Learn how to think beyond the theoretical in any environment. "Ethics & Issues in Contemporary Nursing, 1st Edition" examines the latest trends, principles, theories, and models in patient care to help you learn how to make ethically sound decisions in complex and often controversial situations. Written from a global perspective, examples throughout the text reflect current national and international issues inviting you to explore cases considering socio-cultural influences, personal values, and professional ethics. Historical examples demonstrate how to think critically while (...) upholding moral and professional standards, as well as the law. Key topics throughout explore advocacy and rights, diversity, nurse burnout, mass casualty events, social media, violence in the workplace, medication error prevention, opioid and other substance use, HIPAA, and healthcare reform. In addition, this new title contains supplemental case studies and review questions to further challenge and prepare you to make morally sound decisions in any healthcare setting. -- From product description. (shrink)

Our recent paper advocating adaptive management of invasive nonnative species (INS) in Kings Bay, Florida received detailed responses from both Daniel Simberloff, a prominent invasion biologist, and Mark Sagoff, a prominent critic of invasion biology. Simberloff offers several significant lines of criticism that compel detailed rebuttals, and, as such, most of this reply is dedicated to this purpose. Ultimately, we find it quite significant that Simberloff, despite his other stated objections to our paper, apparently agrees with our argument that proposals (...) for alternative management of established INS (i.e., alternatives to minimization/eradication) should not be rejected on an a␣priori basis. We argue that more specific development and application of adaptive approaches toward INS management, whether in Kings Bay or other appropriate case studies, would be facilitated if ecosystem managers and invasion biologists follow Simberloff’s lead on this key point. While Sagoff largely shares (and, indeed, served as a primary source for developing) our general arguments that challenge common moral and scientific assumptions associated with invasion biology, he does question our suggestion that participatory adaptive management provides an appropriate framework for approaching environmental problems in which science and politics are inherently entangled. We attempt to answer this criticism through a brief sketch of what participatory adaptive management might look like for Kings Bay and how such an approach would differ from past management approaches. (shrink)

Confidentiality is both a fundamental principle of medical ethics and a legal obligation.In exceptional situations not covered by legal provisions, doctors may want to waive confidentiality against the wishes of the patient. Swiss law calls for an authority to rule on such cases. In the Canton of Geneva this authority is the Commission for Professional Confidentiality. This paper concerns 41 cases managed by this commission. The study shows that the majority of these requests to the Commission concern the reporting of (...) patients who are not incompetent but need the protection of a legal guardianship. In rare cases, there is another interest higher than confidentiality: public order or functioning of justice. The Commission found that the measure requested was justified in the majority of cases brought before it. This study focuses on exceptional cases but it throws into relief the conflict between the principle of autonomy on the one hand and the need for patient protection and social justice on the other. (shrink)

Just as biologists have their favored places for doing research, so do historians. As someone who likes working in archives, the most surprising thing the present author ever found was a particular letter that had been written to him by the ethologist Niko Tinbergen—but that Tinbergen had never sent. The letter included a detailed critique of the intellectual style and conceptual shortcomings of Tinbergen’s career-long friend and colleague Konrad Lorenz. The present author first saw the letter 3 years after Tinbergen’s (...) death and 10 years after the letter was composed. Here we discuss the contents and historical context of that letter. (shrink)

Investigators of animal behavior since the eighteenth century have sought to make their work integral to the enterprises of natural history and/or the life sciences. In their efforts to do so, they have frequently based their claims of authority on the advantages offered by the special places where they have conducted their research. The zoo, the laboratory, and the field have been major settings for animal behavior studies. The issue of the relative advantages of these different sites has been a (...) persistent one in the history of animal behavior studies up to and including the work of the ethologists of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Don Marquis argues that abortion is prima facie seriously wrong because it deprives the foetus of a valuable future. This paper argues that there is no morally relevant difference between the relations that foetuses stand in to valuable futures and those that gametes stand in to such futures. Therefore, Marquis’ account implies that contraception is prima facie seriously wrong. My argument for this conclusion has a significant advantage over existing criticisms of Marquis based on controversial accounts of personal identity. It (...) shows that the problem with his account is not his view that identity across time is a matter of merely biological relations, but his investment of those relations with moral significance. This criticism has force no matter which account of personal identity is true. (shrink)

