Given the plethora of research conducted in the field of spirituality and mysticism over the last 30 years, it is almost a superhuman feat to keep up with the explosion of information. Of necessity, in a limited article of this nature, it is possible to discuss only a few salient aspects of the spirituality and mysticism phenomenon and by so doing contribute to ongoing research in this important domain. Contemporary spiritualties encompass the whole range of human experience and new variants (...) are emerging; for example, the relatively recent Contemplative Studies, a cognate and close companion to Spirituality. Crossing inter-religious boundaries enhances studies in Mysticism; natural mysticism is clearly in the foreground; and breaking research in neurotheology sheds light on the nature of the ‘mystical mind’. Discussion of the value or otherwise of techniques and methods of the mystical journey continues unabated. Of great value for today’s frenetic, Internet-crazy world is the path of mystical silence. By contributing to a discussion of these issues, it is hoped that the threads of spirituality and mysticism will continue to share their colour in a world desperate for beauty and peace. (shrink)

A major conceptual dynamic in all major religious traditions is the need for purification and transformation of the individual in order to effect integration and maturation of the personality in the divine. Although the means by which this purification takes place differs according to the cultural and religious configurations of any given tradition, nevertheless a recurring image is that of an inner and outer odyssey. A major example is the threefold path of John of the Cross, which presents a psycho-spiritual (...) journey by which 'divine osmosis' can be realised, passing through the 'dark night of the soul', and culminating in 'spiritual marriage'. Although not accepted by many theoreticians and practitioners of mysticism, nevertheless the value of the Sanjuanist schemata still holds sway in contemporary society. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the theory that there is more than one right logic. Logical instrumentalism is the view that a logic is a correct logic if it can be used to fruitfully pursue some deductive inquiry. Logical instrumentalism is a version of logical pluralism, since more than one logic can be used fruitfully. In this paper, I will show that a logical instrumentalist must accept linear logic as a correct logic, since linear logic is useful for studying natural language syntax. (...) I further show that this means that the logical instrumentalist must accept a wide range of connectives, in particular concatenation. I end by explaining why this is a feature rather than a bug. (shrink)

Jc Beall and Greg Restall (Logical Pluralism. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006) propose a logical pluralism where the corresponding connectives in each logic mean the same thing. They contrast this with a Carnapian pluralism, where different logics have corresponding connectives which do not share meanings. I will show that due to the manner in which connectives are given their meaning by Beall and Restall, relevant negation and intuitionistic negation cannot mean the same thing. Thus, their pluralism is at least partly Carnapian, (...) as not all the logics involved can have their corresponding connectives share meanings. (shrink)

Revised to reflect the current status of scientific and professional theory, practices, and debate across all facets of ethical decision making, this latest edition of Celia B. Fisher's acclaimed book demystifies the American Psychological Association's (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The Fifth Edition explains and puts into practical perspective the format, choice of wording, aspirational principles, and enforceability of the code. Providing in-depth discussions of the foundation and application of each ethical standard to the broad (...) spectrum of scientific, teaching, and professional roles of psychologists, this unique guide helps practitioners effectively use ethical principles and standards to morally conduct their work activities, avoid ethical violations, and, most importantly, preserve and protect the fundamental rights and welfare of those whom they serve. This edition retains and expands upon the critical content of the previous editions to help readers apply the Ethics Code to contemporary social issues in the conduct of responsible psychological science and practice. (shrink)

Susan Stebbing held that Russell’s Doctrine of External Relations was incorrect. Interestingly, she also held that Bradley’s Doctrine of Internal Relations was problematic. In this paper, I’ll explain why she held this position, and develop what I will call the Doctrine of I/E relations, which will explain her middle ground. I start with a brief explanation of Russell’s Logical Atomism and his commitment to the Doctrine of External Relations. Then, to explain the Doctrine of I/E Relations, I take a brief (...) detour through Stebbing’s theory of directional analysis. This will allow us to conclude by presenting the new Doctrine. (shrink)

There was a time when both Rudolf Carnap and Jc Beall were thought to be arch logical pluralists. Beall has since renounced his pluralistic views, but Carnap is still largely regarded as a pluralist. In this paper, I will show that there is good reason to think that Carnap is not a logical pluralist, at least in the way he is presented in the literature. Instead, I argue, he can be seen as a Beall-style logical monist at the meta-level, in (...) line with the views expressed in Beall (APHI 14:1–29, 2017 and NOUS 28:30–54, 2018). (shrink)

