The public accounting industry's voluntary code of conduct in the United States is the American Institute of CPA's Code of Professional Conduct. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the accounting industry's current code is limited in its ability to serve the public interest in three respects. Specifically, the code is input-based, requires no third-party attestation of compliance with the code, and contains no public reporting process of code compliance/noncompliance at the accounting firm level. We propose that the accounting profession (...) should reorient its largely input-based Code of Professional Conduct to include output-based performance measurements. We also conclude that third-party attestation of compliance with the profession's code would help to promote compliance. Finally, we maintain that the accounting industry should initiate a public reporting process at the individual accounting firm level. Such a requirement would add a degree of public accountability as to whether a firm complies or fails to comply with the industry's voluntary code of conduct. (shrink)

The public accounting industry’s voluntary code of conduct in the United States is the American Institute of CPA’s Code of Professional Conduct. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the accounting industry’s current code is limited in its ability to serve the public interest in three respects. Specifically, the code is input-based, requires no third-party attestation of compliance with the code, and contains no public reporting process of code compliance/noncompliance at the accounting firm level. We propose that the accounting profession (...) should reorient its largely input-based Code of Professional Conduct to include output-based performance measurements. We also conclude that third-party attestation of compliance with the profession’s code would help to promote compliance. Finally, we maintain that the accounting industry should initiate a public reporting process at the individual accounting firm level. Such a requirement would add a degree of public accountability as to whether a firm complies or fails to comply with the industry’s voluntary code of conduct. (shrink)

This article traces the emergence of ecomedia in Japan’s nuclear exclusion zone. I take this emergence as an opportunity to think through the relations of sensing technologies and animals as well as the transformative potential of these relations for critical thought. I turn to the camera trap and the Geiger counter first to understand how these sensor-based media are used to generate data around environmental inquiry as well as how they may be reassembled to help us take measure of the (...) aftereffects of the 3.11 disasters through and with located relationships and encounters among species, human and nonhuman. By exploring how ecomedia invite nonhuman makings to enter the analytical frame, I hope to arrive at an understanding of environmental harm not as a futurological threat but as an ongoing event that calls for new forms of agentic thinking and enactments of multispecies struggle and collaboration. (shrink)

Background Ensuring individual free and informed decision‐making for research participation is challenging. It is thought that preliminarily informing communities through ‘community sensitization’ procedures may improve individual decision‐making. This study set out to assess the relevance of community sensitization for individual decision‐making in research participation in rural Gambia. Methods This anthropological mixed‐methods study triangulated qualitative methods and quantitative survey methods in the context of an observational study and a clinical trial on malaria carried out by the Medical Research Council Unit Gambia. (...) Results/discussion Although 38.7% of the respondents were present during sensitization sessions, 91.1% of the respondents were inclined to participate in the trial when surveyed after the sensitization and prior to the informed consent process. This difference can be explained by the informal transmission of information within the community after the community sensitization, expectations such as the benefits of participation based on previous research experiences, and the positive reputation of the research institute. Commonly mentioned barriers to participation were blood sampling and the potential disapproval of the household head. Conclusion Community sensitization is effective in providing first‐hand, reliable information to communities as the information is cascaded to those who could not attend the sessions. However, further research is needed to assess how the informal spread of information further shapes people's expectations, how the process engages with existing social relations and hierarchies (e.g. local political power structures; permissions of heads of households) and how this influences or changes individual consent. (shrink)

In the past decade Mary Wollstonecraft has become an increasingly important figure in the history of political thought. However, relatively few interpretations of her work exist. This piece focuses on Wollstonecraft's least-read text, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect It Has Produced in Europe . It provides a new interpretation of this work, one that stresses its relation to the Scottish Enlightenment. The argument is that Wollstonecraft's text can be (...) read as a novel move initiated from within the discourse of ‘manners’ that J.G.A. Pocock, especially, has shown to be key to understanding the period in general and the Scots in particular. Wollstonecraft challenged the central claim of the Scottish four-stage historical thesis that extant European manners marked the development of a higher level of moral and civic virtue. At the same time, however, she appropriated the Scots’ underlying notion of a civilizing process. By rewriting the history of manners from a perspective that denied their necessary connection to morals, Wollstonecraft sought to explain the French Revolution's violence as a predictable consequence of moral underdevelopment, while simultaneously defending the Revolution itself as a positive moment in the evolution of civilization based on intellectual progress. This attempt to shift the Scottish Enlightenment discursive paradigm of manners in the course of articulating a ‘moral view’ of the French Revolution, I argue, constitutes the view of history held by the most important early-modern feminist. (shrink)

