011.

The rapid commercialization of applied genetics in the mtd-1970s, accompanied by a sudden rise in academic-corporate partnerships, raised questions about the impacts these linkages have had on the social and professional norms of scientists. The extent and pattern of faculty tnvolvement in commercialization of biological research is largely an unexplored area. This article provcdes a quantitative assessment of the linkages between biology faculty in American uncverscties and the newly formed biotechnology industry. The results of thes study, covering the period 1985-88, (...) show that academic scientists responded en masse to participating in the commercialization of genetecs research by estabhshmg formal associations with many of the new biotechnology compances. A data base consisting of 889 U.S. and Canadian biotechnology companies and 832 sccentcsts who had formal ties to them was developed over a four-year period. The patterns of academic-corporate Icnkages are revealed by institution. Three universities with the most commercially active faculty are Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Of the 359 bcomedeca! scientists and geneteccsts who were members of the Nateonal Academy of Sceences, at minimum, 37% had formal ties with the biotechnology industry. (shrink)

The philosopher Graham Harman argues that contemporary debates about the nature of reality as such, and about the nature of objects in particular, can be meaningfully applied to social theory and practice. With Immaterialism, he has recently provided a case-based demonstration of how this could happen. But social theorists have compelling reasons to oppose object-oriented social theory’s 15 principles. Fidelity to Harman’s aesthetic foundationalism, and his particular use of serial endosymbiosis theory as a mechanism of social change, constrain the very (...) practices which it is supposed to enable. However, social theory stands to benefit from object-oriented philosophy through what we call posthuman relationism – characterised as a commitment to the reality of the nonhuman, but not divorced from the human. The emphasis in object-oriented social theory on how objects withdraw from cognitive or affective capture and representation needs to be tempered by an equal focus on how objects appeal. (shrink)

Despite both positive and negative perceptions of the current state of higher education, the contemporary debate over what it is to be a university is limited. Most of all, it is limited imaginatively. The range of imagined options is narrow. The imagination has not been given anything even approaching a wide scope. As a result, our sense as to what a university could be and could become in the modern age is itself impoverished. If we are seriously to develop a (...) wide range of ideas of the university that is adequate to the challenges of the modern world, the imagination itself needs to be freed. Imagining the University seeks to address each of these sets of issues and will do so by first, identifying a very wide range of ideas of the university as it is now unfolding and could become; secondly, by evaluating those conceptions of the university with a classification of ideas of the university; and thirdly, by reflecting on the imagination itself, its current impoverishment and its possibilities. Whether studying, researching or deciding policy, this book is vital reading to all those involved in the planning and delivery of higher education. (shrink)

This is Part I of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinking movement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his influential definition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part II of the reflection will appear in the next issue of INQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical (...) thinking, and what the future may hold. (shrink)

The first dictionary dedicated to Quentin Meillassoux and the controversies surrounding his thought Perfect for philosophers just starting to read his work and for those looking to deepen their engagement, this dictionary defines all of the major terms of Meillassoux's work, prefaced by an introduction explaining his importance for the Continental philosophy scene. A-Z entries explain the influence of key figures, from Kant to Heidegger to Derrida, and define the complex terms that Meillassoux uses. The entries are written by the (...) top scholars in the field of speculative realism, often by those that highlight their own disagreements with him. This is more than a dictionary; this is your invitation into one of the liveliest debates in current philosophy. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive introduction to Deleuze's work on literature. It provides thorough treatments of Deleuze's early book on Proust and his seminal volume on Kafka and minor literature. Deleuze on Literature situates those studies and many other scattered writings within a general project that extends throughout Deleuze's career-that of conceiving of literature as a form of health and the writer as a cultural physician.

This is Part I of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinking movement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his influential definition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part II of the reflection will appear in the next issue of INQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical (...) thinking, and what the future may hold. (shrink)

The underlying thesis of the research in ethical autonomy for lethal autonomous unmanned systems is that they will potentially be capable of performing more ethically on the battlefield than are human soldiers. In this article this hypothesis is supported by ongoing and foreseen technological advances and perhaps equally important by an assessment of the fundamental ability of human warfighters in today's battlespace. If this goal of better-than-human performance is achieved, even if still imperfect, it can result in a reduction in (...) noncombatant casualties and property damage consistent with adherence to the Laws of War as prescribed in international treaties and conventions, and is thus worth pursuing vigorously. (shrink)