Transactive memory theory describes the processes by which benefits for memory can occur when remembering is shared in dyads or groups. In contrast, cognitive psychology experiments demonstrate that social influences on memory disrupt and inhibit individual recall. However, most research in cognitive psychology has focused on groups of strangers recalling relatively meaningless stimuli. In the current study, we examined social influences on memory in groups with a shared history, who were recalling a range of stimuli, from word lists to personal, (...) shared memories. We focused in detail on the products and processes of remembering during in-depth interviews with 12 older married couples. These interviews consisted of three recall tasks: (1) word list recall; (2) personal list recall, where stimuli were relevant to the couples’ shared past; and (3) an open-ended autobiographical interview. We conducted these tasks individually and then collaboratively two weeks later. Across each of the tasks, although some couples demonstrated collaborative inhibition, others demonstrated collaborative facilitation. We identified a number of factors that predicted collaborative success, in particular, group-level strategy use. Our results show that collaboration may help or hinder memory, and certain interactions are more likely to produce collaborative benefits. (shrink)

On some occasions of self-reference there can be two equally viable forms available to speakers: individual self-reference and collective self-reference. This means that selection of one or the other in talk-in-interaction can — akin to the selection of terms for reference to non-present persons — be guided by such considerations as recipient design and action formation. As a strategy for investigating the selection of self-reference terms, this article examines repairs to self-reference that change the form of reference from individual to (...) collective and vice versa. We first identify two repair operations found in the domain of self-reference: aggregation and extraction and then we track the use of both operations across a range of positions in the repair initiation opportunity space. Finally we consider some of the interactional uses of aggregation and extraction repairs in resolving sources of troubles associated with speaker epistemic authority and responsibility for described actions. (shrink)

In social and cultural theory, topology has been used to articulate changes in structures and spaces of power. In this introduction, we argue that culture itself is becoming topological. In particular, this ‘becoming topological’ can be identified in the significance of a new order of spatio-temporal continuity for forms of economic, political and cultural life today. This ordering emerges, sometimes without explicit coordination, in practices of sorting, naming, numbering, comparing, listing, and calculating. We show that the effect of these practices (...) is both to introduce new continuities into a discontinuous world by establishing equivalences or similitudes, and to make and mark discontinuities through repeated contrasts. In this multiplication of relations, topological change is established as being constant, normal and immanent, rather than being an exceptional form, which is externally produced; that is, forms of economic, political and cultural life are identified and made legible in terms of their capacities for continuous change. Outlining the contributions to this Special Issue, the introduction discusses the meaning of topological culture and provides an analytic framework through which to understand its implications. (shrink)

Intuition-based accounts of the a priori are criticised for appealing to a “mysterious” faculty of rational intuition to explain how a priori knowledge is possible. Analyticity-based accounts are typically motivated by opposition to them, offering a purportedly “non-mysterious” account of the a priori. In this paper, I argue that analyticity-based accounts are in no better position to explain the a priori than intuition-based accounts, and that we have good reason to doubt the explanation they offer. To do this, I focus (...) on recent analyticity-based accounts of the a priori, which appeal to understanding alone to explain the a priori. First, I argue that the appeal to understanding as the source of the a priori is no less mysterious than the appeal to rational intuition. Second, I argue that analyticity-based accounts of the a priori do not provide an alternative to intuition-based accounts as the fundamental explanation they offer of the a priori is one that could equally be endorsed by a friend of rational intuition—and that they fail for reasons that do not undermine intuition-based accounts. (shrink)

Joint action, critical to human social interaction and communication, has garnered increasing scholarly attention in many areas of inquiry, yet its development remains little explored. This paper reviews research on the growth of joint action over the first 2 years of life to show how children become progressively more able to engage deliberately, autonomously, and flexibly in joint action with adults and peers. It is suggested that a key mechanism underlying the dramatic changes in joint action over the second year (...) of life is the ability to reflect consciously on oneself and one’s behavior and volition and correspondingly, on the behavior, goals, and intentions of others. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show the relationship between the Liber nouus de anima rationali, a work by Ramon Llull, and the psychological discourse in the thirtheenth century, by means of an analysis of its sources and the doctrinal and thematic context.