Schon seit ihrer Gründung in den 1970er-Jahren ist die Reihe Germanistische Linguistik (RGL) exponiertes Forum des Faches, dessen Namen sie im Titel führt. Hinsichtlich der thematischen Breite (Sprachebenen, Varietäten, Kommunikationsformen, Epochen), der Forschungsperspektiven (Theorie und Empirie, Grundlagenforschung und Anwendung, Inter- und Transdisziplinarität) und des methodologischen Spektrums ist die Reihe offen angelegt. Das Aufgreifen neuer Trends hat in ihr ebenso Platz wie das Fortführen von Bewährtem. Die Publikationsformen reichen von Monographien und Sammelbänden bis zu Wörterbüchern. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat (ab November 2011): Prof. (...) Dr. Karin Donhauser (Berlin) Prof. Dr. Stephan Elspaß (Augsburg) Prof. Dr. Helmuth Feilke (Gießen) Prof. Dr. Jürg Fleischer (Marburg) Prof. Dr. Stephan Habscheid (Siegen) Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Harnisch (Passau). (shrink)

The Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology reflects the conviction that the history of metaphysics and current work in metaphysics and ontology can each throw valuable light on the other. Thus it is designed to serve both äs a means of making more widely accessible the results of recent scholarship in the history of philosophy, and also äs a unique work of reference in reladon to the metaphysical themes at the centre of much current debate in analyüc philosophy. The work contains (...) more man 450 shorter articies on specific themes and methods in metaphysics and ontology, together with biographical essays summarizing the thinking of the most important philosophers within the traditions dealt with. In addition, it contains about 20 longer survey arücles mapping out both historically and systemadcally the main areas of metaphysics and ontology. AU contributions have been speciaüy commissioned for this project from leading authorities in their respective fields. A special feature of the work is the pardcular attention that is paid to topics and issues of relevance to contemporary philosophical debates. The work includes also a series of arücles on the logical and mathematical tools of metaphysics and on the applications of metaphysical ideas within linguisdcs, psychology, cognitive science, and mathemadcs. (shrink)

The “new” agricultural biotechnologies are presently high-priority items on the national research agenda. The promise of increased efficiency and productivity resulting from products and processes derived from biotech is thought to justify the commitment to R&D. Nevertheless, critics challenge the environmental safety as well as political-economic consequences of particular products of biotech, notably, ice-nucleating bacteria and the bovine growth hormone. In this paper the critics' arguments are analyzed in explicitly ethical terms, and assessed as to their relative merits. In some (...) cases, a principle of “do no foreseeable harm” as well as a clear determination of likely harms would force us to conclude that research, development, and diffusion of a product or process derived from biotechnology is ethically wrong. In all cases, one conclusion that can be reached is that everyone involved in research, development, marketing and adoption of biotech products is responsible for the results of their actions; thus, each individual has a responsibility to consider a broader range of values and goals that effect and are effected by the biotechnology effort. (shrink)

French naturalists at the Muséum Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris in the early nineteenth century recognized that their individual and collective successes were intimately linked to questions of power over specimens. France’s strength abroad affected the growth of the museum’s collections. At the museum, preserving, naming, classifying, displaying, interpreting, and otherwise deploying specimens went hand in hand with promoting scientific theories, advancing scientific careers, and instructing the public. The control of specimens, both literally and figuratively, was the museum’s ongoing concern. (...) The leopard in this essay’s title, a live specimen confiscated from the streets of Paris in 1793, serves here to represent the tensions created in an existing order of things by the introduction of a potentially disruptive agent. The essay explores the life of the museum and the interrelations among its naturalists, the special challenges created by the establishment of a menagerie, and the histories of particular specimens and ideas. (shrink)

This paper argues that Epicureanism about death is consistent with grounding the wrongness of killing in the interests of the victim. Both defenders and critics of Epicureanism should agree that, if we knew Epicureanism to be false, then we would have a moral reason not to kill people. We would have this reason because we would know that killing people harms them. And even Epicureans should agree that, given their evidence, Epicureanism could be false. Given that it could be false, (...) and given that we would harm people by killing them if it were, we in fact have a moral reason not to kill them—a reason which, as this paper will show, is both grounded in their interests and consistent with the failure of death to be in any way bad. The latter part of the paper discusses some advantages that this approach enjoys over two other attempts to reconcile Epicureanism with the wrongness of killing, by David Hershenov and Mikel Burley, respectively. (shrink)

