In the light of increasing public mistrust, there is an urgent need to clarify the moral status of the medical profession and of the relationship of the clinician to his/her patients. In addressing this question, I first establish the coherence, within moral philosophy generally, of the concept of supererogation . I adopt the notion of an act of “unqualified” supererogation as one that is non-derivatively good, praiseworthy, and freely undertaken for others' benefit at the risk of some cost to the (...) agent. I then argue that committing oneself to the profession of clinical medicine is an act of this kind. This is the case, not because the aim of medicine is to help patients, but because of the open ended commitment of time and the vulnerability to the consequences of failure that the clinician must accept. (shrink)

McKay & Dennett (M&D) suggest that some positive illusions are adaptive. But there is a bidirectional link between memory and positive illusions: Biased autobiographical memories filter incoming information, and self-enhancing information is preferentially attended and used to update memory. Extending M&D's approach, I ask if certain false memories might be adaptive, defending a broad view of the psychosocial functions of remembering.

The article focuses on the persistent links between workplace stratification and gender ascription in the organization of flexible high-tech production. Using a comparative case study analysis of three multinational electronics firms in the Philippines, it examines three key organizational factors: firm nationality, product characteristics, and existing labor relations—that help drive variation in the gendering and gendered impact of technological upgrading. It also considers three extra-organizational factors—trends in flexible production, the role of the host state, and gender ideologies—that also influence firm (...) choices. The article assesses the variation in gendered processes and outcomes focusing on the fulfillment of workers’ practical needs versus strategic gender interests. The article finds that despite continued variation at the firm level, extra-organizational pressures will likely contribute to continued gender stratification as firms upgrade, leading to the potential masculinization of skilled high-tech work. (shrink)

Astrobiologists are aware that extraterrestrial life might differ from known life, and considerable thought has been given to possible signatures associated with weird forms of life on other planets. So far, however, very little attention has been paid to the possibility that our own planet might also host communities of weird life. If life arises readily in Earth-like conditions, as many astrobiologists contend, then it may well have formed many times on Earth itself, which raises the question whether one or (...) more shadow biospheres have existed in the past or still exist today. In this paper, we discuss possible signatures of weird life and outline some simple strategies for seeking evidence of a shadow biosphere. Key Words: Weird life—Multiple origins of life—Biogenesis—Biomarkers—Extremophiles—Alternative biochemistry. Astrobiology 9, 241–249. (shrink)

The article explores work organization in advanced electronics manufacturing in Philippine export processing zones. Previous approaches have painted both advanced manufacturing and “peripheral” production as generic, treating locations as substitutable. Case study analysis of three multinational electronics firms located in both public and privatized export zones demonstrates that the complex demands of high tech production have led to diverse forms of work organization and an extension of labor control outside the factory, making local conditions more, not less, important. The article (...) develops a broader, place-sensitive notion of production politics, focusing on the state’s reorganization of export processing zones, and firms’ localization strategies that leverage labor market inequalities to elicit worker consent. (shrink)

I take up the challenge of whyfalsebeliefs are better than “cautious actionpolicies” (target article, sect. 9) in navigating adaptive problems with asymmetric errors. I then suggest that there areinteractionsbetween supernatural beliefs, self-deception, and positive illusions, rendering elements of all such misbeliefs adaptive. Finally, I argue that supernatural beliefs cannot be rejected as adaptive simply because recent experiments are inconclusive. The great costs of religion betray its even greater adaptive benefits – we just have not yet nailed down exactly what they (...) are. (shrink)

A large amount of research in cognitive psychology is focused on memory distortions, understood as deviations from various (largely implicit) standards. Many alleged distortions actually suggest a highly functional system that balances the cost of acquiring new information with the benefit of relevant, contextually appropriate decision-making. In this sense many memories may be examples of functionally adaptive misbelief.