This is the second part of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in, and the progress of, the critical thinking movement. It provides a summary of Part I (Ennis 2011), including his definition/conception of critical thinking, the definition being “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.” It then examines the assessment and the teaching of critical thinking (including incorporation in a curriculum), and makes suggestions regarding the future of critical thinking. He (...) urges that now is the time to make a major effort in promoting critical thinking. Later may be too late. He also suggests a number of things to do. An Appendix, which provides a detailed elaboration of the nature of critical thinking, is at the end of Part I, but summaries are provided here. (shrink)

In Dangerous Minds, Ronald Beiner traces the deeper philosophical roots of such far-right ideologues as Richard Spencer, Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon, to the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger—and specifically to the aspects of their thought that express revulsion for the liberal-democratic view of life.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Bogue provides a systematic overview and introduction to Deleuze's writings on music and painting, and an assessment of their position within his aesthetics as a whole. Deleuze on Music, Painting and the Arts breaks new ground in the scholarship on Deleuze's aesthetics, while providing a clear and accessible guide to his often overlooked writings in the fields of music and painting.

This article explores the synthesis between the theories and practice of Humanistic Management and Self-Determination Theory of Motivation (SDT). Moving from Economistic to Humanistic Management involves considering human action as uniting internal and external dimensions, having ethics as a guide for a good life, viewing society as a community of people, and being open to beauty and transcendence. The recently elucidated 50-year legacy of SDT describes it as a truly human science of motivation that takes into consideration our attributes as (...) persons, including our capacities for awareness and self-regulation. It also focuses on one’s capacity for autonomy as it applies to individual functioning, interpersonal relationships, and societal interactions. SDT posits a continuum of motivational regulation ranging from amotivation through controlled to autonomous motivation. The current empirical study of Millennials' motivation to support local and global hunger charities based on social media communication employs the complete SDT continuum. Digitalization and globalization have fundamentally changed the nature of human communication. Millennials are central to the humanistic functioning of today’s society. The study findings of the dominance of integrated personal value autonomy demonstrates the necessity of assessing the complete set of SDT motivations in various contexts and situations. Given that SDT and Humanistic Management investigations have mainly involved corporations, one must also be open to investigating the humanistic management of non-profit social and governmental organizations. The non-greenwashed triple sustainability values of corporate, social and environmental good are pertinent targets for Humanistic Management research and Practices. (shrink)

This essay offers a comprehensive vision for a higher education program incorporating critical thinking across the curriculum at hypothetical Alpha College, employing a rigorous detailed conception of critical thinking called “The Alpha Conception of Critical Thinking”. The program starts with a 1-year, required, freshman course, two-thirds of which focuses on a set of general critical thinking dispositions and abilities. The final third uses subject-matter issues to reinforce general critical thinking dispositions and abilities, teach samples of subject matter, and introduce subject-specific (...) critical thinking. Subject-matter departmental and other units will make long-range plans for incorporating critical thinking in varying amounts in subject-matter courses, culminating in a written Senior Thesis/Project involving investigating, taking, and defending a position, which reinforce critical thinking abilities and dispositions and increase subject-matter knowledge. Teaching approaches used in the program are involving and based on the principle, “We learn what we use.” Both summative and formative assessment are employed as appropriate. Coordination and support are extensive. Objections and concerns are discussed, and alternatives, including possible transitions, are considered. An extended review of research supports moving toward CTAC. (shrink)

The university has lost its way. The world needs the university more than ever but for new reasons. If we are to clarify its new role in the world, we need to find a new vocabulary and a new sense of purpose. The university is faced with supercomplexity, in which our very frames of understanding, action and self-identity are all continually challenged. In such a world, the university has explicitly to take on a dual role: firstly, of compounding supercomplexity, so (...) making the world ever more challenging; and secondly, of enabling us to live effectively in this chaotic world. Internally, too, the university has to become a new kind of organization, adept at fulfilling this dual role. The university has to live by the uncertainty principle: it has to generate uncertainty, to help us live with uncertainty, and even to revel in our uncertainty. Ronald Barnett offers nothing less than a fundamental reworking of the way in which we understand the modern university. Realizing the University is essential reading for all those concerned about the future of higher education. (shrink)

