Current UK legislation is impacting upon the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of medical record-based research aimed at benefiting the NHS and the public heath. Whereas previous commentators have focused on the Data Protection Act 1998, the Health and Social Care Act 2001 is the key legislation for public health researchers wishing to access medical records without written consent. The Act requires researchers to apply to the Patient Information Advisory Group for permission to access medical records without written permission. We present a (...) case study of the work required to obtain the necessary permissions from PIAG in order to conduct a large scale public health research project. In our experience it took eight months to receive permission to access basic identifying information on individuals registered at general practices, and a decision on whether we could access clinical information in medical records without consent took 18 months. Such delays pose near insurmountable difficulties to grant funded research, and in our case £560 000 of public and charitable money was spent on research staff while a large part of their work was prohibited until the third year of a three year grant. We conclude by arguing that many of the current problems could be avoided by returning PIAG’s responsibilities to research ethics committees, and by allowing “opt-out” consent for many public health research projects. (shrink)

Current UK legislation is impacting upon the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of medical record-based research aimed at benefiting the NHS and the public heath. Whereas previous commentators have focused on the Data Protection Act 1998, the Health and Social Care Act 2001 is the key legislation for public health researchers wishing to access medical records without written consent. The Act requires researchers to apply to the Patient Information Advisory Group for permission to access medical records without written permission. We present a (...) case study of the work required to obtain the necessary permissions from PIAG in order to conduct a large scale public health research project. In our experience it took eight months to receive permission to access basic identifying information on individuals registered at general practices, and a decision on whether we could access clinical information in medical records without consent took 18 months. Such delays pose near insurmountable difficulties to grant funded research, and in our case £560 000 of public and charitable money was spent on research staff while a large part of their work was prohibited until the third year of a three year grant. We conclude by arguing that many of the current problems could be avoided by returning PIAG’s responsibilities to research ethics committees, and by allowing “opt-out” consent for many public health research projects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosophical Rhetoric of Socrates’ MissionRobert Metcalf"We shall dismiss this business of Chaerephon, as it is nothing but a cheap and sophistical tale [sophistikon kai phortikon diegema]"—Colotes, according to Plutarch's Moralia 14, 1116f-1117a.Socrates' account of his "mission" on behalf of the god at Delphi is one of the most memorable parts of his most famous memorial in Plato's Apology. But it is also controversial as to what it means (...) to Socrates and what it should mean to readers of Plato's text.1 First, there is the curious fact that the story occurs nowhere outside the competing versions of Socrates' defensespeech in Plato and Xenophon, and in the latter version the oracular report differs significantly in content and import: there the Pythia proclaims, not that no one is wiser than Socrates, but that no one is more generous or more just or more "soundminded" (sophron), and Xenophon's Socrates uses this as evidence that he "outshone the rest of mankind" and "deserves congratulations from gods and men alike" (Apology 14-18).2 Furthermore, the sequence of events that make up Socrates' "mission" is itself difficult to discern, from its apparent prompting by the oracular message to Chaerephon, to Socrates' initial effort to refute it, to his ultimate practice of elenchos in order that the oracle (or, at least, his interpretation of the oracle) might remain unrefuted.3 Not surprisingly, it was already a matter of controversy in the third century BC, as we read in the above quotation from Plutarch's Moralia. Whereas Arcesilaus interpreted the story of the Delphic oracle, and the account of elenctic practice occasioned by the oracle, as a model for his own skeptical orientation, Colotes, the Epicurean, charged that he had been duped by Socrates' sophistic oratory.4 To be sure, Colotes' charge of sophistry is meant to be abusive and has value for us only insofar as it counters a piously uncritical reading of Socrates' self-portrayal in Plato's Apology.5 In what follows I shall argue that an appreciation of the irony and mock-humility with which Socrates accounts for his "mission" to philosophize [End Page 143] affords us insight into the philosophical rhetoric that is essential to Socrates' practice of elenchos.But let us begin by examining those strange elements in Socrates' account that have made it "notorious" in the way suggested by the ancient debate.6 Socrates introduces the story of the oracle only after he dismisses, somewhat cursorily, the charges circulated by his "first accusers"—namely, that he investigates the things under the earth and heavenly things, and that he educates people for money (19b-20c). Insisting that he does not dishonor the knowledge involved in these activities (19c, 20b-c), Socrates nonetheless offers little defense apart from simply disowning such knowledge, presumably because these activities are not related to that "matter" (pragma) which has earned him his peculiar reputation (20c-d). It is here, in his explanation of this matter, that Socrates recounts the story of Chaerephon and the Pythia.7 As he begins the story he repeats his vow from the beginning of his defense to tell the jury only the truth (20d), assures them that he is not joking, and then is compelled to plead with them not to make any disturbances—"even," he says, "if I seem to you to be boasting [mega legein] somewhat" (20e). These successive declarations are all necessary, for the story has it that Socrates acquired his reputation through the human wisdom for which Socrates was singled out by the oracle at Delphi (20d-e).Socrates' puzzlement over the oracle and his effort to subject it to elenchos are offered as an explanation for the elenctic practice by which he comes, over time, to acquire his reputation.8 Although he does not say that his practice of elenchos begins with his investigation of the oracle's meaning, he does portray his subsequent practice of elenchos as being "in accordance with the god [kata ton theon]" (22a), an activity for which the god stands as a trustworthy witness (20e), and thus as a "matter of the god [to tou theou]" (21e). Ironically, the account Socrates... (shrink)