Young and colleagues . Betwixt life and death: case studies of the Cotard delusion. In P. W. Halligan & J. C. Marshall , Method in madness: Case studies in cognitive neuropsychiatry. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.) have suggested that cases of the Cotard delusion result when a particular perceptual anomaly occurs in the context of an internalising attributional style. This hypothesis has not previously been tested directly. We report here an investigation of attributional style in a 24-year-old woman with Cotard (...) delusion . LU’s attributional style was assessed using the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire . A new measure of causal locus: the internal, personal and situational attributions questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 261–264.). LU showed a significantly greater proportion of internalising attributions than the control group, both overall and for negative events specifically. The results obtained thus support an association of Cotard delusion with an internalising attributional style, and are therefore consistent with the account of Young and colleagues. The potential brain basis of Cotard delusion is discussed. (shrink)

The radical evolutionary step that divides human decision-making from that of nonhumans is the ability to excite the reward process for its own sake, in imagination. Combined with hyperbolic over-valuation of the present, this ability is a potential threat to both the individual's long term survival and the natural selection of high intelligence. Human belief is intrinsically or under-founded, which may or may not be adaptive.

McKay & Dennett's (M&D's) description of beliefs, and misbeliefs in particular, is a commendable contribution to the literature; but we argue that referring to beliefs as adaptive or maladaptive can cause conceptual confusion. “Adaptive” is inconsistently defined in the article, which adds to confusion and renders it difficult to evaluate the claims, particularly the possibility of “adaptive misbelief.”.

Inducing religious thoughts increases prosocial behavior among strangers in anonymous contexts. These effects can be explained both by behavioral priming processes as well as by reputational mechanisms. We examine whether belief in moralizing supernatural agents supplies a case for what McKay & Dennett (M&D) call evolved misbelief, concluding that they might be more persuasively seen as an example of culturally evolved misbelief.

I address an objection to inference to the best explanation due to Bas C. van Fraassen, according to which explanatory virtues cannot confirm a theory, since they make the theory more informative and thus less likely to be true given the probability axioms. I try to show that van Fraassen’s argument, once made precise, is deductively invalid, and that even an ampliative version of the argument (i) implies, absurdly, that no theory is confirmed by its fit with empirical data; (ii) (...) fails to account for confirmatory closure under deduction; and (iii) falsely presupposes that a theory and its sub-theories can be competing explanations. (shrink)

To meet the luck objection to incompatibilism, philosophers such as Timothy O’Connor, Randolph Clark, and William Rowe resurrected the Reidian notion of agent causation, which implies the “Substance-Causal Thesis” (SCT): some causes are fundamentally substances, not events. I examine an objection to SCT by C. D. Broad, developed by Carl Ginet, that substances cannot cause events because substances cannot explain why events happen when they do. The objection fails as it rests on a demand for contrastive explanations of free actions. (...) However, I show that a slightly different objection succeeds in showing SCT false. (shrink)

When I read, rather belatedly, Professor Davison's article on Theognis 257–66 in C.R. ix , 1–5, I found myself remembering somewhat uncomfortably that I have an article awaiting publication in Mnemosyne in which I present a new interpretation of Theognis 1209–16 as a griphos. Against Carriere, Davison remarks that it would be easier to accept 261–6 as a griphos ‘if there were any serious evidence for the prevalence of in the Theognidean corpus’ ; this is an eminently sane attitude and (...) leaves the question open for later consideration. But lower on the same page E. Harrison's dictum that ‘sweeping emendations’ are ‘the last infirmity of exegesis’ has given birth to a pronouncement that ‘recourse to riddles’ is one of two ‘penultimate infirmities of academic minds’. This is really too much. I have not yet acquired a fixation on this subject, but I am sufficiently impenitent to maintain that the griphos appears at least twice in the corpus, at 1209–16 and 261–6. I have no opinion on 257–60, which seems at any rate to be in its proper place. (shrink)

In this paper, we compare the mechanisms of protein synthesis and natural selection. We identify three core elements of mechanistic explanation: functional individuation, hierarchical nestedness or decomposition, and organization. These are now well understood elements of mechanistic explanation in fields such as protein synthesis, and widely accepted in the mechanisms literature. But Skipper and Millstein have argued that natural selection is neither decomposable nor organized. This would mean that much of the current mechanisms literature does not apply to the mechanism (...) of natural selection.We take each element of mechanistic explanation in turn. Having appreciated the importance of functional individuation, we show how decomposition and organization should be better understood in these terms. We thereby show that mechanistic explanation by protein synthesis and natural selection are more closely analogous than they appear—both possess all three of these core elements of a mechanism widely recognized in the mechanisms literature. (shrink)