We revisit Naturalized Epistemology and the Law of Evidence, published twenty years ago. The evolution of the relative plausibility theory of juridical proof is offered as evidence of the advantage of a naturalized approach to the study of the field and law evidence. Various alternative explanations of aspects of juridical proof from other disciplines are examined and their shortcomings described. These competing explanations are similar in their reductive, a priori approaches that are at odds with an empirically oriented naturalized approach. (...) The shortcomings of the various a priori approaches are driven by their common methodological commitments to employing weird hypotheticals to engage in intuition mining about the American legal systems that in turn ignore important aspects of the actual legal systems and consistently make impossible epistemological demands. As a result, both their descriptions of and prescriptions for American legal systems are implausible, unlike the relative plausibility theory. (shrink)

In «Naturalized Epistemology and the Law of Evidence Revisited», the original target article for the various refutations that I comment on here, I revisited through a slightly different lens the subject of the article that I coauthored with Brian Leiter close to twenty years ago. That article has prompted four responses from Professors Pardo, Spellman, Muffato, and Enoch. Professors Pardo and Spellman basically accept the implications of the original article and offer useful but friendly amendments. Prof. Muffato apparently does not (...) want to dispute over my ground and so changes the subject, and in doing so offers a number of interesting points. Only the fourth, Prof. Enoch, has the same doubts about the utility of my original article as I do of the genre that gave rise to it. I can thus be quite brief in discussing professors Pardo, Spellman, and Muffato, but it will take bit more effort to lay out the limits of Prof. Enoch’s analysis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT As bioethics emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and began to have enormous impacts on the practice of medicine and research – fuelled, by broad socio‐political changes that gave rise to the struggle of women, African Americans, gay men and lesbians, and the antiauthoritarian impulse that characterised the New Left in democratic capitalist societies – little attention was given to the question of the ethics of public health. This was all the more striking since the core values and practices (...) of public health, often entailing the subordination of the individual for the common good, seemed opposed to the ideological impulses of bioethics. Of what relevance is autonomy‐focused bioethics for public health, with its mix of justifications including those that are either implicitly or explicitly paternalistic or that seek to impose strictures on individuals and communities in the name of collective welfare? To examine the deep divide between the central commitments of bioethics and the values that animate the practice of public health, we focus on a series of controversies implicating the concepts of privacy, liberty, and paternalism. Recognising the role of moral values in decision‐making was a signal contribution of bioethics in its formative period. Over the past three decades a broad array of perspectives emerged under the rubric of bioethics but individualism remains central. As we commence the process of shaping an ethics of public health, it is clear that bioethics is the wrong place to start when thinking about the balances required in defence of the public's health. (shrink)

Legal scholarship exploring the nature of evidence and the process of juridical proof has had a complex relationship with formal modeling. As evident in so many fields of knowledge, algorithmic approaches to evidence have the theoretical potential to increase the accuracy of fact finding, a tremendously important goal of the legal system. The hope that knowledge could be formalized within the evidentiary realm generated a spate of articles attempting to put probability theory to this purpose. This literature was both insightful (...) and frustrating. Much light was shed on the legal system, but it also quickly became evident that the tools of probability theory were in many ways ill-constructed for the task. Fundamental incompatibilities between the structure of legal decision making and the extant formal tools were identified, and it became evident that many of the purported explanations of legal phenomena were internally inconsistent. As a consequence, interest in this type of formal modeling declined, and attention was directed toward different kinds of explanations of the phenomena. Perhaps under the influence of a recent trend toward various types of formal modeling in legal scholarship, a recent burst of articles, rather than attempting to explain the macro structure of trials, which was the previous object of interest, attempts to quantify the probative value of various items of evidence in ways consistent with the formal features of various probability theories, and then to study decision making from that perspective. For example, the value of evidence is often purported to be its likelihood ratio, that is, the probability of discovering or receiving the evidence given a hypothesis (e.g., the defendant did it) divided by the probability of discovering or receiving the evidence given the negation of the hypothesis (the defendant didn't do it). Alternatively, the value of evidence is purported (more contextually) to be the information gain it provides, defined as the increase in probability it provides for a hypothesis above the probability of the hypothesis based on the other available evidence. Both conceptions then assume that all of the various probability assessments conform or ought to conform to the dictates of Bayes' theorem (that maintains consistency among such assessments); empirical studies are then done testing the extent to which this is so and proposing how the law can increase the probability that it is so. The general criticisms of using Bayes' theorem as a formal model of juridical proof are well known and were integral to the last wave of interest in formal modeling of the evidentiary process. This paper thus for the most part puts aside that more general issue, and focuses specifically on mathematical modeling of the value of particular items of evidence. The paper demonstrates that formal modeling has only limited value in explaining the value of legal evidence, much more limited than those constructing and discussing the models assume, and thus that the conclusions they draw about the value of evidence are unwarranted. This is done through a discussion of four recent examples that attempt to quantify evidence relating to, respectively, carpet fibers, infidelity, DNA random-match evidence, and character evidence used to impeach a witness. This article thus makes two contributions. First, and most importantly, it is another demonstration of the complex relationship between algorithmic tools and legal decision making. Second, at a minimum it points out serious pitfalls for analytical or empirical studies of juridical proof. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Criticism of Shakespeare's comedies has shifted from stressing their light-hearted and festive qualities to giving a stronger sense of their dark aspects and their social resonances. This volume introduces the key critical debates under five headings: genre, history and politics, gender and sexuality, language and performance.