Proponents of the dominant contemporary model of corporate governance maintain that the shareholder is the primary constituent of the firm. The responsibility for managerial decision makers in this governance system is to maximize shareholder wealth. Neoclassical economists ethically justify this objective with their interpretation of Adam Smith's notion of the Invisible Hand. Using a famous quotation from The Wealth of Nations, they interpret the Invisible Hand as Smith's (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Methuen (...) & Co., London) assertion that market participants, in pursuing their own self-interests without regard to the interests of others, will collectively provide the optimal economic benefit to society. We argue that the traditional interpretation of Smith is too narrow and potentially harmful to society. In order to fully understand Smith's notion of the influence of the Invisible Hand on human behavior, one must also consider The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In that work, Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, A. Millar, London) portrays the pursuit of self-interest as only one of several potential motivations for human action. He also acknowledged the existence of a “sympathy principle,” which refers to the ability and propensity of human beings to consider the interests of others. Heilbroner (The Essential Adam Smith, W.W. Norton, New York, p. 59) suggests that Smith's sympathy principle allows one to “determine the appropriate degree of self-interest, the proper display of benevolence, the desirable strictness of justice.” In fact, Smith indicates that (1) a society whose members pursue self-interest without a sense of justice will eventually collapse; (2) a society whose members pursue self-interest checked by their sense of justice alone will survive; (3) a society whose members pursue self-interest, justice, and the interests of others will flourish. Since a more complete reading of Smith indicates that human beings, in considering their own interests, also reflexively consider the interests of others when making decisions, then the traditional corporate governance model appears to be lacking. A broader, multiple stakeholder approach to corporate governance that considers the interests of other constituencies may be more consistent with Smith's views. In particular, Smith's sympathy principle provides a theoretical foundation for a shift away from the narrow, yet dominant, shareholder-based corporate governance model and toward multiple stakeholder models of corporate governance [e.g., Business and Society: A Strategic Approach to Corporate Citizenship, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA] and internal decision-making [e.g., Sloan Management Review 38, (1997) 25–37]. (shrink)

The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has issued a revised “Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants” (IFAC Code). The IFAC Code is intended to be a model code of ethics for national accounting organizations throughout the world. Prior research demonstrates that approximately 50% of IFAC member organizations have adopted the IFAC Code as their organizational code of conduct. There is therefore empirical evidence that international convergence of accounting ethical standards is occurring. We employ Hofstede’s ( 2008 , http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php ) cultural (...) dimensions in an attempt to empirically explain accounting organizations’ decisions about whether to adopt the IFAC Code or to retain their organization-specific code. Our results indicate that accounting organizations in cultures with high levels of Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance are less likely to adopt the model IFAC Code. Organizations in high Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance societies are therefore less likely to surrender the setting of ethical standards to an outside, international organization. (shrink)

Ship design needs to respond to and attract an ever more design conscious society. However, little research has been conducted into perceptions of beauty and pleasure and how such perceptions can be usefully absorbed into ship design. Aesthetic consideration, is seen as a distraction from the bespoke nature of the ship design process and is often avoided, second guessed or left for external consultancy. The ship design discipline requires the nurturing of its own aesthetic methods, for future development, and to (...) adapt some of the aesthetic ideals found in architecture, art and design. This paper argues that philosophy can be effective in interpreting what the passenger finds attractive and pleasurable. To illustrate the philosophical approach proposed, the `Elbe SWATH’ and the `Oasis of the Seas’ are investigated and compared using theoretical resources from the culturally focused philosophy of `Functional Beauty’. Conclusions suggest that the interpretation of the end users most valued appreciations can lead to design directives that deliver subjective qualities of beauty - beauty similar to those seen in the pure aims of the Elbe SWATH’s purposeful work craft, or comparable to nature’s beauty and purity in aim. (shrink)

