In this paper I explore the nature, varieties, causes and meanings of comebacks related to sport. I argue that comebacks have an axiological dimension, and that the best comebacks involve personal growth. I attempt to show that a major reason that comebacks connected to sport are often inspiring is that we are all in need of a comeback at some point in our lives. When improbable comebacks occur in the world of sport, they expand our sense of possibility.

It is a common refrain in sports discourse that one should try one's hardest in sports, or some other variation on this theme. In this paper I argue that there is no generalized duty to try one's hardest in sports, and that the claim that one should do so is ambiguous. Although a number of factors point in the direction of my conclusion, particularly salient is the claim that, in the end, the putative requirement is too stringent for creatures like (...) human beings. The putative duty to try one's hardest in sports does not comport with psychological realism. That being said, there are contexts in which it is reasonable to expect athletes to try hard. Perhaps there is even a duty to put forth such effort. Even so, this obligation does not rise to the level of a generalized duty to try one's hardest in sports. (shrink)

After years of skepticism and denials regarding the significance of concussions in sport, the issue is now front and center. This is fitting, given that the impact of concussions in sport is profound. Thus, it is with trepidation that one ventures to direct some attention onto brain injuries other than concussions incurred through sport. Given a closer look, however, it may be that considering various kinds of brain injuries, with different causes, will help us better understand the range and seriousness (...) of brain injuries in sport. My focus is on emotional trauma in sport. I argue that severe emotional pathology is evidence of underlying brain injury. Any attempt to minimize the significance of emotional disturbance that results from emotional trauma as ‘merely’ psychological in nature is thus misguided. (shrink)

This paper explores three phenomena in sport that are connected to narratives of hope: underdogs, upsets, and overachievers. Each of these phenomena is complex. I seek not only to understand the intrinsic nature of these phenomena, but also to explain why they captivate the imagination. After exploring some partial explanations of their enduring appeal, I focus on how the drama associated with underdogs, upsets, and overachievers in sport illuminates the human condition and awakens our sense of possibility when the odds (...) are against us. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSport is the locus of varieties of athletic experience. In this paper, I focus on anxiety as a felt experience in sport. Anxiety is often experienced as a form of psychological distress. It...

The influence of neuroscience looms large today. In this introductory essay, we provide some context for the volume by acknowledging the expansion of applied neuroscience to everyday life and the proliferation of neuroscientific disciplines. We also observe that some individuals have sounded cautionary notes in light of perceived overreach of some claims for neuroscience. Then we briefly summarize the articles that comprise this volume. This diverse collection of papers represents the beginning of a conversation focused on the intersection of sport, (...) ethics and neurophilosophy. As such, the essays also represent a new mode of interaction between philosophy and science with sport in the center of the discussion. (shrink)

This paper examines varieties of naiveté manifested in the world of sport. In particular, I examine epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical naiveté. My contention is that virtually from cradle to grave forms of naiveté toward sport are present. We are tempted and all too often succumb to the temptation to accept appearances. But the initial appearances of sport often disappoint, and the underlying reality that confronts us is sometimes a hard reality. Faced with disappointment and exposed illusions, one’s next step may (...) be to adopt a hermeneutics of suspicion towards sport. There is no going back to the earlier naive stance. But is this the final word on the matter? Once one has adopted a critical perspective towards sport, is it possible to join the hermeneutics of suspicion to what Wendy Doniger refers to as a “hermeneutics of retrieval”? That is, after the first naiveté toward sport is exposed as inadequate, is it possible to arrive at what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur calls a “second naiveté.. (shrink)

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 6, Issue 3, Page 393-396, August 2012.

Volume 47, Issue 2, July 2020, Page 322-325.

This paper explores whether resolving to "live like there's no tomorrow" would be conducive to living life to the fullest. While there is much to commend a life lived with a sense of urgency, I conclude that living like there's no tomorrow, in the final analysis, is neither advisable, nor realizable. In its place I suggest a life lived in mindfulness of the transitory and uncertain nature of our lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of our social, cultural and commercial lives, including the world of sport. This book examines the ethical and philosophical dimensions of the intersection of COVID-19 and sport. The book goes beyond simple description of the impact of the pandemic on sport to offer normative judgments about how the sporting world responded to challenges posed by COVID-19, as well as philosophical speculation as to how COVID-19 will change our understanding and appreciation (...) of sport in the long term. It examines the considerations that either influenced - or arguably should have influenced - decisions to continue or to resume the playing of organized sport in the midst of a pandemic. As a part of this analysis, a spotlight is shone on how sport intersected with political issues surrounding COVID-19. It also explores the configuration and meaning of sport in the COVID-19 era, touching on themes such as the nature of sport, and its integrity, and sport's relationship to technology. Other themes include the changed nature of spectatorship, suffering in sport during pandemic times, and the impact of COVID-19 on the Olympic and Paralympic Games. A final chapter looks ahead and asks what sport might look like in a post-COVID world. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the ethics and philosophy of sport, the sociology of sport, event studies, politics or public health. (shrink)