Assuming that critical thinking dispositions are at least as important as critical thinking abilities, Ennis examines the concept of critical thinking disposition and suggests some criteria for judging sets of them. He considers a leading approach to their analysis and offers as an alternative a simpler set, including the disposition to seek alternatives and be open to them. After examining some gender-bias and subject-specificity challenges to promoting critical thinking dispositions, he notes some difficulties involved in assessing critical thinking dispositions, (...) and suggests an exploratory attempt to assess them. (shrink)

This text provides a comprehensive and timely examination of the most pertinent factors affecting institutional ethics committees, for ethicists, trustees, administrators, physicians, clergy, nurses, social workers, attorneys and others with an interest in ethics committees.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is Part I of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinking movement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his influential definition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part II of the reflection will appear in the next issue of INQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical (...) thinking, and what the future may hold. (shrink)

Some have suggested that there is no fact to the matter as to whether or not a particular physical system relaizes a particular computational description. This suggestion has been taken to imply that computational states are not real, and cannot, for example, provide a foundation for the cognitive sciences. In particular, Putnam has argued that every ordinary open physical system realizes every abstract finite automaton, implying that the fact that a particular computational characterization applies to a physical system does not (...) tell oneanything about the nature of that system. Putnam''s argument is scrutinized, and found inadequate because, among other things, it employs a notion of causation that is too weak. I argue that if one''s view of computation involves embeddedness (inputs and outputs) and full causality, one can avoid the universal realizability results. Therefore, the fact that a particular system realizes a particular automaton is not a vacuous one, and is often explanatory. Furthermore, I claim that computation would not necessarily be an explanatorily vacuous notion even if it were universally realizable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article deploys Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelian virtue ethics, in which meaningfulness is understood to supervene on human functioning, to bring empirical and ethical accounts of meaningful work into dialogue. Whereas empirical accounts have presented the experience of meaningful work either in terms of agents’ orientation to work or as intrinsic to certain types of work, ethical accounts have largely assumed the latter formulation and subjected it to considerations of distributive justice. This article critiques both the empirical and ethical literatures from (...) the standpoint of MacIntyre’s account of the relationship between the development of virtuous dispositions and participation in work that is productive of goods internal to practices. This reframing suggests new directions for empirical and ethical enquiries. (shrink)

In the wake of the revolutions of 1989, the ongoing political turmoil in the Soviet Union, and the democratization of most of Latin America, what is the task of political theorists? Ronald Beiner's invigorating critique of liberal theory and liberal practices takes on the shibboleths of modern Western discourse. He confronts the aridity of liberal societies that possess incommensurable "values" and "rights," but no principles. To Beiner, this neutralist view is both a false description of liberal society and an (...) incoherent political ideal. Rather, he encourages the theorist to remain faithful to the important task of questioning and criticism, instead of serving as a source of ideological reassurance about our own superiority. Beiner looks to the Socratic tradition for guidance. Permitting ethos to replace values, and discourse about "the good" to replace talk about "rights," the theorist is able to reorder social priorities. Considered in this light, the liberal political philosophy of the 1970s and 1980s appears insufficiently Socratic, as does a liberal way of life that presents itself as a model of imitation. Polemical, impassioned, and brilliantly argued, What's the Matter with Liberalism? is essential reading for everyone who cares about contemporary theory and the future of liberal society. In the wake of the revolutions of 1989, the ongoing political turmoil in the Soviet Union, and the democratization of most of Latin America, what is the task of political theorists? Ronald Beiner's invigorating critique of liberal theory and liberal practices takes on the shibboleths of modern Western discourse. He confronts the aridity of liberal societies that possess incommensurable "values" and "rights," but no principles. To Beiner, this neutralist view is both a false description of liberal society and an incoherent political ideal. Rather, he encourages the theorist to remain faithful to the important task of questioning and criticism, instead of serving as a source of ideological reassurance about our own superiority. Beiner looks to the Socratic tradition for guidance. Permitting ethos to replace values, and discourse about "the good" to replace talk about "rights," the theorist is able to reorder social priorities. Considered in this light, the liberal political philosophy of the 1970s and 1980s appears insufficiently Socratic, as does a liberal way of life that presents itself as a model of imitation. Polemical, impassioned, and brilliantly argued, What's the Matter with Liberalism? is essential reading for everyone who cares about contemporary theory and the future of liberal society. (shrink)