In a recent article in Philosophy of Science P. C. Jones discusses the relation between idealism and science. He presents in a very clear way the essentials of the causal theory of perception—the theory which lies at the foundation of the scientific method of research, for the scientist who does not believe that we have a direct knowledge of the external world. He summarizes this causal theory as follows: “An incompletely conceived idealism pictures objects in space and time, and admits (...) only that we have no direct knowledge of them—that what we know of them we merely infer from sensory impulses.”. (shrink)

Substructural fuzzy logics are substructural logics that are complete with respect to algebras whose lattice reduct is the real unit interval [0.1]. In this paper, we introduce Uninorm logic UL as Multiplicative additive intuitionistic linear logic MAILL extended with the prelinearity axiom ((A → B) ∧ t) ∨ ((B → A) ∧ t). Axiomatic extensions of UL include known fuzzy logics such as Monoidal t-norm logic MTL and Gödel logic G, and new weakening-free logics. Algebraic semantics for these logics are (...) provided by subvarieties of (representable) pointed bounded commutative residuated lattices. Gentzen systems admitting cut-elimination are given in the framework of hypersequents. Completeness with respect to algebras with lattice reduct [0, 1] is established for UL and several extensions using a two-part strategy. First, completeness is proved for the logic extended with Takeuti and Titani's density rule. A syntactic elimination of the rule is then given using a hypersequent calculus. As an algebraic corollary, it follows that certain varieties of residuated lattices are generated by their members with lattice reduct [0, 1]. (shrink)

