Revenge has been a subject of concern in most intellectual traditions throughout history, and even when social norms regard it as permissible or even obligatory, it is commonly recognised as being more counterproductive than beneficial. In this book, Kit R. Christensen explores this provocative issue, offering an in-depth account of both the nature of revenge and the causes and consequences of the desire for this kind of retaliatory violence. He then develops a version of eudaimonistic consequentialism to argue that (...) vengeance is never morally justified, and applies this to cases of intergroup violence where the lust for revenge against a vilified 'Them' is easily incited and often exploited. His study will interest a wide range of readers in moral philosophy as well as social philosophers, legal theorists, and social/behavioural scientists. (shrink)

Within the past ten years, the discussion of the nature of folk psychology and its role in explaining behavior and thought has become central to the philosophy of mind. However, no comprehensive account of the contemporary debate or collection of the works that make up this debate has yet been available. Intending to fill this gap, this volume begins with the crucial background for the contemporary debate and proceeds with a broad range of responses to and developments of these works (...) -- from those who argue that "folk theory" is a misnomer to those who regard folk theory as legitimately explanatory and necessary for any adequate account of human behavior. Intended for courses in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and science, as well as anthropology and social psychology, this anthology is also of great value in courses focusing on folk models, eliminative materialism, explanation, psychological theory, and -- in particular -- intentional psychology. It is accessible to both graduate students and upper-division undergraduate students of philosophy and psychology as well as researchers. As an aid to students, a thorough discussion of the field and the articles in the anthology is provided in the introduction; as an aid to researchers, a complete bibliography is also provided. (shrink)

This book takes a philosophical approach to questions concerning violence, war, and justice in human affairs. It offers the reader a broad introduction to underlying assumptions, values, concepts, theories, and the historical contexts informing much of the current discussion worldwide regarding these morally crucial topics. It provides brief summaries and analyses of a wide range of relevant belief systems, philosophical positions, and policy problems. While not first and foremost a book of advocacy, it is clearly oriented throughout by the ethical (...) preference for nonviolent strategies in the achievement of human ends and a belief in the viability of a socially just—and thus peaceful—human future. It also maintains a consistently skeptical stance towards the all-too-easily accepted apologies, past and present, for violence, war, and the continuation of injustice. (shrink)

Explores the possibilities and limitations of a "virtue ethics" relevant to our times, within the theoretical framework provided by historical materialism and the critique of ideology.

Many research ethics guidelines now oblige researchers to offer research participants the results of research in which they participated. This practice is intended to uphold respect for persons and ensure that participants are not treated as mere means to an end. Yet some scholars have begun to question a generalised duty to disclose research results, highlighting the potential harms arising from disclosure and questioning the ethical justification for a duty to disclose, especially with respect to individual results. In support of (...) this view, we argue that current rationales for a duty of disclosure do not form an adequate basis for an ethical imperative. We review policy guidance and scholarly commentary regarding the duty to communicate the results of biomedical, epidemiological and genetic research to research participants and show that there is wide variation in opinion regarding what should be disclosed and under what circumstance. Moreover, we argue that there is fundamental confusion about the notion of “research results,” specifically regarding three core concepts: the distinction between aggregate and individual results, amongst different types of research, and across different degrees of result veracity. Even where policy guidance and scholarly commentary have been most forceful in support of an ethical imperative to disclose research results, ambiguity regarding what is to be disclosed confounds ethical action. (shrink)

In this article, drawing on the discursive psychology of Rom Harré, we show how mapping the exchange of words among people might disclose a complex reality; not merely that which farmers explicitly talk ‘about’ but the reality implicitly at stake within the communication. More specifically, we show how discourses involving modern farmers reveal an underlying placing in an abstract space, having sub-spaces defined by the life-orientation, sense of self and according self-positioning of modern people. In this way, we construct a (...) road map of a set of ‘individualities’ characterizing the life of modern farmers: an individuality of citizenship, an individuality of geographies and an individuality of experience. Consequently, farmers face the problem that this multiplicity of individuality prevents them from communicating, as we will call it, univocally in the public by contrast to the univocal voices of other established social groups. We will analyse the structure of that problem by viewing diverse relations between the authority and the authenticity of different partners in the conversation on land use. (shrink)