The concepts of sustainable agriculture, organic agriculture, regenerative agriculture, and alternative agriculture are receiving increasing attention in the academic and popular literature on present trends and future directions of agriculture. Whatever the reasons for this interest, there nevertheless remain differences of opinion concerning what counts as a sustainable agriculture. One of the reasons for these differences is that the moral underpinnings of a policy of sustainability are not clear. By understanding the moral obligatoriness of sustainability, we can come to understand (...) precisely what must be sustained, and by implication, how. This article discusses the arguments that can be advanced for sustaining anything and initially concludes that our obligations to future generations entail sustaining more than just sufficient food production or an adequate resource base. Indeed, a tradition of care and community must underlie whatever agricultural and resource strategies we are to develop under the rubric of sustainability. A consideration of the larger social and environmental system in which agriculture operates and the constraints this system places on agriculture forces us to recognize that sustainability has to do with larger institutional issues, including our ability to incorporate our common morality democratically into our institutions, practices, and technologies. (shrink)

: Implicit instruction about values occurs throughout scientific communication, whether in the university classroom or in the larger public forum. The concern of this paper is that the kind of values education that occurs includes "reverse moral education," the idea that moral considerations are at best extra scientific if not simply irrational. The (a)moral education that many scientists unwittingly foist on their "students" undergirds the scientific establishment's typical responses to larger social issues: "Huff!" In this paper I explain the nature (...) of moral education which occurs in the "science classroom" and argue that it is wrongheaded--though there are remedies for its negative effects. (shrink)

The concepts of sustainable agriculture, organic agriculture, regenerative agriculture, and alternative agriculture are receiving increasing attention in the academic and popular literature on present trends and future directions of agriculture. Whatever the reasons for this interest, there nevertheless remain differences of opinion concerning what counts as a sustainable agriculture. One of the reasons for these differences is that the moral underpinnings of a policy of sustainability are not clear. By understanding the moral obligatoriness of sustainability, we can come to understand (...) precisely what must be sustained, and by implication, how. This article discusses the arguments that can be advanced for sustaining anything and initially concludes that our obligations to future generations entail sustaining more than just sufficient food production or an adequate resource base. Indeed, a tradition of care and community must underlie whatever agricultural and resource strategies we are to develop under the rubric of sustainability. A consideration of the larger social and environmental system in which agriculture operates and the constraints this system places on agriculture forces us to recognize that sustainability has to do with larger institutional issues, including our ability to incorporate our common morality democratically into our institutions, practices, and technologies. (shrink)

An online world exists in which businesses have become burdened with managerial and legal duties regarding the seeking of informed consent and the protection of privacy and personal data, while growing public cynicism regarding personal data collection threatens the healthy development of marketing and e-commerce. This research seeks to address such cynicism by assisting organisations to devise ethical consent management processes that consider an individual’s attitudes, their subjective norms and their perceived sense of control during the elicitation of consent. It (...) does so by developing an original conceptual model for online informed consent, argued through logical reasoning, and supported by an illustrative example, which brings together the autonomous authorisation (AA) model of informed consent and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Accordingly, it constructs a model for online informed consent, rooted in the ethic of autonomy, which employs behavioural theory to facilitate a mode of consent elicitation that prioritises users’ interests and supports ethical information management and marketing practices. The model also introduces a novel concept, the informed attitude, which must be present for informed consent to be valid. It also reveals that, under certain tolerated conditions, it is possible for informed consent to be provided unwillingly and to remain valid: this has significant ethical, information management and marketing implications. (shrink)

