Wilderness Search and Rescue is the process of finding and assisting persons who are lost in remote wilderness areas. Because such areas are often rugged or relatively inaccessible, searching for missing persons can take huge amounts of time and resources. Camera-equipped mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have the potential for speeding up the search process by enabling searchers to view aerial video of an area of interest while closely coordinating with nearby ground searchers. In this paper, we report on lessons learned by (...) trying to use UAVs to support WiSAR. Our research methodology has relied heavily on field trials involving searches conducted under the direction of practicing search and rescue personnel but using simulated missing persons. Lessons from these field trials include the immediate importance of seeing things well in the video, the field need for defining and supporting various roles in the search team, role-specific needs like supporting systematic search by providing a visualization tool to represent the quality of the search, and the on-going need to better support interactions between ground and video searchers. Surprisingly to us, sophisticated autonomous search patterns were less critical than we anticipated, though advances in video enhancement and visualizing search progress, as well as ongoing work to model the likely location of a missing person, open up the possibility of closing the loop between UAV path-planning, search quality, and the likely location of a moving missing person. Keywords: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Wilderness Search and Rescue, Human–Robot Interaction, Human Factors, Field Robotics, Graphical User Interfaces. (shrink)

If “Big Gods” evolved in part because of their ability to morally regulate groups of people who cannot count on kin or reciprocal altruism to get along, then powerful gods would tend to be good gods. If the mechanism for this cooperation is some kind of fear of supernatural punishment, then we may expect that mighty gods tend to be punishing gods. The present study is a statistical analysis of superhuman being concepts from 20 countries on five continents to explore (...) whether the goodness of a god is related to its mightiness. Gods that looked more like the God of classical theism and gods that were low in anthropomorphism were more likely to be regarded as morally good and to be the target of religious practices. Mighty gods were not, however, especially likely to punish or to be a “high god.”. (shrink)

The Wars of the Falkland and the Gulf were the two conflicts of classical type John-Paul II was confronted with. On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his Pontificate, this article deals with various initiatives he has taken at this juncture to see how much they fit in with the traditional teaching of the Church on the just War. The use he made of this theory has allowed him to make stricter the conditions for a legitimate use of force, (...) to appeal to all moral forces to cooperate in building an effective solidarity among peoples and to develop a theology of Peace. (shrink)

Analyzes Schelling's arguments for his idealism and pieces together a description of his theory of nature from among the large number of his writings in this area. It also traces the influence of Naturphilosophie on 19th-century science and connects it with recent System Theory.

The debate between the theory-theory and simulation has largely ignored issues of cognitive architecture. In the philosophy of psychology, cognition as symbol manipulation is the orthodoxy. The challenge from connectionism, however, has attracted vigorous and renewed interest. In this paper I adopt connectionism as the antecedent of a conditional: If connectionism is the correct account of cognitive architecture, then the simulation theory should be preferred over the theory-theory. I use both developmental evidence and constraints on explanation in psychology to support (...) this claim. (shrink)

The debate between the theory‐theory and simulation has largely ignored issues of cognitive architecture. In the philosophy of psychology, cognition as symbol manipulation is the orthodoxy. The challenge from connectionism, however, has attracted vigorous and renewed interest. In this paper I adopt connectionism as the antecedent of a conditional: If connectionism is the correct account of cognitive archi‐tecture, then the simulation theory should be preferred over the theory‐theory. I use both developmental evidence and constraints on explanation in psychology to support (...) this claim. (shrink)

The tendency to test outcomes that are predicted by our current theory (the confirmation bias) is one of the best-known biases of human decision making. We prove that the confirmation bias is an optimal strategy for testing hypotheses when those hypotheses are deterministic, each making a single prediction about the next event in a sequence. Our proof applies for two normative standards commonly used for evaluating hypothesis testing: maximizing expected information gain and maximizing the probability of falsifying the current hypothesis. (...) This analysis rests on two assumptions: (a) that people predict the next event in a sequence in a way that is consistent with Bayesian inference; and (b) when testing hypotheses, people test the hypothesis to which they assign highest posterior probability. We present four behavioral experiments that support these assumptions, showing that a simple Bayesian model can capture people's predictions about numerical sequences (Experiments 1 and 2), and that we can alter the hypotheses that people choose to test by manipulating the prior probability of those hypotheses (Experiments 3 and 4). (shrink)

To attribute confusion to someone is to take up a paternalistic stance in evaluating his reasoning.