“It may be thought that I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am. I would be ashamed of myself if I were not.” 1 When Mark Twain undertook correspondence for San Francisco’s Alta California on a $1250 trip to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867 he had an established reputation as a humorist and was on the cusp of making the transition from journalist to author. Innocents Abroad, “an unvarnished tale” 2 published in 1869 and sewn together with questionable regard for (...) coherence or thematic consistency, sold thirty-one thousand copies in one year. Only Uncle Tom’s Cabin had done better, as Twain himself noted. What made his work such a success? “This book is the record of a pleasure trip” , Twain declared, yet there had already been innumerable pleasure trips and by more established authors than he. The multiplicity and seemingly contradictory narrative stances in Innocents makes any essentialist reading hard to establish and what one stance purports is as likely and easy to prove as any other. In the main though, two bodies of criticism have prevailed hitherto, one seeing the text as flawed by internal discontinuities, the other perceiving that disjointed narration need not preclude a unified authorial consciousness. It is my contention that Twain most likely wrote with at least five entirely separate purposes in mind, none of which coexisted simultaneously: i. The profit, reputation and contractual fulfilment to be had in writing c. 1500 words to newspapers daily. ii. The demonstrable acquisition of high society vocabulary and cultural regard commended by Mrs. Fairbanks and Olivia Langdom. iii. An arrant attack upon Presbyterianism. iv. A break with the codified genre of travel writing. v. The promotion of Twain as healer of a wounded nation. Point v) has gone largely neglected by critics. Yet Twain’s role as a unifier in post Civil-War society, as projector of national identity abroad for the benefit of domestic patriotism, and as healer of war-torn America is a cornerstone to our understanding Innocents. As shall be seen, shades of mental/national injury coexist in the text, alongside a humorous denigration of foreigners. The resultant implied superiority of America and Americans, notwithstanding Twain’s passing jabs at them and in spite of their bloody internecine conflict, is what I term “imperial therapy.”. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is twofold. The first objective is to examine the impact of an individual’s ethical ideology and level of professional commitment on the earnings management decision. The second objective is to observe whether the presence of a personal benefit affects an individual’s ethical orientation or professional commitment within the context of an opportunity to manage earnings. Using a sample of 375 undergraduate business majors, our results suggest a significant relationship between an individual’s ethical orientation and decision-making. (...) Further, participants with higher levels of professional commitment seem to be less likely to engage in earnings management behavior and less likely to behave opportunistically. These results have the potential to add to our understanding of certain behaviors in entry-level personnel and should be of interest to managers, practitioners, academicians, and researchers. (shrink)

Purpose: Explore public attitudes towards the trade-offs between justice and medical outcome inherent in organ allocation decisions.Background: The US Task Force on Organ Transplantation recommended that considerations of justice, autonomy and medical outcome be part of all organ allocation decisions. Justice in this context may be modeled as a function of three types of need, related to age, clinical urgency, and quality of life.Methods: A web-based survey was conducted in which respondents were asked to choose between two hypothetical patients who (...) differed in clinical urgency , age, pretransplant and post-transplant quality of life, and life expectancy.Results: A pool of 1600 people were notified via email about the survey; 623 responded. Respondents preferred giving organs to younger people up to an age difference of <15.4 years and more clinically urgent people up to a difference in urgency of <2.54 months . Priority varied with the quality of life of the worst-off patient and the relative status of the patients. If both had worse than average quality of life, respondents preferred the better-off patient. When both had better than average quality of life, they preferred the worse-off patient. In analysis according to age versus clinical urgency, the older the patient, the more urgency needed to receive priority. In quality of life versus clinical urgency, the better the control’s quality of life, the more urgency the competing patient required. The worse the patient’s post-transplant outcome, the more urgency needed to receive priority.Conclusions: It appears that clinical urgency is only one of many factors influencing attitudes about allocation decisions and that respondents may invoke different principles of fairness depending the relative clinical status of patients. (shrink)

The relative indifference to Kant's interpretation of aesthetics and teleology can no doubt be accounted for in several ways. Partly, it is simply that the natural approach to Kant is to begin with the Prolegomena, and then depending on one's interests, to move directly to Kant's treatment of the problem of knowledge or ethical action--thereby leaving Kant's independent analysis of judgment for last, if at all. Moreover, it is impossible to grasp the complexity of the problem of judgment without a (...) substantial understanding of Kant's first two inquiries. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Although sciences are often conceptualized in terms of theory confirmation and hypothesis testing, an equally important dimension of scientific reasoning is the structure of problems that guide inquiry. This problem structure is evident in several concepts central to evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo)—constraints, modularity, evolvability, and novelty. Because problems play an important role in biological practice, they should be included in biological pedagogy, especially when treating the issue of scientific controversy. A key feature of resolving controversy is synthesizing methodologies from different (...) biological disciplines to generate empirically adequate explanations. Concentrating on problem structure illuminates this interdisciplinarity in a way that is often ignored when science is taught only from the perspective of theory or hypothesis. These philosophical considerations can assist life science educators in their continuing quest to teach biology to the next generation. -/- . (shrink)