David Lewis ([1986b]) gives an attractive and familiar account of counterfactual dependence in the standard context. This account has recently been subject to a counterexample from Adam Elga ([2000]). In this article, I formulate a Lewisian response to Elga’s counterexample. The strategy is to add an extra criterion to Lewis’s similarity metric, which determines the comparative similarity of worlds. This extra criterion instructs us to take special science laws into consideration as well as fundamental laws. I argue that the Second (...) Law of Thermodynamics should be seen as a special science law, and give a brief account of what Lewisian special science laws should look like. If successful, this proposal blocks Elga’s counterexample. (shrink)

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. Vol. 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE. Edited by Jeffrey H. Tigay and Adele Berlin. Lucerne: The Posen Foundation, and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. Pp. lvii + 538, illus. $200.

Direct neurological and especially imaging-driven investigations into the structures essential to naturally occurring cognitive systems in their development and operation have motivated broadening interest in the potential for artificial consciousness modeled on these systems. This first paper in a series of three begins with a brief review of Boltuc’s (2009) “brain-based” thesis on the prospect of artificial consciousness, focusing on his formulation of h-consciousness. We then explore some of the implications of brain research on the structure of consciousness, finding limitations (...) in biological approaches to the study of consciousness. Looking past these limitations, we introduce research in artificial consciousness designed to test for the emergence of consciousness, a phenomenon beyond the purview of the study of existing biological systems. (shrink)

This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological non-reductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on system criticality and self, develops a distinction between simulated and formal consciousness based on this emphasis, reviews Tani and colleagues' work in light of this distinction, and ends by forecasting (...) the increasing importance of synthetic neurorobotics studies for cognitive science and philosophy of mind going forward, finally in regards to most- and myth-consciousness. (shrink)

Discoverability: the urgent need of an ecology of human creativity from the prolific Lorenzo Magnani is worthy of direct attention. The message may be of special interest to philosophers, ethicists and organizing scientists involved in the development of AI and related technologies which are increasingly directed at reinforcing conditions against which Magnani directly warns, namely the “overcomputationalization” of life marked by the gradual encroachment of technologically “locked strategies” into everyday decision-making until “freedom, responsibility, and ownership of our destinies” are ceded (...) and we, in parallel, build a future fit for artifacts over human beings. Professional educators - teachers and administrators serious about teaching - and policy-makers including the concerned public, parents and social activists concerned about the effects of technologies on development and well-being may benefit, as well. (shrink)

Objective: To examine current research payment practices and to inform development of clearer guidelines for researchers and ethics committees.Design: Exploratory email based questionnaire study of current research participant reimbursement practices. A diverse sample of organisations and individuals were targeted.Setting: Australia.Participants: Contacts in 84 key research organisations and select electronic listservers across Australia. A total of 100 completed questionnaires were received with representations from a variety of research areas .Main measurements: Open-ended and fixed alternative questions about type of research agency; type (...) of research; type of population under study; whether payment is standard; amounts and mechanisms of payment; factors taken into account when deciding on payment practices; and whether payment policies exist.Results: Reimbursement practice is highly variable. Where it occurs it is largely monetary and is for time and out-of-pocket expenses. Ethics committees were reported to be often involved in decision making around reimbursement.Conclusions: Research subject payment practices vary in Australia. Researchers who do provide payments to research participants generally do so without written policy and procedures. Ethics committees have an important role in developing guidelines in this area. Specific guidelines are needed considering existing local policies and procedures; payment models and their application in diverse settings; case study examples of types and levels of reimbursement; applied definitions of incentive and inducement; and the rationale for diverse payment practices in different settings. (shrink)