Margaret Cavendish was an English natural philosopher. Influenced by Hobbes and by ancient Stoicism, she held that the created, natural world is purely material; there are no incorporeal substances that causally affect the world in the course of nature. However, she parts company with Hobbes and sides with the Stoics in rejecting a participate theory of matter. Instead, she holds that matter is a continuum. She rejects the mechanical philosophy's account of the essence of matter as simply extension. For Cavendish, (...) matter is also essentially living, sensing, and rational. She also rejects the mechanical philosophy's explanation of change solely in terms of transference of motion. Her own explanation of change relies upon a notion of "occasional cause." This paper argues that Cavendish's occasional causes are not to be confused with those of Malebranche; hers have some efficient causal powers. It traces the concept of an occasional cause from the ancient Stoics, through Galen, to Renaissance natural philosophers such as J. B. van Helmont, and ultimately to Cavendish and to Descartes. Thus, the aim of the paper is to explicate Cavendish's non-mechanical model of natural change and to show how the key concept in this model, that of "occasional cause," has a long philosophical pedigree. L'anglaise Margaret Cavendish pratique la philosophic naturelle. Sous l'influence de Hobbes et du stoïcisme ancien, elle a soutenu que le monde naturel créé est purement matériel ; dans le cours de la nature, il n'y a pas de substances incorporelles qui affectent causalement le monde. Elle se sépare néanmoins de Hobbes et rejoint les Stoïciens dans son rejet d'une théorie de la matière particulaire. Elle considère au contraire que la matière est un continuum. Elle rejette l'explication de l'essence de la matière comme simple extension, fournie par la philosophic mécaniste. Pour Cavendish, la matière est de plus essentiellement vivante, sentante et rationnelle. Elle rejette aussi l'explication mécaniste du changement en simples termes de transmission de mouvement. Sa propre explication du changement s'appuie sur la notion de cause occasionnelle. Cet article defend l'idée que les causes occasionnelles de Cavendish ne doivent pas être confondues avec celles de Malebranche ; les siennes ont des pouvoirs causaux efficients. Il permet done de suivre l'histoire du concept de cause occasionnelle des anciens Stoïciens, en passant ensuite par Galien jusqu'aux Philosophes de la nature de la Renaissance, comme J. B. van Helmont, et finalement jusqu'à Cavendish et Descartes. Le but de cet article est ainsi de rendre explicite le modèle que Cavendish donne du changement naturel et de montrer comment le concept clé de ce modèle, celui de cause occasionnelle, est le produit d'une longue filiation philosophique. (shrink)

Through examining the respective roles of "pride" and "sympathy" in Hume's natural sublime experience and through comparing that analysis with the roles played by those concepts in his discussion of "heroic virtue," I demonstrate both that there is an element of the moral in natural sublimity and that Hume evokes a conception of sublimity as sometimes _distinctly<D> moral. Moral sublime experience entails the _un<D>-comfortably _un-<D>Humean possibility of sublimity inhering in the uniquely human object which makes that experience "moral." I detail (...) how this radical claim is so and demonstrate how Hume's moral sublime deepens the pre-Kantian strain in his aesthetics. (shrink)