Generalization is a fundamental problem solved by every cognitive system in essentially every domain. Although it is known that how people generalize varies in complex ways depending on the context or domain, it is an open question how people learn the appropriate way to generalize for a new context. To understand this capability, we cast the problem of learning how to generalize as a problem of learning the appropriate hypothesis space for generalization. We propose a normative mathematical framework for learning (...) how to generalize by learning inductive biases for which properties are relevant for generalization in a domain from the statistical structure of features and concepts observed in that domain. More formally, the framework predicts that an ideal learner should learn to generalize by either taking the weighted average of the results of generalizing according to each hypothesis space, with weights given by how well each hypothesis space fits the previously observed concepts, or by using the most likely hypothesis space. We compare the predictions of this framework to human generalization behavior with three experiments in one perceptual (rectangles) and two conceptual (animals and numbers) domains. Across all three studies we find support for the framework's predictions, including individual‐level support for averaging in the third study. (shrink)

Everyone has mistaken one thing for another, such as a stranger for an acquaintance. A person who has mistaken two things, Joseph Camp argues, even on a massive scale, is still capable of logical thought. In order to make that idea precise, one needs a logic of confused thought that is blind to the distinction between the objects that have been confused. Confused thought and language cannot be characterized as true or false even though reasoning conducted in such language (...) can be classified as valid or invalid. To the extent that philosophers have addressed this issue at all, they take it for granted that confusion is a kind of ambiguity. Camp rejects this notion; his fundamental claim is that confusion is not a mental state. To attribute confusion to someone is to take up a paternalistic stance in evaluating his reasoning. Camp proposes a novel characterization of confusion, and then demonstrates its fruitfulness with several applications in the history of philosophy and the history of science. (shrink)

In challenging Marxist theorists to confront the radical rebirth at the core of the fascist revolution, Roger Griffin has carried fascist studies to a new and valuable plateau. Likewise, David D. Roberts’s elaboration of Griffin’s model offers a provocative and fruitful avenue to rethink fascist political culture. This article seeks to advance the dialogue to the next level by considering what an international approach can add to these primarily nationalist interpretations of generic fascism. Drawing on examples from the history of (...) the United States, I argue that fascism is a fundamentally cosmopolitan process and that it needs to be placed on a broader continuum with the histories of slavery, racism and nationalism. (shrink)

This volume collects articles of the late philosopher Tamara Horowitz. It includes four previously published and two unpublished articles. Though she had wide-ranging interests during her career, Horowitz was mostly concerned with what can be known as priori. She argued against too much confidence in philosophical intuition and argued for a more naturalist, scientific approach. Joseph Camp includes an editor's introduction to the collection of this important philosopher.

In 1968, the Harvard criteria equated irreversible coma and apnea with human death and later, the Uniform Determination of Death Act was enacted permitting organ procurement from heart-beating donors. Since then, clinical studies have defined a spectrum of states of impaired consciousness in human beings: coma, akinetic mutism, minimally conscious state, vegetative state and brain death. In this article, we argue against the validity of the Harvard criteria for equating brain death with human death. Brain death does not disrupt somatic (...) integrative unity and coordinated biological functioning of a living organism. Neurological criteria of human death fail to determine the precise moment of an organism’s death when death is established by circulatory criterion in other states of impaired consciousness for organ procurement with non-heart-beating donation protocols. The criterion of circulatory arrest 75 s to 5 min is too short for irreversible cessation of whole brain functions and respiration controlled by the brain stem. Brain -based criteria for determining death with a beating heart exclude relevant anthropologic, psychosocial, cultural, and religious aspects of death and dying in society. Clinical guidelines for determining brain death are not consistently validated by the presence of irreversible brain stem ischemic injury or necrosis on autopsy; therefore, they do not completely exclude reversible loss of integrated neurological functions in donors. The questionable reliability and varying compliance with these guidelines among institutions amplify the risk of determining reversible states of impaired consciousness as irreversible brain death. The scientific uncertainty of defining and determining states of impaired consciousness including brain death have been neither disclosed to the general public nor broadly debated by the medical community or by legal and religious scholars. Heart-beating or non-heart-beating organ procurement from patients with impaired consciousness is de facto a concealed practice of physician-assisted death, and therefore, violates both criminal law and the central tenet of medicine not to do harm to patients. Society must decide if physician-assisted death is permissible and desirable to resolve the conflict about procuring organs from patients with impaired consciousness within the context of the perceived need to enhance the supply of transplantable organs. (shrink)

In early 2017, Nevada amended its Uniform Determination of Death Act, in order to clarify the neurologic criteria for the determination of death. The amendments stipulate that a determination of death is a clinical decision that does not require familial consent and that the appropriate standard for determining neurologic death is the American Academy of Neurology’s guidelines. Once a physician makes such a determination of death, the Nevada amendments require the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment within twenty-four hours with limited exceptions. (...) Neurologists have generally supported Nevada’s amendments for clarifying the diagnostic standard and limiting the ability of family members to challenge it. However, it is more appropriate to view the Nevada amendments with concern. Even though the primary purpose of the UDDA is to ensure that all functions of a person’s entire brain have ceased, the AAN guidelines do not accurately assess this. In addition, by characterizing the determination of death as solely a clinical decision, the Nevada legislature has improperly ignored the doctrine of informed consent, as well as the beliefs of particular faiths and cultures that reject brain death. Rather than resolving controversies regarding brain death determinations, the Nevada amendments may instead instigate numerous constitutional challenges. (shrink)

A philosophical yet detailed history of the American party battle explaining why partisan debate is so perverse and how it could be made less so. Building upon the heritage of American pragmatism, from Peirce to Rorty and the new pragmatists, as well as the work of historian Charles Beard, the book identifies that battle as a struggle between nation state and market state, with special emphasis on the perversity of Civil War politics.