The phenomenon of altruism extends from the biological realm to the human sociocultural realm. This article sketches a coherent outline of multiple types of altruism of progressively increasing scope that span these two realms and are grounded in an ever-expanding sense of “self.” Discussion of this framework notes difficulties associated with altruism at different levels. It links scientific ideas about the evolution of cooperation and about hierarchical order to perennial philosophical and religious concerns. It offers a conceptual background for inquiry (...) into societal challenges that call for altruistic behavior, especially the challenge of environmental and social sustainability. (shrink)

Our purpose in this article is to identify and suggest resolution for two core problematics of grounded theory. First, while grounded theory provides transparency to one part of the conceptualization process, where codes emerge directly from the data, it provides no such systematic or transparent way for gaining insight into the conceptual relationships between discovered codes. Producing a grounded theory depends not only on the definition of conceptual pieces, but the delineation of a relationship between at least two of those (...) pieces. Second, the conceptualization process of grounded theory is done in hierarchical fashion, where individual codes emerge from the data but then are used to generate insight into more general concepts and thematic statements. But various works on grounded theory have failed to provide any systematic way of using data specific levels of scale (the codes) to gain insight into more macro levels of scale (concepts and themes). We offer fractal concept analysis as a means of resolving both of these issues. By using a logic structure generator, fractal concept analysis delineates self-similar conceptual frameworks at various levels of abstraction, yielding a method for linking concepts together within and between levels of scale encountered in the grounded theory coding and categorization process. We conclude that this fractal analytic technique can bolster the aims of grounded theory as a formalized and systematic process for generating theory from empirical data. (shrink)

Last year, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations for the first time included provisions in its Hospital Accreditation Manual requiring institutions to have mechanisms in place to consider ethical issues arising in the care of patients and to educate care givers and patients on bioethical issues. This new requirement is notably vague. There is no indication of what type of mechanisms would be appropriate or how those involved in considering ethical issues should conduct themselves. This vagueness is by (...) no means accidental, but it reflects a recognition that clinical bioethics is still in its formative stages and that there are currently almost as many different mechanisms for dealing with bioethical issues in the healthcare setting as there are institutions that have such mechanisms. The Joint Commission's action, however, also implies that the time for experimentation will soon be over. (shrink)

Wattles offers a comprehensive survey of the history of the golden rule, "Do unto others as you want others to do unto you". He traces the rule's history in contexts as diverse as the writings of Confucius and the Greek philosophers, the Bible, modern theology and philosophy, and the American "self-help" context. He concludes by offering his own synthesis of these varied understandings.

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

In 2004, drug user representatives lobbied against the now stalled $17.5m Australian government Retractable Needle and Syringe Technology Initiative due to concerns about inadequate consultation and potential health risks to participants.1 Some drug user organisations have also recently withdrawn support for the Australian Illicit Drug Reporting System , ….

This chapter presents the main formalism of the book, which is used in subsequent chapters to describe a variety of concepts in Husserlian phenomenology, and thereby unify them. A dynamical systems approach to Husserl is introduced, and several dynamical laws of Husserlian phenomenology are described. The first is an expectation rule according to which expectations are determined by what a person knows, sees, and does. The second is a learning rule according to which background knowledge is updated in a specific (...) way when experiences fulfill or frustrate prior expectations. In addition to these rules, a “supervenience function” is described, which associates how a thing is seen with a “trail set,” the set ways that thing is expected to look, relative to all possible ways of moving around it. This function further illustrates the explanatory dimension of phenomenology described in Chap. 2, whereby how we immanently experience things is determined by how we expect them to look relative to counterfactual movement patterns. (shrink)

Reliabilism—the view that a belief is justified iff it is produced by a reliable process—is often characterized as a form of consequentialism. Recently, critics of reliabilism have suggested that since it is a form of consequentialism, reliabilism condones a variety of problematic trade-offs involving cases where someone forms an epistemically deficient belief now that will lead her to more epistemic value later. In the present paper, we argue that the relevant argument against reliabilism fails because it equivocates. While there is (...) a sense in which reliabilism is a kind of consequentialism, it is not of a kind on which we should expect problematic trade-offs. (shrink)

A simple tool is provided to assist researchers in assessing contributions to a scientific publication, for ease in evaluating which contributors qualify for authorship, and in what order the authors should be listed. The tool identifies four phases of activity leading to a publication—Conception and Design, Data Acquisition, Analysis and Interpretation, and Manuscript Preparation. By comparing a project participant’s contribution in a given phase to several specified thresholds, a score of up to five points can be assigned; the contributor’s scores (...) in all four phases are summed to yield a total “contribution score”, which is compared to a threshold to determine which contributors merit authorship. This tool may be useful in a variety of contexts in which a systematic approach to authorial credit is desired. (shrink)

