Continuous recordings of brain electrical activity were obtained from a group of 176 patients throughout surgical procedures using general anesthesia. Artifact-free data from the 19 electrodes of the International 10/20 System were subjected to quantitative analysis of the electroencephalogram (QEEG). Induction was variously accomplished with etomidate, propofol or thiopental. Anesthesia was maintained throughout the procedures by isoflurane, desflurane or sevoflurane (N = 68), total intravenous anesthesia using propofol (N = 49), or nitrous oxide plus narcotics (N = 59). A set (...) of QEEG measures were found which reversibly displayed high heterogeneity of variance between four states as follows: (1) during induction; (2) just after loss of consciousness (LOC); (3) just before return of consciousness (ROC); (4) just after ROC. Homogeneity of variance across all agents within states was found. Topographic statistical probability images were compared between states. At LOC, power increased in all frequency bands in the power spectrum with the exception of a decrease in gamma activity, and there was a marked anteriorization of power. Additionally, a significant change occurred in hemispheric relationships, with prefrontal and frontal regions of each hemisphere becoming more closely coupled, and anterior and posterior regions on each hemisphere, as well as homologous regions between the two hemispheres, uncoupling. All of these changes reversed upon ROC. Variable resolution electromagnetic tomography (VARETA) was performed to localize salient features of power anteriorization in three dimensions. A common set of neuroanatomical regions appeared to be the locus of the most probable generators of the observed EEG changes. (shrink)
The modern situation: Causes and reasons for disbelief. Note: Desire for God as cause and reason for belief.--Two types of argument for belief. Note: The ontological proof.--Ideas of God in modern science and religion. Note: Bibliographical.--God in CHrist.
Animal ethics has presented various 'pro-animal arguments' according to which non-human animals have a more significant moral status than traditionally assumed. Although these arguments (brought forward, for instance, by Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Mary Midgley, Stephen Clark, and Mark Rowlands) have been met with various forms of criticism, a quick overview of animal ethics literature suggests that they are difficult to overcome. Pro-animal arguments seem to have consistency and argumentative support on their side. However, recently a new type of (...) criticism has become more prominent. The claim is that the pro-animal arguments ignore the relevance of established paradigms and meanings. The moral status of animals is .. (shrink)
Voyeurism seems creepy. This paper considers whether these feelings are well-founded. It identifies a variety of ethically troubling features, including harmful consequences, deceit, and the violation of various religious, legal, and conventional norms. Voyeurism is something of a moral misdemeanor that seems worrisome when associated with these other failings. However, because voyeurism remains troubling even in the absence of harm or deceit, we must pay special attention to the ways complex social conventions can be used to show disrespect for others. (...) The discussion centers on the famous case of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom, but much of the analysis applies to voyeurism more generally. (shrink)
Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist aeeounts of epistemie rationality fail beeause what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the eontent of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist ean avoid Kelly’s objeetions. The paperconcludes by sketehing what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view.
A recently published book, 'The Economics of Health Reconsidered' by Tom Rice, provides a strong critique of the role of markets in health care. Many of the issues of 'market failure' raised by Rice, however, have been, to varying extents, recognised previously in the health economics literature (at least outside the U.S.). What perhaps sets Rice's book apart from previous attempts to document such issues is its elegance and the methodical manner in which this critique is delivered. Significantly the critique (...) is based solely on conventional economic arguments. There has, however, been an emerging strand of the health economics literature not acknowledged in Rice's book which has approached some of these issues of market failure from a different perspective. Notably this research has involved, in part, borrowing from the ideas and methodological traditions of other disciplines. The emphasis in this work has been to expand the scope and the concerns of economic analysis in health care. (shrink)
In ‘Moving faster than light’ Hud Hudson [2002] argues that by employing simple reasoning with a few explicit metaphysical assumptions, one can demonstrate that, contrary to accepted physics, there must be objects that move at superluminal velocities. Though there is without doubt some very quick thinking on Hudson’s part that is more than a little reminiscent of Zeno’s, I will show that Hudson’s argument no more requires anything in the world go at dazzling speed than Zeno’s (...) arguments stood the world still. (shrink)
Since its publication in 1976, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America has been recognized as a classic study of the career of the foremost political pamphleteer of the Age of Revolution, and a model of how to integrate the political, intellectual, and social history of the struggle for American independence. Foner skillfully brings together an account of Paine's remarkable career with a careful examination of the social worlds within which he operated, in Great Britain, France, and especially the United States. He (...) explores Paine's political and social ideas and the way he popularized them by pioneering a new form of political writing, using simple, direct language and addressing himself to a reading public far broader than previous writers had commanded. He shows which of Paine's views remained essentially fixed throughout his career, while directing attention to the ways his stance on social questions evolved under the pressure of events. This enduring work makes clear the tremendous impact Paine's writing exerted on the American Revolution, and suggests why he failed to have a similar impact during his career in revolutionary France. And it offers new insights into the nature and internal tensions of the republican outlook that helped to shape the Revolution. In a new preface, Foner discusses the origins of this book and the influences of the 1960s and 1970s on its writing. He also looks at how Paine has been adopted by scholars and politicians of many stripes, and has even been called the patron saint of the Internet. (shrink)