According to the Nomological Argument, observed regularities in nature are best explained by an appeal to a supernatural being. A successful explanation must avoid two perils. Some explanations provide too little structure, predicting a universe without regularities. Others provide too much structure, thereby precluding an explanation of certain types of lawlike regularities featured in modern scientific theories. We argue that an explanation based in the creative, intentional action of a supernatural being avoids these two perils whereas leading competitors do not. (...) Although our argument falls short of a full defense, it does suggest that the Nomological Argument is worthy of philosophical attention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:For the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character, and the Ethics of BeliefRobert MetcalfFor the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character, and the Ethics of Belief. Eugene Garver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. pp. 264. $55.00, hardcover; $22.50, paperback.Professor Garver's book, For the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character, and the Ethics of Belief, is a provocative and illuminating study of practical reasoning, and one that develops (...) many of the ideas found in his magisterial study, Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). The previous book concluded by arguing that Aristotle's Rhetoric is philosophically more interesting today than it was in Aristotle's time, in part because for us there is no polis to which the argumentative facility of rhetoric would be subordinate (1994, 233ff.). This idea is echoed in the present book when Garver writes: "The more we take disagreement to be a permanent part of the situation of practical reasoning, and not something soon to be overcome by appropriate theory or universal enlightenment, the more rhetorical facility becomes a central part [End Page 95] of practical reason" (2004, 175). It is, indeed, a fascinating feature of For the Sake of Argument that it defends the autonomy and integrity of practical reason through Aristotle's insights on the various connections between argument, persuasion, and ethos (153), and illustrates these through examples such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, and subsequent Supreme Court decisions.The book is divided into eight chapters, and, as Garver explains, these represent four pairs of essays in which a more concrete or "applied" chapter is followed by a chapter that draws generalizations from the examples of the prior chapter. Among the themes most prominent in the book are the connection between reason and character, on which Garver writes, "Practical reason has its own integrity when who we are and how we think are intimately connected" (2); the compatibility, within practical reason, of truth and one's own interest; the "ampliative" nature of practical reason, such that the implications of one's beliefs can lead to discoveries unanticipated at the beginning; the connection between the ethos of a leader and the ethos of a community; and the underappreciated power of epideictic rhetoric "to affirm values and articulate new vocabularies" (178). In addressing such broad themes, Garver's attention to concrete examples, like Brown v. Board of Education, is thoroughly instructive. The Brown decision, he argues, is "an epideictic declaration that equality and antidiscrimination are fundamental American Constitutional values" (73). Brown clearly demonstrates the ampliative nature of practical reason in that the conclusion it reaches is stronger than the premises from which it begins (i.e., the Fourteenth Amendment); moreover, it generates what Garver calls an "ethical surplus" that allows for unanticipated implications that are stronger still, such as the later Court decision striking down antimiscegenation laws (71–73). This "increase" in strength in proceeding from premises to conclusion is "impossible under a purely deductive conception of rationality," Garver writes (73), yet it is well explained by his Aristotle-inspired account of practical reasoning.Surely some readers will recoil from Garver's more provocative claims, such as that "we decide... to be convinced and choose to find a line of reasoning compelling" (119), offered within a discussion of the responsibility we bear in ethical argumentation. However, the issue that is more problematic, to my mind, concerns Garver's treatment of Plato. This may seem odd, given that Plato only appears as a foil in the book—but the problem is that it is merely a caricature of Plato that Garver allows to act as [End Page 96] a foil. Garver argues against "the Platonic program which will save reason by removing it from human contamination" (3) and "the Platonic hope of replacing ethical reasoning by the certainties of science" (5). He sides with Aristotle's idea that we can aim at effectiveness and at rightness together (48, 200) over against the allegedly Platonic idea that we must choose between truth and our own interest, reason and emotion, and so forth, or else... (shrink)

There are growing discontinuities between the research practices of data science and established tools of research ethics regulation. Some of the core commitments of existing research ethics regulations, such as the distinction between research and practice, cannot be cleanly exported from biomedical research to data science research. Such discontinuities have led some data science practitioners and researchers to move toward rejecting ethics regulations outright. These shifts occur at the same time as a proposal for major revisions to the Common Rule—the (...) primary regulation governing human-subjects research in the USA—is under consideration for the first time in decades. We contextualize these revisions in long-running complaints about regulation of social science research and argue data science should be understood as continuous with social sciences in this regard. The proposed regulations are more flexible and scalable to the methods of non-biomedical research, yet problematically largely exclude data science methods from human-subjects regulation, particularly uses of public datasets. The ethical frameworks for Big Data research are highly contested and in flux, and the potential harms of data science research are unpredictable. We examine several contentious cases of research harms in data science, including the 2014 Facebook emotional contagion study and the 2016 use of geographical data techniques to identify the pseudonymous artist Banksy. To address disputes about application of human-subjects research ethics in data science, critical data studies should offer a historically nuanced theory of “data subjectivity” responsive to the epistemic methods, harms and benefits of data science and commerce. (shrink)

This article examines the explicit and implicit corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework and its implications for leadership style, in a major banking institution. Evidence for existence of the framework's key concepts in relation to leadership styles was explored through the self-reported sensemaking of leaders charged with CSR programme introduction. Qualitative data analysis indicated that explicit CSR is linked to an autocratic leadership style, whereas implicit CSR is more closely aligned with emergent and authentic styles. Although our results reinforced key aspects (...) of the explicit and implicit CSR framework, they demonstrated conflicting systems of both CSR and leadership within our case organisation and highlighted the difficulty in categorising such a complex concept as CSR according to specific frameworks. Overall, our data suggest that the leadership styles, needed to successfully implement explicit and implicit CSR programmes, are in conflict. Given our finding that these CSR systems can coincide within one organisation, we suggest that the debating style of transformational leadership may be the required linchpin. (shrink)