When the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in Paris learned in 1836 that it had the chance to buy a live, young orangutan, it was excited by the prospect. Specimens were the focus of the Museum’s activities, and this particular specimen seemed especially promising, not only because the Museum had very few orangutan specimens in its collection, but also because of what was perceived to be the orangutan’s unique place in the natural order of things, namely, at the very boundary between the (...) animal kingdom and humans. Frédéric Cuvier, the superintendent of the Museum’s menagerie, urged that studying the orangutan’s mental faculties would help resolve fundamental questions regarding the similarities and differences between animals and humans. Archival and printed sources allow one to reconstruct the orangutan’s capture, acquisition, and subsequent career at the menagerie in greater detail than has generally been possible for animals of nineteenth-century zoos. Scientists, artists, the public, the press, and even musicians sought to engage with the orangutan, seeing in it not just another ape or monkey but a special creature unto itself at the animal/human boundary. Key to their fascination with the orangutan was the question of proximity—just how close was the orangutan to humans? The orangutan’s story illuminates not only how the animal-human boundary was conceived at the time but also the problematic status of the zoo as a site for scientific research and the roles of scientific and non-scientific actors alike in constructing how the orangutan was understood. (shrink)

The 18 contributions to this volume deal with a variety of 'tropes', such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, euphemism, antonomasia and hyperbole. Using various approaches or paradigms the authors aim to find answers to the crucial epistemological questions, namely whether and to what extent utterances containing tropes can be said to be true or false.

In the face of criticisms about the current generationof agricultural biotechnology products, some proponents ofagricultural biotechnology offer a ``future benefitsargument''''(FBA), which is a utilitarian ethical argument thatattempts to justify continued R&D. This paper analyzes severallogical implications of the FBA. Among these are that acceptanceof the FBA implies (1) acceptance of a precautionary approach torisk, (2) the need for a more proportional and equitabledistribution of the benefits of agricultural biotechnology, andmost important, (3) the need to reorient and restructurebiotechnology R&D institutions (and (...) the agriculturalbiotechnology community''s values and attitudes) so that futurebenefits are indeed achieved through agricultural biotechnology. (shrink)

The US has conducted or routinely conducts personality and signature drone strikes into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and most likely other states as well. The US does this in order to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat terrorist organizations. In some of these attacks, states have given their expressed or tacit consent to the US to conduct these drone strikes. However, some states do not consent to the US conducting kinetic drone strikes within their territory. In these cases, it seems (...) prima facie reasonable to suggest that these acts or use of force are unjustified because they violate the political sovereignty and territorial integrity of a non-consenting state. Furthermore, the US is not at war with these other states so there is no leeway in suggesting that a state has a right to conduct these operations against another state. As it currently stands, attempting to use jus ad bellum criteria to discern a state’s moral justification for implementing force short of war is not only unhelpful but fails to provide a reasonable framework. The use of armed drones is a recent phenomena that will continue to evolve, and with this comes a need for establishing a set of moral guidelines on a state’s implementation of them. In an attempt to remedy this shortcoming, we need to look at drone strikes not as an act of war but as an act or force short of war. I want to make the case that drone strikes can be morally justified using the Responsibility to Protect norms. That is, the Responsibility to Protect norms should be the guiding norms with regard to jus ad vim. Incorporating the R2P norms into a jus ad vim account provides a framework of when states can morally resort to the use of force. (shrink)

On the basis of critical discussions which have taken place in recent years in the Federal Republic of Germany, certain methodological, ethical and legal problems arising in relation to controlled trials are discussed. Because of methodological inconsistencies inherent in the experimental approach, the efficacy of a drug must in any case be judged by physicians. This leads to major ethical and even--at least in Germany--legal problems which impose considerable limits on the feasibility of controlled trials in Germany. Editor's note: This (...) paper is written at the invitation of the journal, following the considerable controversy on the ethics of clinical trials in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (8-11). A critical commentary follows the paper with a short response from the authors and a further response from the commentator. (shrink)

The assertion “he could have done otherwise” represents a notorious problem in the science of penal law and in moral philosophy. Some philosophers have assumed that this statement is to be analysed as “he would have done otherwise if he had so chosen” (analysis view), thus believing to have found an interpretation which is compatible with determinism. It has been argued, however, that these two statements are not equivalent. The following article attempts to show that this objection is not far-reaching (...) enough. At the same time the analysis view is considered to be of little help, as it presupposes the solution of the problems it claims to solve. (shrink)

Scholarly critics such as Wendell Berry, as well as the popular media, frequently refer to problems associated with agriculture as the agricultural crisis or the farm crisis. Despite the identification of a problem or problems as symptomatic of this crisis, scant attention is paid to why the situation is a social crisis as opposed to a problem, tragedy, trend, or simple change in the structure of agriculture. This paper analyzes the use of social crisis as applied to the state of (...) modern agriculture and, by extension, other crises such as those in legitimation and morality. It concludes that, although important social values associated with farming as a way of life may be in danger of being lost, the crisis we may be facing with respect to agriculture is more properly understood as a sociopolitical crisis that has broader implications than simply the loss of farms or traditional farming values. Indeed, what is in danger of being lost is our ability to affect a secure and sustainable political-economic system. (shrink)