Background: Expanded newborn screening generates incidental results, notably carrier results. Yet newborn screening programmes typically restrict parental choice regarding receipt of this non-health serving genetic information. Healthcare providers play a key role in educating families or caring for screened infants and have strong beliefs about the management of incidental results. Methods: To inform policy on disclosure of infant sickle cell disorder (SCD) carrier results, a mixed-methods study of healthcare providers was conducted in Ontario, Canada, to understand attitudes regarding result management (...) using a cross-sectional survey (N = 1615) and semistructured interviews (N = 42). Results: Agreement to reasons favouring disclosure of SCD carrier results was high (65.1%–92.7%) and to reasons opposing disclosure was low (4.1%–18.1%). Genetics professionals expressed less support for arguments favouring disclosure (35.3%–78.8%), and more agreement with arguments opposing disclosure (15.7%–51.9%). A slim majority of genetics professionals (51.9%) agreed that a reason to avoid disclosure was the importance of allowing the child to decide to receive results. Qualitatively, there was a perceived “duty” to disclose, that if the clinician possessed the information, the clinician could not withhold it. Discussion: While a majority of respondents perceived a duty to disclose the incidental results of newborn screening, the policy implications of these attitudes are not obvious. In particular, policy must balance descriptive ethics (ie, what providers believe) and normative ethics (ie, what duty-based principles oblige), address dissenting opinion and consider the relevance of moral principles grounded in clinical obligations for public health initiatives. (shrink)

From a cultural-historical perspective, the impairments of a child with a condition like cerebral palsy have biological origins, but the disability evolves from the mismatch between the child and his/her social conditions for development. One example of this dialectical production of disability can be seen in the challenge of the 21st-century welfare state: How to provide economically feasible health and educational services anchored in evidence-based methods and practices. Standardized social service pathways for children with CP illustrates an attempt to address (...) this challenge and moderate the mismatch by acting in the intersection between impairment and society. The aim of the article is to analyze challenges in the practice of connecting research and practice-based knowledge with societal practices in order to diminish the disability of the child. A multidisciplinary group assembled by the Danish National Board of Social Services engaged in a practice of developing a guideline for a social service pathway. Agendas and minutes from their series of meetings provide insight in how the work evolved through conflictual discussions. Rather than a neutral transformation of knowledge into practice, the practice revealed itself as a value-laden process in which the needs of the child and family were at times decentred and the focus shifted to how social services could be realised in complex, structured social practices. While the group managed to overcome several conflicts and agree of a social service pathway, a socio-economic analysis was unable to argue for the comprehensive social service pathway as an economic sound choice for municipal decision-makers. The conflict between the welfare ideology and economic feasibility remains unresolved and can be expected to limit the extent that impairments can be remedied and the mismatch decreased. Overcoming or diminishing the mismatch might never become economic worthwhile. As the political pendulum oscillates between welfare and economic concerns, the experience of disability will likewise diminish or expand. (shrink)

The patient was a woman in her 30s who, until the rapid progression of an ultimately fatal neurologic disease, had been a very successful professional, enjoying athletics and an active social life. In the 6 months of swift deterioration, she had gone from being extremely vibrant and energetic to being totally unable to care for her personal needs. There had been no loss of intellectual capacity. Her sister later recounted to Dr. J., the emergency department physician, that she had found (...) the patient unconscious and unresponsive at home and had immediately called the patient's neurologist in a neighboring city. He directed her to call the paramedics. (shrink)

Education is so strongly emphasized in the Chinese culture that academic success is widely regarded as the only indicator of success, while too much physical activity is often discouraged because it drains energy and affects academic concentration. This study investigated the relations among academic achievement, self?esteem, school conduct and physical activity level. The participants were 333 Chinese pre?adolescents (aged 8?12) in Hong Kong. Examination results and conduct grades were obtained from the school records. Global self?esteem was measured with the Physical (...) self?description questionnaire (PSDQ), while physical activity patterns of the children were assessed with the Physical activity questionnaire for children (PAQ?C). Results showed that high academic achievers consistently attained better school conduct marks. However, physical activity level was quite an independent entity that was related neither to academic achievement nor school conduct. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that only academically high?achieving boys and physically active boys had higher self?esteem. (shrink)

The shapes of neurons and glial cells dictate many important aspects of their functions. In olfactory systems, certain architectural features are characteristics of these two cell types across a wide variety of species. The accumulated evidence suggests that these common features may play fundamental roles in olfactoryinformation processing. For instance, the primary olfactory neuropil in most vertebrate and invertebrate olfactory systems is organized into discrete modules called glomeruli. Inside each glomerulus, sensory axons and CNS neurons branch and synapse in patterns (...) that are repeated across species. In many species, moreover, the glomeruli are enveloped by a thin and ordered layer of glial processes. Theglomerular arrangement reflects the processing of odor information in modules that encode the discrete molecular attributes of odorant stimuli being processed. Recent studies of the mechanisms that guide the development of olfactory neurons and glial cells have revealed complex reciprocal interactions between these two cell types, which may be necessary for the establishment of modular compartments. Collectively, the findings reviewed here suggest that specialized cellular architecture plays key functional roles in the detection, analysis, and discrimination of odors at early steps in olfactory processing. (shrink)