Structural completeness properties are investigated for a range of popular t-norm based fuzzy logics—including Łukasiewicz Logic, Gödel Logic, Product Logic, and Hájek's Basic Logic—and their fragments. General methods are defined and used to establish these properties or exhibit their failure, solving a number of open problems.

These and other related concerns are crucial in this volume's lively debate over the nature of the missing cognitive link, and whether gorillas, chimps, or...

Frequent public uproar over forms of data science that rely on information about people demonstrates the challenges of defining and demonstrating trustworthy digital data research practices. This paper reviews problems of trustworthiness in what we term pervasive data research: scholarship that relies on the rich information generated about people through digital interaction. We highlight the entwined problems of participant unawareness of such research and the relationship of pervasive data research to corporate datafication and surveillance. We suggest a way forward by (...) drawing from the history of a different methodological approach in which researchers have struggled with trustworthy practice: ethnography. To grapple with the colonial legacy of their methods, ethnographers have developed analytic lenses and researcher practices that foreground relations of awareness and power. These lenses are inspiring but also challenging for pervasive data research, given the flattening of contexts inherent in digital data collection. We propose ways that pervasive data researchers can incorporate reflection on awareness and power within their research to support the development of trustworthy data science. (shrink)

This article explores the emergence of leadership during implementation of a water saving initiative in the rural community surrounding Barren Box Swamp in the Murray Darling Basin, Australia. Qualitative data analysis indicated that the system elements affecting the type of leadership to emerge included the extent to which the groups were engaged in the process, the level of access to resources, and the level of investment in the outcomes of the project. Although these results reinforced key aspects of complex problem-solving (...) through collaboration, they demonstrated varying degrees and types of both engagement and leadership within the case community. Given the current finding that these varying elements can coincide within one system, this case suggests that each community’s characteristics, resources and context will determine the optimal combination of leadership style and level of collaboration needed to facilitate sustainable community development. (shrink)

Uniform infinite bases are defined for the single-conclusion and multiple-conclusion admissible rules of the implication–negation fragments of intuitionistic logic and its consistent axiomatic extensions . A Kripke semantics characterization is given for the structurally complete implication–negation fragments of intermediate logics, and it is shown that the admissible rules of this fragment of form a PSPACE-complete set and have no finite basis.

Background: Personal genomic testing (PGT) offers individuals genetic information about relationships, wellness, sporting ability, and health. PGT is increasingly accessible online, including in emerging markets such as Australia. Little is known about what consumers expect from these tests and whether their reflections on testing resonate with bioethics concepts such as autonomy. Methods: We report findings from focus groups and semi-structured interviews that explored attitudes to and experiences of PGT. Focus group participants had little experience with PGT, while interview participants had (...) undergone testing. Recordings were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings were critically interpreted with reference to bioethics scholarship on autonomy. Results: Fifty-six members of the public participated in seven focus groups, and 40 individuals were interviewed separately. Both groups valued the choice of PGT, and believed that it could motivate relevant actions. Focus group themes centered on the perceived value of choices, knowledge enabling action and knowledge about the self. Interview themes suggest that participants reflexively engage with their PGT information to make meaning, and that some appreciate its shortcomings. Critical interpretation of findings shows that while consumers of PGT are able to exercise a degree of autonomy in choosing, they may not be able to achieve a substantive conceptualization of autonomy, one that promotes alignment with higher-order desires. Conclusions: PGT consumers can critically reason about testing. However, they may uncritically accept test results, may not appreciate drawbacks of increased choice, or may overestimate the potential for information to motivate behavioral change. While consumers appear to be capable of substantive autonomy, they do so without ongoing support from companies. PGT companies promote a problematic (“default”) account of autonomy, reliant on empowerment rhetoric. This leaves consumers vulnerable to making decisions inconsistent with their higher-order desires. As PGT expands, claims about its power and value need to be carefully drawn. (shrink)