Since the 1960s, shamanism has become one of the landmarks for a new way of life and a more respectful relationship of humans with nature in the Western world. Both researchers and practitioners regard the foundation of shamanism as being animism – an understanding of the connection of all living beings. The role of the community is highlighted in shamanism as the shaman is expected to work for his community. Shamanistic techniques vary according to the society or place where it (...) is practised. In the study of neo-shamanism in the post-modern world, autoethnographic research has been seen as necessary, especially in order to explore the experience of the shaman. In this article we ask what has changed in the perceptions of the community in the study of shamanism and how this change has influenced the position of the researcher. Our article reflects on the resolution of the diversity and sameness through autoethnography, where the researcher is located not only in the experience, but also in its interpretation – which highlights great challenges in contextualizing the study, in writing on the concepts concerned, and indeed in the entire research process. (shrink)

This essay critically considers the differences and complementarities between Emmanuel Levinas’s and Jean-Luc Nancy’s respective accounts of ontology and ethics. A comparative reading reveals that while both insist upon a relational conceptualization of subjectivity, they base relationality on differing notions of alterity. The simultaneous proximity and distance between these two thinkers’ respective transphenomological quests yield critical force that enables a mutual critique, while opening up productive avenues for overcoming some of the problems inherent to their views.

Typically, a logic consists of a formal or informal language together with a deductive system and/or a model-theoretic semantics. The language is, or corresponds to, a part of a natural language like English or Greek. The deductive system is to capture, codify, or simply record which inferences are correct for the given language, and the semantics is to capture, codify, or record the meanings, or truth-conditions, or possible truth conditions, for at least part of the language.

Lucid dreams are dreams in which a person becomes aware that they are dreaming. They are different from ordinary dreams, not just because of the dreamer's awareness that they are dreaming, but because lucid dreams are often strikingly realistic and may be emotionally charged to the point of elation. Celia Green and Charles McCreery have written a unique introduction to lucid dreams that will appeal to the specialist and general reader alike. The authors explore the experience of lucid dreaming, (...) relate it to other experiences such as out-of-the-body experiences and apparitions, and look at how lucid dreams can be induced and controlled. They explore their use for therapeutic purposes such as counteracting nightmares. Their study is illustrated throughout with many case histories. (shrink)

This paper explores Albert Bandura's concept of moral disengagement in the context of organizational corruption. First, the construct of moral disengagement is defined and elaborated. Moral disengagement is then hypothesized to play a role in the initiation of corruption by both easing and expediting individual unethical decision-making that advances organizational interests. It is hypothesized to be a factor in the facilitation of organizational corruption through dampening individuals’ awareness of the ethical content of the decisions they make. Finally, it is hypothesized (...) to contribute to the perpetuation of corruption in organizations, because if individuals who have a greater propensity to morally disengage are more likely to make decisions that advance organizational interests regardless of the ethicality of those decisions, they may also be rewarded for those decisions in terms of organizational advancement. Together these studies form an argument that moral disengagement plays an important role in processes of organizational corruption. (shrink)

United States federal regulations for pediatric research with no prospect of direct benefit restrict institutional review board (IRB) approval to procedures presenting: 1) no more than "minimal risk" (§ 45CFR46.404); or 2) no more than a "minor increase over minimal risk" if the research is commensurate with the subjects' previous or expected experiences and intended to gain vitally important information about the child's disorder or condition (§ 45CFR46.406) (DHHS 2001). During the 25 years since their adoption, these regulations have helped (...) IRBs balance subject protections with the pursuit of scientific knowledge to advance children's welfare. At the same time, inconsistency in IRB application of these regulations to pediatric protocols has been widespread, in part because of the ambiguity of the regulatory language. During the past decade, three federally-charged committees have addressed these ambiguities: 1) the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee (NHRPAC) (Washington, DC), 2) the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on the Ethical Conduct of Clinical Research Involving Children (Washington, DC); and 3) the United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Advisory Committee for Human Research Protections (SACHRP) (Washington, DC). The committees have reached similar conclusions on interpretation of language within regulations § § 45CFR46.404 and 406; these conclusions are remarkably consistent with recent international recommendations and those of the original National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1977) report from which current regulations are based. Drawing on the committees' public reports, this article identifies the ethical issues posed by ambiguities in regulatory language, summarizes the committees' deliberations, and calls for a national consensus on recommended criteria. (shrink)