Nobody interested in philosophy need be deterred by Kant's reputation for difficulty from familiarizing himself with his ethics. While the Critique of Pure Reason and his other non-ethical works are very hard to follow, the first two chapters of the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals at least are clear and straightforward and presuppose little previous acquaintance with philosophy. The third chapter is not about ethics as such but about the metaphysical problem of freedom and should be omitted by (...) anyone who is not familiar with Kant's general philosophy, but the first two. (shrink)

SummaryI examine an internal tension between Quine's empiricist methodology and his doctrine of naturalism — a tension that bears on his well‐known thesis of empirical underdetermination of scientific theory., viz., that there can be empirically equivalent but logically incompatible formulations of comprehensive scientific theory. Quine recognizes the tension and tries to resolve it via his distinction between the conditions that justify belief in a theory and the conditions that warrant the attribution of truth to a theory. I argue that Quine's (...) resolution is unsatisfactory, but that there is a more defensible resolution via Quine's own theory of ontological relativity; and moreover, the latter mode of resolution avoids certain undesirable aspects of Quine's problematic notion of evidence.Summary RésuméJ'examine la tension interne entre la méthodologie empiriciste de Quine et sa doctrine naturaliste — tension qui porte sur sa thèse de la sous‐détermination des théories scientifiques, these qui affirme qu'il peut y avoir des formulations empiriquement équivalentes, mais logiquement incompatibles de grandes théories scientifiques. Quine admet cette tension et cherche à la résoudre par sa distinction entre des conditions qui justifient la croyance en une théorie et d'autres qui garantissent l'attribution d'une valeur de véritéà cette théorie. Je prétends que la solution de Quine est insatisfaisante, mais on peut en proposer une autre, plus défendable, en se basant sur sa propre théorie de la relativité ontologique. En outre, cette dernière solution évite certains aspects indésirables de la notion, problématique chez Quine, d'évidence empirique.ZusammenfassungIch untersuche ein internes Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Quines empirischer Méthodologie und seiner naturalistischen Doktrin — ein Spannungsverhältnis, das in seiner bekannten These der empirischen Unterdeterminiertheit einer wissenschaftlichen Theorie begründet liegt, d.h. in der These, wonach es empirisch äquivalente, aber logisch inkompatible Formulierungen einer umfassenden wissenschaftlichen Theorie geben kann. Quine erkennt diese Spannung und versucht, sie durch seine Unterscheidung zwischen den Bedingungen, die den Glauben in eine Théorie rechtfertigen, und den Bedingungen, die die Zuschreibung von Wahrheit an diese Théorie begründen, aufzulösen. Ich argumentiere, dass Quines Lösung unbefriedigend ist, aber dass eine besser verteidigbare Lösung existiert, die an Quines eigene Theorie der ontologischen Relativität anknüpft; zudem vermeidet die letztgenannte Lösung gewisse unerwünschte Aspekte von Quines problematischem Begriff eines empirischen Belegs. (shrink)

Two decades of research on euthanasia in the Netherlands have resulted into clear insights in the frequency and characteristics of euthanasia and other medical end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands. These empirical studies have contributed to the quality of the public debate, and to the regulating and public control of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. No slippery slope seems to have occurred. Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown (...) that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts. In 2005, eighty percent of the euthanasia cases were reported to the review committees. Thus, the transparency envisaged by the Act still does not extend to all cases. Unreported cases almost all involve the use of opioids, and are not considered to be euthanasia by physicians. More education and debate is needed to disentangle in these situations which acts should be regarded as euthanasia and which should not. Medical end-of-life decision-making is a crucial part of end-of-life care. It should therefore be given continuous attention in health care policy and medical training. Systematic periodic research is crucial for enhancing our understanding of end-of-life care in modern medicine, in which the pursuit of a good quality of dying is nowadays widely recognized as an important goal, in addition to the traditional goals such as curing diseases and prolonging life. (shrink)