In the 1970s, Robin Giles introduced a game combining Lorenzen-style dialogue rules with a simple scheme for betting on the truth of atomic statements, and showed that the existence of winning strategies for the game corresponds to the validity of formulas in Łukasiewicz logic. In this paper, it is shown that ‘disjunctive strategies’ for Giles’s game, combining ordinary strategies for all instances of the game played on the same formula, may be interpreted as derivations in a corresponding proof system. In (...) particular, such strategies mirror derivations in a hypersequent calculus developed in recent work on the proof theory of Łukasiewicz logic. (shrink)

We investigate the effect of priming on pro-social behaviour in a setting where there is a clear financial incentive to free ride. By activating the concept of cooperation among randomly selected individuals, we explore whether it is possible to positively influence people’s voluntary contributions to the public good. Our findings indicate that cooperative priming increases contributions in a one-shot public goods game from approximately 25–36 % compared with the non-primed group. The results call for further explorations of the role of (...) priming in economic behaviours in general. (shrink)

Admissible rules of a logic are those rules under which the set of theorems of the logic is closed. In this paper, a Gentzen-style framework is introduced for analytic proof systems that derive admissible rules of non-classical logics. While Gentzen systems for derivability treat sequents as basic objects, for admissibility, the basic objects are sequent rules. Proof systems are defined here for admissible rules of classes of modal logics, including K4, S4, and GL, and also Intuitionistic Logic IPC. With minor (...) restrictions, proof search in these systems terminates, giving decision procedures for admissibility in the logics. (shrink)

This is an Open Access book. In 2015, Industry 4.0 was announced with the rise of industrialization by the European Parliament, supporting policy, research, and infrastructure funding. In 2020, Industry 5.0 was launched as an evolution of Industry 4.0, towards societal and ecological values in a sustainable, human-centric, and resilient transition. In 2023, the IN4ACT research project team completed 4 years of research on the impact on these initiatives. Presentations reviewing the progress of management practices and economics led to conversations (...) about what’s next. The unanticipated rise in late 2022 of Generative AI technologies (e.g. ChatGPT, DALL-E) sparked dialogues with an extended circle of researchers on impacts not considered in 2015 or in 2020. This collection of chapters reflects multiple perspectives on research findings to 2023, prospects for 2024, and considerations on ways the techno-economic industrial revolutions may be reshaped into desirable futures respecting social and ecological concerns. (shrink)

An adequate theory of rights ought to forbid the harming of animals to promote trivial interests of humans, as is often done in the animal-user industries. But what should the rights view say about situations in which harming some animals is necessary to prevent intolerable injustices to other animals? I develop an account of respectful treatment on which, under certain conditions, it’s justified to intentionally harm some individuals to prevent serious harm to others. This can be compatible with recognizing the (...) inherent value of the ones who are harmed. My theory has important implications for contemporary moral issues in nonhuman animal ethics, such as the development of cultured meat and animal research. (shrink)

Value capture occurs when an agent’s values are rich and subtle; they enter a social environment that presents simplified — typically quantified — versions of those values; and those simplified articulations come to dominate their practical reasoning. Examples include becoming motivated by FitBit’s step counts, Twitter Likes and Re-tweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such crisp and clear expressions of value have in (...) our private reasoning and our public justification. There is, however, a price. In value capture, we take a central component of our autonomy — our ongoing deliberation over the exact articulation of our values — and we outsource it. And the metrics to which we outsource usually engineered for the interests of some external force, like a large-scale institution’s interest in cross-contextual comprehensibility and quick aggregability. That outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits to personal deliberation. In value capture, we no longer adjust our values and their articulations in light of own rich experience of the world. Our values should often be carefully tailored to our particular selves or our small-scale communities, but in value capture, we buy our values off the rack. In some cases – like decreasing CO2 emissions – the costs of non-tailored values are outweighed by the benefit of precise collective coordination. In other cases, like in our aesthetic lives, they are not. This suggests that we should want different values suited to different scales. We should want value federalism. Some values are perhaps best pursued at the largest-scale level, others at smaller scales. The problem occurs when we exhibit an excess preference for the largest-scale values – when we consistently let the universal metrics swamp our quieter interests. (shrink)