Sensation of Movement explores the role of sensation in motor control, bodily self-recognition and sense of agency. The sensation of movement is dependent on a range of information received by the brain, from signalling in the peripheral sensory organs to the establishment of higher order goals. Through the integration of neuroscientific knowledge with psychological and philosophical perspectives, this book questions whether one type of information is more relevant for the ability to sense and control movement. Addressing conscious sensations of movement, (...) experimental designs and measures, and the possible functions of proprioceptive and kinaesthetic information in motor control and bodily cognition, the book advocates the integration of neuroscientific knowledge and philosophical perspectives. With an awareness of the diverse ideas and theories from these distinct fields, the book brings together leading researchers to bridge these divides and lay the groundwork for future research. -/- Contributors: Thor Grünbaum and Mark Schram Christensen Andreas Kalckert Myrto Mylopoulos Mads Jensen, Mia Dong, Mikkel C. Vinding, and Morten Overgaard Anne Kavounoudias Matthew R. Longo Hong Yu Wong. (shrink)

In the early seventies, several logicians developed a semantics for propositional systems of relevance logic. The essential ingredients of this semantics were a privileged point o, an ‘accessibility’ relation R and a special operator * for evaluating negation. Under the truth- conditions of the semantics, each formula A(Pl,…,Pn) could be seen as expressing a first order condition A+(pl,…,pn, o, R,*) on sets p1,…,pn and o, R, *, while each formula-scheme could be regarded as expressing the second-order condition ∀p1,…,∀pn A+(p1,…,pn, o, (...) R, *). It could then be shown that many standard systems of propositional relevance logic were complete in the sense that their theorems were just those formulas true in all models whose components o, R and * conformed to the second-order conditions expressed by the axioms of the system. (shrink)

Debate continues to rage among philosophers of religion over Anthony Flew's famous little paper ‘Theology and Falsification’ and the responses it provoked, most notably R. M. Hare's response that religious claims are in no way like scientific hypotheses. For now, twenty years later, we still find many theists taking a similar tack to Hare's. A particularly interesting example is J. F. Miller in Religious Studies, 1969, who replies to Flew that propositions like ‘God loves mankind’ cannot be subject to falsifiability (...) conditions because they are used as claims expressing ‘religious first-order principles of the Judaeo-Christian Weltanschauung and as such are not amenable to falsification’ (p. 50). Miller seems to put his faith in some kind of great gulf fixed between what he would consider decently falsifiable scientific hypotheses and what he takes to be unfalsifiable first-order principles both of theology and of contemporary science. In what follows we will try to sketch a more rational strategy for modern believers of a liberal empiricist type, for those whose interest in appealing and deferring to experience includes but is not restricted to so-called ‘sense experience’. This will involve accepting analogies between theological statements and so-called hypotheses, insofar as the latter are propositions held and put forward in a somewhat tentative spirit with a view to explaining what we experience. (shrink)