The evolutionary origin of synapses and neurons is an enigmatic subject that inspires much debate. Non-bilaterian metazoans, both with and without neurons and their closest relatives already contain many components of the molecular toolkits for synapse functions. The origin of these components and their assembly into ancient synaptic signaling machineries are particularly important in light of recent findings on the phylogeny of non-bilaterian metazoans. The evolution of synapses and neurons are often discussed only from a metazoan perspective leaving a considerable (...) gap in our understanding. By taking an integrative approach we highlight the need to consider different, but extremely relevant phyla and to include the closest unicellular relatives of metazoans, the ichthyosporeans, filastereans and choanoflagellates, to fully understand the evolutionary origin of synapses and neurons. This approach allows for a detailed understanding of when and how the first pre- and postsynaptic signaling machineries evolved. The evolutionary origin of synapses and neurons is an enigmatic subject that inspires much debate. Most of our knowledge and recent discussions are biased towards a metazoan perspective, leaving a considerable gap in our understanding. Recent work has now revealed important insights into the emergence and co-regulation of complex synaptic signaling machineries from studies in the closest unicellular relatives of metazoans. (shrink)

El trabajo de Wittgenstein es el documento de una lucha filosófica de toda la vida por comprensiones en el límite de lo pensable y su expresión adecuada, basada en la idea de limitar el alcance de lo racionalmente expresable desde adentro para ganar intuiciones más allá. Como consecuencia de su forma de pensar de doble cara, a menudo se puede sentir una tensión entre pensamientos o formas de argumentación aparentemente opuestas que a veces conducen a malas interpretaciones. En este artículo (...) se mostrará que la idea de «correr contra los límites del lenguaje» (y tratar de echar un vistazo al otro lado) fue absolutamente central para la filosofía temprana y posterior de Wittgenstein, sin embargo, todavía dejando la puerta entreabierta para explicaciones metafísicas. A partir de la concepción de un Wittgenstein de doble cara, al mismo tiempo positivista y metafísico, se puede explicar mas convincentemente la función de su introducción del concepto de «juegos de lenguaje». Se vuelve posible también arrojar nueva luz sobre su concepción de la semántica y el así llamado «argumento del lenguaje privado». (shrink)

In this paper we analyse some misleading theses concerning the oldcontroversy over the relation between mind and body presented incontemporary medical literature. We undertake an epistemologicalclarification of the axiomatic structure of medical methods. Thisclarification, in turn, requires a precise philosophical explanation ofthe presupposed concepts. This analysis will establish two results: (1)that the mind-body dualism cannot be understood as a kind of biologicalvariation of the subject-object dichotomy in physics, and (2) that thethesis of the incompatibility between somatic and psychosomatic medicineheld by (...) naturalists and others lacks solid epistemologicalfoundation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses what we owe to the civilians of a state with which we are militarily engaged. The old notion of noncombatant immunity needs to be rethought within the context of both human rights and into the postwar phase. No doubt, civilians will be killed in war. However, much more can be done during and after the fighting to protect civilians’ basic human rights from the ills of war. I argue for making belligerents accountable ex post by requiring them (...) to repair destroyed dual-purpose facilities that are essential for securing basic human rights of the civilian populace. I argue also that a belligerent’s targeting decisions should be reviewed ex post by an impartial commission. (shrink)