The urgency of the issues discussed in the article is due to the fact that a person always stood and will be at the center of the interests of any religious structure, and especially if that structure is such an authoritative, powerful and influential Church as the Roman Catholic one. Today, centralized Catholicism presents its social position as a moral improvement of a person through cooperation with other people for the sake of a common and perfect future. The purpose of (...) the article is to examine the social concept of Catholicism, which is pervaded by the ideas of providentialism. The latter is characteristic of considering the social development of mankind in accordance with God's plan. The crown of creation of the Most High is man, so "the Church implements her plan through man, but not in the abstract, but in a concrete, living, social dimension," - says Cardinal Joseph Goffner. Through the constant evangelization of humanity, the Church seeks to influence the improvement of human life and seeks to point to Christianity as a faithful way of life. But a world where the horrors of war have been replaced by the "war of civilizations," you will not call the "war of cultures" perfect. Nor can one see the great desire of mankind for moral development, spiritual perfection, but only the desire for the accumulation of material goods. (shrink)

Since the introduction of the concept of brain death by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death in 1968, the validity of this concept has been challenged by medical scientists, as well as by legal, philosophical, and religious scholars. In light of increased criticism of the concept of brain death, Stephen Napier, a staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, set out to prove that the whole-brain death criterion serves as (...) good evidence for death in the Catholic bioethical framework, on the grounds that when whole-brain death has occurred the soul has already departed from the body. Opponents have argued that (1) brain death does not disrupt the somatic integrative unity and coordinated biological functioning of a living organism and (2) clinical tests outlined in the practice guidelines for determining brain death lack sufficient power to exclude persisting function and fail to detect elements of the brain that, although currently functionless, may retain potential for recovery under conditions of optimal medical care. It is therefore possible that heart-beating organ procurement from patients with impaired consciousness is de facto a concealed practice of active euthanasia and physician-assisted death, both of which, either concealed or overt, the Catholic Church opposes. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 8, Page 52-54, August 2011.

War: A Primer for Christians provides a concise introduction to the main approaches that Christians have taken toward war and examines each approach critically. Some Christians have supported their country's wars as crusades of good against evil. Others, as pacifists, have rejected participation in or support for any war. Still others have followed the just-war tradition in holding that it can be justifiable under some conditions to resort to war, but that then Christian love must limit the conduct of war. (...) In an updated preface and new afterword, Allen explores aspects of current international relations that have a special bearing on the context of war. “Joseph Allen’s War: A Primer for Christians is just that: a succinct, fair-minded, wonderfully reasoned, and accessible account of the major Christian traditions on war—Just War, Holy War, and the Pacifist renunciation of violence. His book is also a primer in the further sense, that it will prime the pump for further discussion and debate as to when wars are just and how a nation might keep the means employed under restraints.”—William F. May. (shrink)

In this article it is argued that wittgenstein advanced a critique of the mythology of deduction as destructive as hume's critique of the myth of induction, And that objections to wittgenstein's assembled remainders in this regard depend for their apparent force on continuing to accept the very assumptions he has shown untenable.

In seeking to determine what place, if any, the concept of moral rights can and/or should have in theological ethics, it is first necessary to clarify the nature of the concept. On this task contemporary moral philosophy is found to be especially helpful. It is then suggested that from a theological standpoint an appeal to moral rights might be justified by reference to (1) the moral fabric of persons under God, (2) the worth of persons as ends, and (3) the (...) inclusiveness of the moral community. The author claims that the concept of moral rights is compatible with belief in a sovereign God who promises his steadfast love, and that it need not imply any "natural" ethic in competition with theological ethics. Finally, the affirmation of moral rights is found to be highly appropriate to an emphasis upon love toward other persons. (shrink)

Organ donation after cardiac or circulatory death (DCD) has been introduced to increase the supply of transplantable organs. In this paper, we argue that the recovery of viable organs useful for transplantation in DCD is not compatible with the dead donor rule and we explain the consequential ethical and legal ramifications. We also outline serious deficiencies in the current consent process for DCD with respect to disclosure of necessary elements for voluntary informed decision making and respect for the donor's autonomy. (...) We compare two alternative proposals for increasing organ donation consent in society: presumed consent and mandated choice. We conclude that proceeding with the recovery of transplantable organs from decedents requires a paradigm change in the ethics of organ donation. The paradigm change to ensure the legitimacy of DCD practice must include: (1) societal agreement on abandonment of the dead donor rule, (2) legislative revisions reflecting abandonment of the dead donor rule, and (3) requirement of mandated choice to facilitate individual participation in organ donation and to ensure that decisions to participate are made in compliance with the societal values of respect for autonomy and self-determination. (shrink)