Bryant’s paper, "A Logic of Multiplicities: Deleuze, Immanence, and Onticology," is useful for showing how the historical legacy of hierarchy in its many philosophical forms is still present, important, and, in fact, required even by those such as Bryant who would seek to deconstruct or ignore it. The following response will discuss Bryant’s presentation of his alternative position and throughout point out: a) the straw-man versions of hierarchy that Bryant employs; b) why what Bryant claims to be inherent negatively in (...) hierarchy is not the case; c) how Bryant’s position actually relies upon hierarchy for its own explication, and finally; d) the various principles of hierarchical metaphysics that are required in order to make sense of experience and reality. These latter include the notions that i) there are many kinds of hierarchy; ii) Being and Unity are prior to Multiplicity; iii) relation without substance is incoherent; iv) hierarchy is not inherently tyrannical; v) the distinction between essentially and accidentally ordered causal series is a real and useful one; and vi) the existence of hierarchy is more self evident than is flat ontology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIV, Number 2, November 1998, pp. 335-354 "An Unaccountable Pleasure": Hume on Tragedy and the Passions ALEX NEILL Hume begins his essay "Of Tragedy" with a description of what he calls "a singular phaenomenon": It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well-written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other passions, that are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are (...) touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle; and as soon as the uneasy passions cease to operate, the piece is at an end.... They are pleased in proportion as they are afflicted, and never are so happy as when they employ tears, sobs, and cries to give vent to their sorrow, and relieve their heart, swoln with the tenderest sympathy and compassion. The few critics who have had some tincture of philosophy, have remarked this singular phaenomenon, and have endeavoured to account for it.1 The account of the audience's experience of tragedy that Hume goes on to offer in "Of Tragedy" has been the target of criticism since the essay was published. My purpose in what follows is to show that some of what may appear to be the most damaging of that criticism is based on a misinterpretation of the thesis that Hume develops in the essay. I shall not attempt to argue that Hume's thesis is persuasive; indeed, I believe and have argued Alex Neill is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Southampton, Hants Sl 7 IBJ ENGLAND. 336 Alex Neill elsewhere that it is not.2 My project here is almost entirely interpretive: it is an attempt to get clear about what Hume's thesis concerning our experience of tragedy really is. To that end, it should be noted that the apparently "unaccountable" pleasure Hume describes at the beginning of "Of Tragedy" is something that he has remarked on before. In Book I of the Treatise, he notes that in matters of religion men take a pleasure in being terrify'd, and that no preachers are so popular, as those who excite the most dismal and gloomy passions. In the common affairs of life, where we feel and are penetrated with the solidity of the subject, nothing can be more disagreeable than fear and terror; and 'tis only in dramatic performances and in religious discourses, that they ever give pleasure? The phenomenon that Hume finds so remarkable in these passages from "Of Tragedy" and the Treatise is thus, at a minimum, that in certain circumstances, such as when we are at the theatre, we may find agreeable the experience of "the most dismal and gloomy passions." The explanation he gives of this phenomenon in the Treatise is as follows: In these latter cases the imagination reposes itself indolently on the idea; and the passion, being soften'd by the want of belief in the subject, has no more than the agreeable effect of enlivening the mind, and fixing the attention. (T 115) Hume's explanation of how the experience of "uneasy" passions can be enjoyed when we are in church and at the theatre thus has two components. First, because we do not believe the stories we are told in church4 and at the theatre, the uneasy passions we experience are not so very uneasy; as he puts it later in the Treatise, in such circumstances the passion in question "lies not with that weight upon us: It feels less firm and solid" (T 631). Second, a weakly disagreeable passion of this sort agreeably "enlivens" the mind and "fixes" (or as he says later, "rouzes") our attention. By the time he wrote "Of Tragedy," however, Hume had come to regard this explanation of his "singular phaenomenon" as inadequate. With regard to the idea that the passions, even if "uneasy," have the pleasurable effect of "enlivening" the mind (an idea which in "Of Tragedy" he attributes to Dubos), Hume objects that having one's mind "enlivened," one's attention "fixed" or "rouzed," need not be pleasurable: "the same object of distress, which pleases in a tragedy, were it really set before us, would give the most unfeigned uneasiness; though it... (shrink)

Augustin est bien connu comme défenseur d’une « théorie privative » du mal. On peut lire, par exemple, dans les Confessions que « le mal n’est que la privation du bien, à la limite du pur néant ». Le problème, cependant, avec les théories privatives du mal est qu’elles ne nous offrent pas, généralement, une explication robuste ni de l’activité du mal, ni de son pouvoir à causer des effets bien réels ; effets desquels l’expérience demande, malgré tout, une explication (...) rationnelle. Or, selon Augustin, la privation seule ne permet pas de rendre compte de toutes les manifestations du mal. L’explication privative du mal est, certes, la plus étudiée par la littérature ; mais elle ne constitue qu’une partie du tableau. Cet article veut souligner quatre moments de l’explication du mal qu’Augustin propose : le mal comme privation ; le mal comme parasite par rapport à l’être ; le mal comme perversion de la volonté ; et finalement, le mal comme conflit d’intérêts. Chacun de ces moments éclaire un type de mal, mais aucun ne permet à lui seul de rendre compte du problème. Pris ensemble, cependant, et gardant leurs différences respectives à l’esprit, la réponse d’Augustin à la question du mal se révèle beaucoup plus sophistiquée et exhaustive qu’on ne voudrait souvent l’admettre lorsqu’on se limite uniquement à la théorie de la privation. | : Augustine is well-known for advocating a ‘privation theory’ of evil. In Confessions, he writes that “evil has no existence except as a privation of good, down to that level which is altogether without being.” The problem with privation theories of evil generally is that they do not provide a robust enough account of the activity and power of evil to cause the very real effects for which experience demands a rational explanation. For Augustine, however, privation alone does not fully account for evil in all of its manifestations. The privation account of evil receives much scholarly treatment, but it is only part of the complete Augustinian picture. This paper outlines four accounts of evil in Augustine : evil as privation, as parasitic on being, as perversion of the will, and as conflict of interest. Each deals with a kind of evil, but none alone provides a complete account. Taken together, however, with their differences in mind, Augustine’s explanation of evil is shown to be much more sophisticated and comprehensive than is often recognised when one limits one’s understanding of Augustine’s conception of evil to the privation theory alone. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between two influential intellectual schools in late 19th century Britain, namely social evolutionary theories and British Idealism, by focusing on the work of D.G. Ritchie who drew inspiration from both sources. In particular, it argues that Ritchie's work can best be understood as an attempt to overcome certain metaphysical problems in the work of his teacher, T.H. Green, by integrating an Idealist account of social development with a Darwinian one, and analyses the effects this synthesis (...) has for his social and political thought. Ritchie's approach is also set in the context of developments in Victorian evolutionary theory and is contrasted with that of other influential Idealists, notably Bernard Bosanquet. More widely, it is claimed that examining Ritchie's synthesis sheds light on the degree to which the labels “idealist” and “positivist” can be reliably used in the later Victorian period, in the areas of both scientific and social investigation. (shrink)