Experimental memory research has traditionally focused on the individual, and viewed social influence as a source of error or inhibition. However, in everyday life, remembering is often a social activity, and theories from philosophy and psychology predict benefits of shared remembering. In a series of studies, both experimental and more qualitative, we attempted to bridge this gap by examining the effects of collaboration on memory in a variety of situations and in a variety of groups. We discuss our results in (...) terms of a functional view of collaborative remembering, and consider when and in what ways remembering with others might help or hinder memory. (shrink)

Comme c’est le cas de nombreuses histoires, celle du demi-million d’Espagnols arrivés en France en janvier et février 1939, alors que se termine la guerre d’Espagne, a toujours été écrite au masculin sous le couvert du neutre. En s’intéressant aux femmes réfugiées espagnoles en France, Maëlle Maugendre met pour la première fois le genre au cœur de l’analyse. Elle révèle la dimension profondément genrée de la politique de la République, puis de l’État français, et des expériences de cette popu...

Most people assume that the natural resources of a country belong to its people. Theorists of cosmopolitan resource justice have recently questioned this assumption, arguing that extensive rights of peoples over natural resources cannot be justified. In response, defences of peoples’ resource rights, grounded in the value of self-determination, have been tepid. This paper argues against both positions. It advances the distinct thesis that popular resource sovereignty is justified as the resource rights allocation that maximizes well-being. This consequentialist account provides (...) superior normative foundations for peoples’ resource rights. (shrink)

We have a striking ability to alter our psychological access to past experiences. Consider the following case. Andrew “Nicky” Barr, OBE, MC, DFC, (1915 – 2006) was one of Australia’s most decorated World War II fighter pilots. He was the top ace of the Western Desert’s 3 Squadron, the pre-eminent fighter squadron in the Middle East, flying P-40 Kittyhawks over Africa. From October 1941, when Nicky Barr’s war began, he flew 22 missions and shot down eight enemy planes in his (...) first 35 operational hours. He was shot down three times, once 25 miles behind enemy lines while trying to rescue a downed pilot. He escaped from prisoner of war camps four times, once jumping out of a train as it travelled from Italy into Austria. His wife Dot, who he married only weeks before the war, waited for him at home. She was told on at least three occasions that he was missing in action or dead. For 50 years, Nicky Barr never spoke publicly, and rarely privately, of his war-time experiences. He was very much a forgotten and forgetting hero (for further details, see Dornan, 2002). In his first public interview in 2002 on the Australian documentary program “Australian Story”, Nicky explained his 50 year silence by saying. (shrink)

This article discusses the possibilities and pitfalls of constructing a code of ethics for university professors. Professional, educational, legal, and policy questions regarding the goals, format, and content of an academic ethics code are raised and a series of aspirational principles and enforceable standards that might be included in such a document are presented for discussion and debate.

We often remember in the company of others. In particular, we routinely collaborate with friends, family, or colleagues to remember shared experiences. But surprisingly, in the experimental collaborative recall paradigm, collaborative groups remember less than their potential, an effect termed collaborative inhibition. Rajaram and Pereira-Pasarin (2010) argued that the effects of collaboration on recall are determined by “pre-collaborative” factors. We studied the role of 2 pre-collaborative factors—shared encoding and group relationship—in determining the costs and benefits of collaborative recall. In Experiment (...) 1, we compared groups of strangers who encoded alone versus together, before collaborating to recall. In Experiment 2, we compared groups of friends who encoded alone versus together, before collaborating to recall. We found that shared encoding abolished collaborative inhibition in both Experiments 1 and 2. But prior relationship did not influence collaborative inhibition over and above the effects of shared encoding. Regardless of encoding condition, collaborative group recall contained fewer intrusions than nominal group recall, and these benefits continued in subsequent individual recall. Our findings demonstrate that pre-collaborative factors—specifically shared encoding—have flow-on benefits for group and individual recall amount, but not recall accuracy. We discuss these findings in terms of self- and cross-cuing in collaborative recall. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap’s logical pluralism is often held to be one in which corresponding connectives in different logics have different meanings. This paper presents an alternative view of Carnap’s position, in which connectives can and do share their meaning in some contexts. This re-interpretation depends crucially on extending Carnap’s linguistic framework system to include meta-linguistic frameworks, those frameworks which we use to talk about linguistic frameworks. I provide an example that shows how this is possible, and give some textual evidence that (...) Carnap would agree with this interpretation. Additionally, I show how this interpretation puts the Carnapian position much more in line with the position given in Shapiro than had been thought before. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, software engineering has emerged as a discipline in its own right, though it has roots both in computer science and in classical engineering. Its philosophical foundations and premises are not yet well understood. In recent times, members of the software engineering community have started to search for such foundations. In particular, the philosophies of Kuhn and Popper have been used by philosophically-minded software engineers in search of a deeper understanding of their discipline. It seems, however, (...) that professional philosophers of science are not yet aware of this new discourse within the field of software engineering. Therefore, this article aims to reflect critically upon recent software engineers’ attempts towards a philosophy of software engineering and to introduce our own philosophical thoughts in this context. Finally, we invite the professional philosophers of science to participate in this interesting new discourse. (shrink)