Tom Regan (this issue) criticizes my thesis that obligation toward the environment is grounded in a world view and thereby has a moral overridingness which mere interests and desires do not have. He holds that my approach is too subjectivistic. I counter, first, by explaining that phenomenology, which I use in my analysis of moral obligation, is not subjectivistic in the way emotivism or prescriptivism inethics is subjectivistic. Second, I argue that world views are products of learning and experience of (...) one shared world, that most world views share large areas of agreement, and that they can be argued for and criticized. (shrink)
This is an extremely thorough revision of the leading textbook of bioethics. The authors have made many improvements in style, organization, argument and content. These changes reflect advances in the bioethics literature over the past five years. The most dramatic expansions of the text are in the comprehensiveness with which the authors treat different currents in ethical theory and the greater breadth and depth of their discussion of public policy and public health issues. In every chapter, readers will find new (...) material and refinements of old discussions. This is evident in the many new sections on topics like communitarianism, ethics of care, relationship-based accounts, casuistry, case-based reasoning, principle-based common-morality theories, the justification of assistance in dying, rationing through priorities in the health care budget, and virtues in professional roles. The most extensive revisions are in chapters 1, 2 and 8. (shrink)
In this article, I seek to make sense of the oft-invoked idea of 'public emergency' and of some of its (supposedly) radical moral implications. I challenge controversial claims by Tom Sorell, Michael Walzer, and Giorgio Agamben, and argue for a more discriminating understanding of the category and its moral force.
The same two kinds of conditional connections in the world, each dependent on the situation, hold between each event in certain sets of events that we can call causal circumstances for the lighting. A causal circumstance cc) included the event that for some reason we pick out and call the cause -- the striking s).
Wesley Salmon and John Earman have presented influential Bayesian reconstructions of Thomas Kuhn’s account of theory-change. In this paper I argue that all attempts to give a Bayesian reading of Kuhn’s philosophy of science are fundamentally misguided due to the fact that Bayesian confirmation theory is in fact inconsistent with Kuhn’s account. The reasons for this inconsistency are traced to the role the concept of incommensurability plays with reference to the ‘observational vocabulary’ within Kuhn’s picture of scientific theories. The upshot (...) of the discussion is that it is impossible to integrate both Kuhn’s claims and Bayesianism within a coherent account of theory-change. (shrink)
I offer ten arguments to demonstrate why student plagiarism is unethical. In sum, plagiarism may be theft; involve deception that treats professors as a mere means; violate the trust upon which the professor-student relationship depends; be unfair to other students in more than one way; diminish the student’s education; indulge vices such as indolence and cowardice; foreclose access to the internal goods of the discipline; diminish the value of a university degree; undercut creative self-expression and acceptance of epistemic limitations; and (...) undermine the vital interpersonal component of higher education. Plagiarism warrants severe penalties that effectively combat the student’s presumptive competitive strategy for individual success. (shrink)
The role of corporate counsel in the corporate governance process has been long overlooked. This paper uses recent comments by Breeden as the springboard for a discussion of the issues surrounding significant roles for lawyers in corporations. It considers these both from a practical and a theoretical perspective and identifies why it is problematic merely to assume hiring lawyers will ensure good compliance both in terms of legal and ethical obligations.
Crop protection has a very long history during which new methods have been developed whilst, at the same time, the older ones have retained their usefulness in certain conditions. The diversity of agricultural land and production has meant that it was futile to search for a unique and definitive approach or technical solution and, instead, the central concept has always been one of integration, during all the period of pre-Green Revolution and again today within what we call a sustainable agriculture. (...) On a global level, it would seem that the current situation does not fundamentally contradict this idea. Nevertheless, in recent years (since the Second World War), two important advances, presented as the definitive solutions to problems and potentially exceeding previously less effective ones, have led to this integrative approach being questioned. These are agrochemistry and agro-genetics. We will detail, here, the agro-environmental limits of these two “miracle solutions,” followed by a review from an ethical and an epistemological point of view. This enables us to demonstrate the relevance of integrated approaches in agriculture and leads to a definition of crop protection that forms part of a strong approach in sustainable development. By changing the semantics, the epistemic position and our vision of production, we arrive at the proposal of sustainable agriculture. (shrink)
He discusses the challenges these four philosophical Anglicans issued to certain important trends in the philosophy and theology of their day, and argues that ...
The article examines the question of whether business ethics courses ought to have an impact. Despite the still common attitude among students and some business professionals that ethical considerations are less pressing in business, I argue that moral obligations are just as important there as elsewhere. The emphasis on profits in business is related to other realms (e.g., hobbies and seeking and education) in which, though private goals are dominant, moral limits remain in force. Business ethics courses can play a (...) crucial role in emphasizing the necessity of ethical analysis in business. (shrink)