In this thesis, I deal with the notions of a condition holding for some proposition and a proposition being true in a certain number of possible worlds. These notions are called propositional quantifiers and numerical modalizers respectively. In each chapter, I attempt to dispose of a system. A system consists of: a language; axioms and rules of inference; and an interpretation. To dispose of a system is to prove its decidability and its consistency and completeness for the given interpretation. I (...) shall, in passing, make applications to de definability, translatability and other topics. In Chapter 1, I consider the system 5SQ. Its language is that of 55 with Q as a fresh unary operator. Its axioms and rules of inference are those for 85 plus the following special axiom-schemes for Q: 1) QA::>MA 2) Q A ::> L V L 3) L ::> 4) Q A ::> L Q A. 'QA' is interpreted as 'A is true in exactly one possible world.' I dispose of the system by showing that every formula in it is equivalent to one in normal form. In Chapter 2 I consider the system S5n. Its language is that of S5 but with the unary operators Qk for each non-negative integer k. Its axioms and rules are those of S5 plus the following special axiom-schemes for Qk: 1) Qk A>~Q1 A, 1˂K 2) Qk A ≡ Vki≡oQi ˄ Qk-I 3) L ˂ 4) Qk A ˂ L Qk A 5) Qo A ≡ L ~ A, 1 ≥ 0, k ≥ 1 ‘Qk A’ is interpreted as 'A is true in exactly k possible worlds.' I dispose of this system by generalising the normal forms of S5Q. In the chapters 3-5, I consider three systems which result from adding propositional quantifiers to S5. The first two systems, S5╥+ and S5╥, contain the usual axioms and rules for quantifiers. The first contains, in addition, the axiom-scheme G = )). The last, S5╥-, results from S5╥ by restricting the Scheme of Specification, viz., A > A, B free for P in A, to formulas B of the propositional calculus. To interpret these systems we must specify which propositions the variable P ranges over. For St╥-, we merely require that if p and q are propositions, then and are also propositions. For S5╥+, we also require that each possible world be describable i.e. that there be a proposition which is true in that world alone. And for S5╥, we require not that each possible world be describable but that there be a proposition which is true in just those possible worlds which are describable. Again, we dispose of the systems by normal forms. This requires that we eliminate quantifiers and nested occurrences of L by adding new symbols to the language. For S5╥+, the operators Qk suffice. For S5╥, the operators Qk suffice. For S5╥, we also require the constant g and a fresh unary operator N. For S5╥-, even greater additions are required. In the last two chapters, 6 and 7, I turn to systems which have essentially the same language as S5╥. However, ‘Qk A' is now interpreted as 'A is true in exactly k possible worlds accessible from the given world.' Different conditions on R, the relation of accessibility, lead to different axioms. In chapter 6 I consider the conditions of reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity, and in Chapter 7 the conditions of being a partial, convergent, total or dense order. I prove consistency and completeness by the method of maximally consistent systems. The method can yield decidability results, but I do not go into the matter. I have, as a rule, not given acknowledgements for well-established results or terminology. The main references are at the end of each chapter. Fuller references are in the bibliography. (shrink)

In this chapter, Kit Fine and Errol Martin provide a formal account of non-circular reasoning, i.e. of reasoning in which the conclusion of an argument is not somehow presupposed in its premises. Martin (along with R. Meyer) had previously shown that the implicational system P-W\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\textbf{P}\!\mathbf {-W}$$\end{document} does not contain any theorems of the form A→A\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$A \rightarrow A$$\end{document}. Fine and Martin then extend this (...) result to systems that also contain conjunction. (shrink)

Following the Introduction, the essays to be listed, each with a reply by Errol E. Harris, comprise the principal content. B. Blanshard, “Harris on Internal Relations”; G.R. Lucas, Jr., “Science and Teleological Explanations”; J.E. Smith, “Harris’ Commentary on Hegel’s Logic”; G. Rinaldi, “The Identity of Thought and Being in Harris’ Interpretation of Hegel’s Logic”: T. Rockmore, “System and History: Harris on Hegel’s Logic”; R. Hepburn, “The Problem of Evil”; W. H. Walsh, “Hegel on Morality”; W.N.A. Klever, “The Properties of the (...) Intellect”; P. Muller, “The pons asinorum in Philosophy”; Wm. Earle, “The Evanescent Authority of Philosophy.”. (shrink)

Following the Introduction, the essays to be listed, each with a reply by Errol E. Harris, comprise the principal content. B. Blanshard, “Harris on Internal Relations”; G.R. Lucas, Jr., “Science and Teleological Explanations”; J.E. Smith, “Harris’ Commentary on Hegel’s Logic”; G. Rinaldi, “The Identity of Thought and Being in Harris’ Interpretation of Hegel’s Logic”: T. Rockmore, “System and History: Harris on Hegel’s Logic”; R. Hepburn, “The Problem of Evil”; W. H. Walsh, “Hegel on Morality”; W.N.A. Klever, “The Properties of the (...) Intellect”; P. Muller, “The pons asinorum in Philosophy”; Wm. Earle, “The Evanescent Authority of Philosophy.”. (shrink)

Following the Introduction, the essays to be listed, each with a reply by Errol E. Harris, comprise the principal content. B. Blanshard, “Harris on Internal Relations”; G.R. Lucas, Jr., “Science and Teleological Explanations”; J.E. Smith, “Harris’ Commentary on Hegel’s Logic”; G. Rinaldi, “The Identity of Thought and Being in Harris’ Interpretation of Hegel’s Logic”: T. Rockmore, “System and History: Harris on Hegel’s Logic”; R. Hepburn, “The Problem of Evil”; W. H. Walsh, “Hegel on Morality”; W.N.A. Klever, “The Properties of the (...) Intellect”; P. Muller, “The pons asinorum in Philosophy”; Wm. Earle, “The Evanescent Authority of Philosophy.”. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 2, Page 286-300, March 2022.

Critical Notice of The Limits of abstraction by Kit Fine, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002, pp.216. ISBN 9780191567261.