People live and age together in social groups. Across a range of outcomes, research has identified interdependence in the cognitive and health trajectories of ageing couples. Various types of memory decline with age and people report using a range of internal and external, social, and material strategies to compensate for these declines. While memory compensation strategies have been widely studied, research so far has focused only on single individuals. We examined interdependence in the memory compensation strategies reported by spouses within (...) 58 older couples. Couples completed the Memory Compensation Questionnaire, as well as an open-ended interview about their memory compensation practices. We found that internal, intra-individual memory compensation strategies were not associated within couples, but external, extra-individual strategies showed interdependence. Individuals’ scores on material/technological compensation strategies were positively correlated with their partners’. Reported reliance on a spouse was higher for men and increased with age. Our open-ended interviews yielded rich insights into the complex and diverse resources that couples use to support memory in day-to-day life. Particularly evident was the extent of interaction and coordination between social and material compensation, such that couples jointly used external compensation resources. Our results suggest that individuals’ reports of their compensation strategies do not tell the whole story. Rather, we propose that older couples show interdependence in their memory compensation strategies, and adopt complex systems of integrated material and social memory compensation in their day-to-day lives. (shrink)

A basic assumption in current western medicine is that good healthcare involves informed choices. Indeed, making informed choices is not only viewed as “good practice” but a right to which each individual is entitled, a perspective only recently developed in the medical field.Moreover, in the case of ethical decisions, much of the discussion on the role of the family is cast within the autonomy paradigm of contemporary bioethics; that is, family members provide emotional support but do not make decisions for (...) the competent adult patient. The family Is uniformly viewed as an Important proxy decision maker for incompetent patients; but most bioethicists would eschew any decision-making role for the family of mentally competent adult patients. Underlying the discussion of autonomy is the basic assumption in western medicine that good healthcare Involves choices by Informed individuals. (shrink)

We often remember in groups, yet research on collaborative recall finds “collaborative inhibition”: Recalling with others has costs compared to recalling alone. In related paradigms, remembering with others introduces errors into recall. We compared costs and benefits of two collaboration procedures—turn taking and consensus. First, 135 individuals learned a word list and recalled it alone (Recall 1). Then, 45 participants in three-member groups took turns to recall, 45 participants in three-member groups reached a consensus, and 45 participants recalled alone but (...) were analysed as three-member nominal groups (Recall 2). Finally, all participants recalled alone (Recall 3). Both turn-taking and consensus groups demonstrated the usual pattern of costs during collaboration and benefits after collaboration in terms of recall completeness. However, consensus groups, and not turn-taking groups, demonstrated clear benefits in terms of recall accuracy, both during and after collaboration. Consensus groups engaged in beneficial group source-monitoring processes. Our findings challenge assumptions about the negative consequences of social remembering. (shrink)

Conversations about the past can involve voicing and silencing; processes of validation and invalidation that shape recall. In this experiment we examined the products and processes of remembering a significant autobiographical event in conversation with others. Following the death of Australian celebrity Steve Irwin, in an adapted version of the collaborative recall paradigm, 69 participants described and rated their memories for hearing of his death. Participants then completed a free recall phase where they either discussed the event in groups of (...) three or wrote about the event on their own. Finally, participants completed the original questionnaire again, both 1 week and 1 month after the free recall phase. Discussion influenced later memories for hearing of Irwin’s death, particularly memories for emotion and shock. Qualitative analysis of the free recall phase suggested that during conversation a shared understanding of the event developed, but that emotional reactions to the event were silenced in ways that minimised the event’s impact. These findings are discussed in terms of the processes and consequences of sharing public and personal memories in conversation. (shrink)