Time underlies many interesting human behaviors. Thus, the question of how to represent time in connectionist models is very important. One approach is to represent time implicitly by its effects on processing rather than explicitly (as in a spatial representation). The current report develops a proposal along these lines first described by Jordan (1986) which involves the use of recurrent links in order to provide networks with a dynamic memory. In this approach, hidden unit patterns are fed back to themselves: (...) the internal representations which develop thus reflect task demands in the context of prior internal states. A set of simulations is reported which range from relatively simple problems (temporal version of XOR) to discovering syntactic/semantic features for words. The networks are able to learn interesting internal representations which incorporate task demands with memory demands: indeed, in this approach the notion of memory is inextricably bound up with task processing. These representations reveal a rich structure, which allows them to be highly context‐dependent, while also expressing generalizations across classes of items. These representations suggest a method for representing lexical categories and the type/token distinction. (shrink)

In order to understand ongoing activity, observers segment it into meaningful temporal parts. Segmentation can be based on bottom‐up processing of distinctive sensory characteristics, such as movement features. Segmentation may also be affected by top‐down effects of knowledge structures, including information about actors' intentions. Three experiments investigated the role of movement features and intentions in perceptual event segmentation, using simple animations. In all conditions, movement features significantly predicted where participants segmented. This relationship was stronger when participants identified larger units than (...) when they identified smaller units, and stronger when the animations were generated randomly than when they were generated by goal‐directed human activity. This pattern suggests that bottom‐up processing played an important role in segmentation of these stimuli, but that this was modulated by top‐down influence of knowledge structures. To describe accurately how observers perceive ongoing activity, one must account for the effects of distinctive sensory characteristics, the effects of knowledge structures, and their interactions. (shrink)

Data science, and the related field of big data, is an emerging discipline involving the analysis of data to solve problems and develop insights. This rapidly growing domain promises many benefits to both consumers and businesses. However, the use of big data analytics can also introduce many ethical concerns, stemming from, for example, the possible loss of privacy or the harming of a sub-category of the population via a classification algorithm. To help address these potential ethical challenges, this paper maps (...) and describes the main ethical themes that were identified via systematic literature review. It then identifies a possible structure to integrate these themes within a data science project, thus helping to provide some structure in the on-going debate with respect to the possible ethical situations that can arise when using data science analytics. (shrink)

Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis of the view that everything is a manifestation of the physical aspects of existence. Jeffrey Poland presents a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the philosophical foundations of this program. He investigates the core ideas, motivating values, and presuppositions of physicalism; the constraints upon an adequate formulation of physicalist doctrine; the epistemological and modal status, the scope, and the methodological roles of physicalist principles. (...) He reviews and evaluates major objections to the program, and considers its significance for philosophy, science, society, and individual persons. He also examines the relations between physicalism and other philosophical positions, such as realism, empiricism, and relativism, and suggests that physicalism is compatible with a tolerant pluralism in the philosophical, cultural, and personal domains. (shrink)

This paper proceeds from examining the debate regarding the question of whether a systematic literature review should be undertaken within a qualitative research study to focusing specifically on the role of a literature review in a phenomenological study. Along with pointing to the pertinence of orienting to, articulating and delineating the phenomenon within a review of the literature, the paper presents an appropriate approach for this purpose. How a review of the existing literature should locate the focal phenomenon within a (...) given context is illustrated by excerpts from the first author’s literature review within a descriptive phenomenological study. Also discussed is the important issue of when the researcher should fully enter the attitude of the phenomenological reduction and how this may influence the study. (shrink)

With the passage by virtually every state legislature of healthcare proxy laws, the medical profession increasingly can expect to rely on the participation of surrogates in making decisions on behalf of incompetent patients. Several concerns about the legitimacy of proxy decision making have been discussed in the ethical and general medical literature: the lack of concordance between the views of patients and their surrogates have been documented on multiple occasions, and cases of abuse by proxies or potential conflict of interest (...) have been reported. Another dilemma that deserves discussion arises when proxies demand withdrawal of treatment that physicians and nurses regard as essential to the wellbeing of the patient. The following case highlights this dilemma. (shrink)