Historians should not use their own up-to-date methodologies to judge the rationality or correctness of the research strategies of scientists in history. For the history of science is, in part, the history of the rational growth of methodology and the historian's own up-to-date methodology is, in part, a product of the scientific revolutions of the past. Historians who use their own methodologies to judge the rationality of past research strategies are being too wise after the event. I show, using the (...) case of Charles Darwin, how we can judge the rationality and correctness of research strategies and revolutions without being too wise after the event. I do this by rejecting the idea that methodologies double as rationality theories and by drawing instead on Popper's competing view of rationality as critical debate. (shrink)

Some have suggested that there is no fact to the matter as to whether or not a particular physical system relaizes a particular computational description. This suggestion has been taken to imply that computational states are not real, and cannot, for example, provide a foundation for the cognitive sciences. In particular, Putnam has argued that every ordinary open physical system realizes every abstract finite automaton, implying that the fact that a particular computational characterization applies to a physical system does not (...) tell oneanything about the nature of that system. Putnam''s argument is scrutinized, and found inadequate because, among other things, it employs a notion of causation that is too weak. I argue that if one''s view of computation involves embeddedness (inputs and outputs) and full causality, one can avoid the universal realizability results. Therefore, the fact that a particular system realizes a particular automaton is not a vacuous one, and is often explanatory. Furthermore, I claim that computation would not necessarily be an explanatorily vacuous notion even if it were universally realizable. (shrink)

This is the second part of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in, and the progress of, the critical thinking movement. It provides a summary of Part I (Ennis 2011), including his definition/conception of critical thinking, the definition being “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.” It then examines the assessment and the teaching of critical thinking (including incorporation in a curriculum), and makes suggestions regarding the future of critical thinking. He (...) urges that now is the time to make a major effort in promoting critical thinking. Later may be too late. He also suggests a number of things to do. An Appendix, which provides a detailed elaboration of the nature of critical thinking, is at the end of Part I, but summaries are provided here. (shrink)

Until now it has been impossible to read the full story of the relationship between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their dramatic rupture at the height of the Cold War, like that conflict itself, demanded those caught in its wake to take sides rather than to appreciate its tragic complexity. Now, using newly available sources, Ronald Aronson offers the first book-length account of the twentieth century's most famous friendship and its end. Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre first met in (...) 1943, during the German occupation of France. The two became fast friends. Intellectual as well as political allies, they grew famous overnight after Paris was liberated. As playwrights, novelists, philosophers, journalists, and editors, the two seemed to be everywhere and in command of every medium in post-war France. East-West tensions would put a strain on their friendship, however, as they evolved in opposing directions and began to disagree over philosophy, the responsibilities of intellectuals, and what sorts of political changes were necessary or possible. As Camus, then Sartre adopted the mantle of public spokesperson for his side, a historic showdown seemed inevitable. Sartre embraced violence as a path to change and Camus sharply opposed it, leading to a bitter and very public falling out in 1952. They never spoke again, although they continued to disagree, in code, until Camus's death in 1960. In a remarkably nuanced and balanced account, Aronson chronicles this riveting story while demonstrating how Camus and Sartre developed first in connection with and then against each other, each keeping the other in his sights long after their break. Combining biography and intellectual history, philosophical and political passion, _Camus and Sartre_ will fascinate anyone interested in these great writers or the world-historical issues that tore them apart. (shrink)

This paper critically appraises the applied action-guide approach to bioethics and finds it wanting in two ways: it is tethered to a social contract view of the doctor-patient relationship that is largely incompatible with experiences of illness and care; and, as a formalist doctrine, it lacks critical edge and tends toward accommodationism. An alternative approach is recommended that involves interpreting moral experience by means once associated with the rhetorical arts — practical reasoning, hermeneutics, casuistry, and thick description.