Harris, Barnier, Sutton and Savage examine the communication styles that boost the mnemonic consequences associated with conversations for long‐term married couples and the circumstances under which the couples form a TMS. Harris and colleagues demonstrated that specific communication styles (e.g., cueing each other) promote group memory success whereas others (e.g., correcting each other) did not enhance group recall performance. These results showed that even in well‐established and enduring distributed cognitive systems such as long‐term intimate couples (Harris, Barnier, Sutton & Keil, (...) 2014), memory benefits depend on effective communication and the specificities of the task performed (e.g., remembering lists of words vs. remembering shared, autobiographical experiences). (shrink)

Cooperative peer play emerges in the second year of life. How applicable is Preston & de Waal's (P&deW's) model to the empathic processes in cooperative play? Empathic responses during peer play are more general than they propose, and more dependent on mental state understanding. Moreover, peer play forces children to reason about others' feelings, possibly serving as a unique mechanism for empathy development.

Although there is clearly a need for evidenced‐based behavioral or biomedical prevention or treatment programs for suicide, substance abuse, and sexual health targeted to members of the LGBT population under the age of eighteen, few such programs exist, due in substantial part to limited research knowledge. Ambiguities in regulations that govern human subjects protections and the related inconsistencies in institutional review board (IRB) interpretations of regulatory language are the key reason for the lack of rigorous clinical trial evidence to support (...) treatment choices and prevention approaches to reducing health disparities for this population. Given the socially sensitive nature of suicide, substance abuse, and HIV and STI research in general and LGBT research specifically, in the absence of empirical data to guide their decisions, IRBs must often rely on subjective judgments of minimal risk, which can lead to overestimation of the magnitude and probability of psychological, social, and informational harms that might arise from LGBT youth participation in clinical trials. In addition, more than other youth, LGBT adolescents whose families are unaware of their sexual orientation or gender identity or whose families have victimized them on account of it may be reluctant to participate in studies that require guardian permission. This, in turn, intensifies problems of recruitment and unbiased sampling. However, many IRBs are reluctant to apply federal regulations permitting waiver of guardian permission under conditions in which such permission is clearly not “feasible” or “reasonable” to require. Consequently, many investigators have excluded LGBT individuals under eighteen years of age in health intervention research proposals because of anticipated or actual difficulties obtaining IRB approval. This situation is in conflict with current ethical discourse focusing on the right of youths to participate in trials that will protect them from receiving developmentally untested, inappropriate, and unsafe treatments. In this article, we describe these barriers and recommendations for providing LGBT youth safe and fair access to health research. (shrink)

Theories of autobiographical memory emphasise effortful, generative search processes in memory retrieval. However recent research suggests that memories are often retrieved directly, without effortful search. We investigated whether direct and generative retrieval differed in the characteristics of memories recalled, or only in terms of retrieval latency. Participants recalled autobiographical memories in response to cue words. For each memory, they reported whether it was retrieved directly or generatively, rated its visuo-spatial perspective, and judged its accompanying recollective experience. Our results indicated that (...) direct retrieval was commonly reported and was faster than generative retrieval, replicating recent findings. The characteristics of directly retrieved memories differed from generatively retrieved memories: directly retrieved memories had higher field perspective ratings and lower observer perspective ratings. However, retrieval mode did not influence recollective experience. We discuss our findings in terms of cue generation and content construction, and the implication for reconstructive models of autobiographical memory. (shrink)

The HIV/aids pandemic has brought global attention to the ethical challenges of conducting research involving socially vulnerable participants. Such challenges require not only ethical deliberation but also an empirical evidentiary basis for research ethics policies and practices. This need has been addressed through the Fordham University HIV and Drug Abuse Prevention Research Ethics Institute, a National Institute on Drug Abuse–funded program that trains and funds early career scientists in conducting research on HIV/drug abuse research ethics. This article describes the ethical (...) framework guiding Institute training and introduces readers to six empirical articles in this special issue that illuminate and help foster the responsible conduct of research. (shrink)