Advocates for the professionalization of clinical bioethics argue that bioethics professionals play an important role in contemporary medicine and patient care, especially when addressing complex ethical questions that arise in the delivery of reproductive medicine. For bioethics consultants to serve effectively, they need adequate training in the medical and ethical issues that patients and clinicians will face, and they need skills to facilitate effective dialog among all parties. Because clinical ethics consultation is a “high‐stakes endeavor” that can acutely affect patient (...) care, efforts are under way to ensure that bioethics consultants have the competence to provide such guidance. Yet to date, no studies have examined whether the training of bioethics consultants meets the needs of health care professionals who are on the front lines of such issues. In fact, limited information is available on the reproductive health issues that bioethics training programs address or the degree to which these programs meet the needs of patients confronting reproductive health decisions and their clinicians. It is therefore important to answer this key question: What are the primary ethical issues encountered in reproductive medicine that currently affect patient care? Equally important, are bioethics training programs prepared to address those issues?To begin to answer these questions, we conducted parallel surveys of directors of graduate bioethics training programs and obstetrician‐gynecologists. The goal of this project is to lay the groundwork to establish a working partnership between bioethics educators and reproductive medicine practitioners to address the often troubling and frequently complex ethical issues in reproductive medicine. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

Like number representation, basic arithmetic seems to be a natural candidate for abstract instantiation in the brain. To investigate this, researchers have examined effects of numeral format on elementary arithmetic (e.g., 4+5 vs. four+five). Different numeral formats often recruit distinct processes for arithmetic, reinforcing the conclusion that number processing is not necessarily abstracted away from numeral format.

It has been assumed that at the whole organismal level, the mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production is proportional to the oxygen consumption. Recently, a number of researchers have challenged this assumption, based on the observation that the ROS production per unit oxygen consumed in the resting state of mitochondrial respiration is much higher than that in the active state. Here, we develop a simple model to investigate the validity of the assumption and the challenge of it. The model highlights (...) the significance of the time budget that mitochondria operate in the different respiration states. The model suggests that under three physiologically possible conditions, the difference in ROS production per unit oxygen consumed between the respiration states does not upset the proportionality between the whole animal ROS production and oxygen consumption. The model also shows that mitochondrial uncoupling generally enhances the proportionality. (shrink)

Анотація. У статті проаналізовані досягнення Соціального Вчительства Католицької Церкви, репрезентовані працями Лева ХІІІ, Пія ХІ, Пія ХІІ, Івана Павла ІІ, що розкривають змістовні характеристики поняття «принцип субсидіарності», його роль і значення в системі християнських цінностей. Принцип субсидіарності робить можливими такі взаємовідносини в соціальному житті, коли спільнота вищого порядку не втручається у внутрішнє життя спільноти нижчого порядку, перебираючи на себе належні тій функції; заради спільного добра, спільного блага вона надає їй у разі потреби підтримку й допомогу, узгоджуючи у такий спосіб її (...) взаємодію з іншими соціальними структурами. Принцип субсидіарності скеровує соціальну практику на утвердження спільного блага в людському співтоваристві. Поширення і застосування принципу субсидіарності протистоїть небезпеці «одержавлення» суспільства та найзагрозливіших проявів колективізму, обмежує абсолютизацію влади, бюрократизацію державних і соціокультурних структур, стає одним із гарантів дотримання прав і свобод громадян своєї країни. (shrink)

The Craig interpolation property is investigated for substructural logics whose algebraic semantics are varieties of semilinear pointed commutative residuated lattices. It is shown that Craig interpolation fails for certain classes of these logics with weakening if the corresponding algebras are not idempotent. A complete characterization is then given of axiomatic extensions of the “R-mingle with unit” logic that have the Craig interpolation property. This latter characterization is obtained using a model-theoretic quantifier elimination strategy to determine the varieties of Sugihara monoids (...) admitting the amalgamation property. (shrink)

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency – that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. (...) I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to non-experts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption — but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust — if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public — then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise. (shrink)