The primary aim of this dissertation is an exegesis of Collingwood's historical science of mind. I take seriously Collingwood's claim that history is for "self-understanding" and treat his philosophy of history as a form of reflective philosophy. In particular, I examine the epistemological basis for Collingwood's claim that mind is an object that changes as it understands itself. ;In Chapter One, I consider the distinction between natural process and historical process as central to an understanding of Collingwood's historical science of (...) mind. I defend Collingwood's attempt to preserve the distinction between historical process and natural process in order to reserve for history its appropriate subject matter---mind. ;In Chapter Two, I consider the epistemological basis for Collingwood's claim that mind changes fundamentally in the historical process. I argue that Collingwood's reading of Anselm's proof of the existence of God is the key to understanding his theory of the priority of "faith" to reason and so to the historical nature of first principles. ;Chapter Three has two parts. In part one, I examine Collingwood's logic of philosophical concepts: the scale of forms. In part two, I argue Collingwood's moral philosophy, found in The New Leviathan and in his lectures on "Goodness, Rightness, Utility" , exemplifies this logic. I conclude that Collingwood's historical study of mind is an attempt to overcome the disjunction between theory and practice caused by the abstract thinking of modern scientific consciousness. ;Chapter Four provides a survey of the scholarship surrounding Collingwood's corpus as a whole. I argue that there have been three waves of Collingwood scholarship. The first is influenced by T. M. Knox's editing of Collingwood's manuscripts and his "radical conversion hypothesis." The second wave of Collingwood scholarship argues for the systematic or thematic unity of Collingwood's philosophy. The third and most recent wave builds on the second. As an example, I discuss Guiseppina D'Oro's suggestion that Collingwood's thought is unified by its overarching concern with critical philosophy. I conclude with the suggestion that Collingwood's thought is unified by an attempt to provide a viable reflective philosophy based on historical consciousness. (shrink)

Dans ce texte où il adopte la posture de l’observateur-participant, l’auteur propose d’abord quelques remarques sur la naissance, mi-octobre 2011, dans la ville de Québec, du mouvement Occupy. Il analyse ensuite certaines des caractéristiques de la période ou Occupons Québec s’est matérialisé dans un campement, entre le 22 octobre et le 22 novem­bre. Finalement, il propose sa vision de l’avenir du mouvement, à Québec et ailleurs, depuis le démantèlement de ce campement.

Dans ce texte où il adopte la posture de l’observateur-participant, l’auteur propose d’abord quelques remarques sur la naissance, mi-octobre 2011, dans la ville de Québec, du mouvement Occupy. Il analyse ensuite certaines des caractéristiques de la période ou Occupons Québec s’est matérialisé dans un campement, entre le 22 octobre et le 22 novem­bre. Finalement, il propose sa vision de l’avenir du mouvement, à Québec et ailleurs, depuis le démantèlement de ce campement.

Book reviewed in this article: Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. By Henry Shue Morality and Population Policy. By Michael D. Bayles.

In Collingwood and the Metaphysics of Experience, Guiseppina D'Oro gives a compelling case for the position that Collingwood's philosophical project is a form of descriptive metaphysics in the Kantian critical mode. For D'Oro, the unity of Collingwood's thought as a whole is not due to a particular problem Collingwood is treating, or even to the theme of history. Rather, she believes that "there is a fundamental continuity between Collingwood's early and later work, that, in its essentials, and despite substantial terminological (...) changes, Collingwood's account of the nature of philosophical reflection remains constant". It is Collingwood's practice of philosophy in the neo-Kantian critical mode that unifies his early and later work. Under the umbrella of this theme, D'Oro discusses Collingwood's understanding of metaphysics, his attempt to find a via media between realism and idealism, his rehabilitation of the ontological argument, his supposed historicism, and his philosophy of history. The central texts that occupy the majority of D'Oro's reflection are Collingwood's Essay on Philosophical Method and Essay on Metaphysics. This focus is refreshing in that both texts are more subtle and meatier philosophical achievements than the popular Idea of History, and the contents of both are largely unknown to the wider philosophical community. (shrink)

The Platonic School regarded the Alcibiades I as the most suitable introduction to Plato. Proclus' wideranging discussion includes later Neoplatonism as well as questions of Aristotelian logic. O'Neill's translation is always readable and his commentary helpful without being fussy.—D. J. B.