Face perception and emotion categorization are widely investigated under laboratory conditions that are devoid of real social interaction. Using mobile eye-tracking glasses in a standardized diagnostic setting while applying the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, we had the opportunity to record gaze behavior of children and adolescents with and without Autism Spectrum Conditions during social interaction. The objective was to investigate differences in eye-gaze behavior between three groups of children and adolescents either with ASC or with unconfirmed diagnosis of ASC or (...) with neurotypical development during social interaction with an adult interviewer in a diagnostic standard situation using the ADOS-2. In a case control study, we used mobile eye-tracking glasses in an ecologically valid and highly standardized diagnostic interview to investigate suspected cases of ASC. After completion of the ASC diagnostic gold standard including the ADOS-2, the participants were assigned to two groups based on their diagnosis and compared with a matched group of neurotypically developed controls. The primary outcome measure is the percentage of total dwell times assessed for different areas of interest with regard to the face and body of a diagnostic interviewer and the surrounding space. Overall, 65 children and adolescents within an age range of 8.3–17.9 years were included in the study. The data revealed significant group differences, especially in the central-face area. Previous investigations under laboratory conditions gave preferential attention to the eye region during face perception to describe differences between ASC and NTD. In this study – using an ecologically valid setting within a standard diagnostic procedure – the results indicate that neurotypically developed controls seem to process faces and facial expressions in a holistic manner originating from the central-face region. Conversely, participants on the Autism Spectrum seem to avoid the central-face region and show unsystematic gaze behavior, not using the preferred landing position in the central-face region as the Archimedean point of face perception. This study uses a new approach, and it will be important to replicate these preliminary findings in future research. (shrink)

This paper develops the outlines of a pragmatic, adaptive management-based approach toward the control of invasive nonnative species (INS) through a case study of Kings Bay/crystal River, a large artesian springs ecosystem that is one of Florida’s most important habitats for endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Building upon recent critiques of invasion biology, principles of adaptive management, and our own interview and participant–observer research, we argue that this case study represents an example in which rigid application of invasion biology’s (...) a␣priori imperative to minimize INS has produced counterproductive results from both an ecological and social standpoint. As such, we recommend that INS control in Kings Bay should be relaxed in conjunction with an overall program of adaptive ecosystem management that includes meaningful participation and input from non-institutional stakeholders. However, we also note that adaptive management and INS control are by no means mutually exclusive, in Kings Bay or elsewhere. Instead, we suggest that adaptive management offers a means by which INS control efforts can emerge from—and be evaluated through—ongoing scientific research and participatory dialogue about the condition of specific places, rather than non-contextual assumptions about the harmfulness of INS as a general class. (shrink)

The first European Congress on Agriculturaland Food Ethics was held at Wageningen University andResearch Center (WUR), Wageningen, The Netherlands, March 4–6, 1999. This was the inaugural conference forthe newly forming European Society for Agricultural andFood Ethics – EUR-SAFE – and around two hundredpeople from across Europe (and a handful of NorthAmericans) participated. Following theCongress/conference, a small (16 people), two-dayworkshop funded in part by the US National ScienceFoundation focused on similarities and differencesbetween the US and the EU regarding publicdiscourse/debate on food (...) biotechnology. A briefoverview of the Congress and the follow-up workshopsuggests what lessons AFHVS and ASFS might learn fromEuropean experience of agricultural and food ethics. (shrink)

Agricultural production in the western world in our time is primarily agribusiness. As such, a business ethics approach can be extended to agricultural production. Given the nature of the agricultural production system, however, not only are general principles for business ethics applicable, but more specific obligations need to be generated. A social contract approach such as Donaldson's, with modifications, serves to provide both the general principles for the ethical practice of agribusiness, as well as more specific obligations for agents in (...) the production system. An analysis of three cases is offered in order to highlight ethical issues particular to agribusiness, as well as to provide content for the principles which the social contract view regarding agribusiness can be seen to generate. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr''s historical writings began in 1935 with his essay Bernard Altum and the territory theory and have continued up through his monumentalGrowth of Biological Thought (1982) and hisOne Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (1991). Sweeping in their scope, forceful in their interpretation, enlisted on behalf of the clarification of modern concepts and of a broad view of biology, these writings provide both insights and challenges for the historian of biology. Mayr''s general intellectual formation (...) was guided by the GermanBildung ideal, with its emphasis on synthetic and comprehensive knowledge. His understanding of how to write history was inspired further by the example of the historian of ideas Arthur Lovejoy. Some strengths and limitations of this approach are explored here through attention to Mayr''s treatment of the French biologist J.-B. Lamarck. It is contended that Mayr''s contributions to the history of biology are not restricted to his own very substantial historical writings but also include his encouragement of other scholars, his development of an invaluable archive of scientific correspondence, and his insistence that historians who write about evolution and related subjects acquire an adequate understanding of the principles of Darwinian biology. (shrink)