Einstein, in his “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper”, gave a physical (operational) meaning to “time” of a remote event in describing “motion” by introducing the concept of “synchronous stationary clocks located at different places”. But with regard to “place” in describing motion, he assumed without analysis the concept of a system of co-ordinates.In the present paper, we propose a way of giving physical (operational) meaning to the concepts of “place” and “co-ordinate system”, and show how the observer can define both the (...) place and time of a remote event. Following Einstein, we consider another system “in uniform motion of translation relatively to the former”. Without assuming “the properties of homogeneity which we attribute to space and time”, we show that the definitions of space and time in the two systems are linearly related. We deduce some novel consequences of our approach regarding faster-than-light observers and particles, “one-way” and “two-way” velocities of light, symmetry, the “group property” of inertial reference frames, length contraction and time dilatation, and the “twin paradox”. Finally, we point out a flaw in Einstein’s argument in the “Electrodynamical Part” of his paper and show that the Lorentz force formula and Einstein’s formula for transformation of field quantities are mutually consistent. We show that for faster-than-light bodies, a simple modification of Planck’s formula for mass suffices. (Except for the reference to Planck’s formula, we restrict ourselves to Physics of 1905.). (shrink)

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

P¯an.ini’s grammar includes several types of metarules which determine how its operational rules apply. Among them are “traffic rules” which constrain how rules interact with each other in grammatical derivations. These are typically formulated as designating a rule or class of rules asiddha “not effected” (or asiddhavat “as if not effected”) with respect to another rule or class of rules. For economy, the rules so designated are grouped into several sections, whose headings collectively declare them to be asiddha(vat). The biggest (...) such section, under the famous heading 8.2.1 p ¯urvatr¯asiddham, extends from 8.2.1 through the end of the grammar (8.4.68), and is hence called the Trip¯ad¯ı ‘Three Sections’. (shrink)

While there is significant consensus that undergraduate medical education should include bioethics training, there is widespread debate about how to teach bioethics to medical students. Educators disagree about course methods and approaches, the topics that should be covered, and the effectiveness and metrics for UME ethics training. One issue that has received scant attention is the timing of bioethics education during medical training. The existing literature suggests that most medical ethics education occurs in the pre-clinical years. Follow-up studies indicate that (...) medical students in their clinical rotations have little recall or ability to apply ethics concepts that were learned in their pre-clinical training. Trainees also report a desire for medical ethics to be taught in the context of practical application, which would suggest that the timing of pre-clinical ethics education is flawed. However, moving bioethics training to the clinical years should not be assumed to be the solution to the problems of recall and theory application. We argue that the effectiveness of timing bioethics education will depend on when medical students witness or experience particular categories of ethical dilemmas during their training. Our overarching hypothesis is that ethics education will be most effective when the bioethics training on a particular topic correlates to experiential exposure to that ethical issue. The purpose of our current study was to describe medical students exposure to particular categories of ethical conflicts, dilemmas, or issues. Our results may help bioethics educators better strategize about the most effective timing of medical ethics training in UME. (shrink)

The practice of prenatal screening for disability is sometimes objected to because of the hurt and offence such practices may cause to people currently living with disabilities. This objection is commonly termed “the expressivist objection”. In response to the objection it is standardly claimed that disabilities are analogous to illnesses. And just as it would be implausible to suppose reduction of the incidence of illnesses such as flu sends a negative message to ill people, so it is not plausible to (...) suppose prevention of disability sends a negative message to disabled people. The expressivist objection hinges, however, upon a view of the relationship between disability and self identity which sees disability as part of the identity of the disabled person, in a way in which illnesses such as flu cannot be. This possibility is generally not considered in critiques of the expressivist objection. In this paper, an “identity claim” to the effect that disabilities can be identity constituting is accepted and the force of the expressivist argument is reconsidered in the light of its acceptance. It is concluded that even when such an identity claim is accepted, the expressivist objection is still not morally compelling. (shrink)