Hirschsprung disease and the multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 syndromes are hereditary disorders related to the abnormal migration, proliferation or survival of neural crest cells and their derivatives. Hirschsprung disease is a frequent disorder of the enteric nervous system, resulting in intestinal obstruction. The multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 syndromes predispose to cancers of neural crest derivatives. Both diseases are associated with heterozygous mutations in the RET proto‐oncogene. RET encodes a transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinase expressed in neural crest lineages and (...) whose ligand, glial‐cell‐line‐derived neurotrophic factor, has been very recently identified. In vitro expression studies demonstrate that while Hirschsprung disease mutations result in loss of function of the mutant RET tyrosine kinase, multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 mutations lead to its constitutive activation. Thus, the two ‘faces’ of RET, gain of function and loss of function, each lead to a different syndrome, respectively: multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2, a cancer syndrome, or Hirschsprung disease, a developmental defect. (shrink)

Strawson's view on punishment has been either neglected or recoiled from in contemporary scholarship on ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (FR). Strawson's alleged retributivism has made his view suspect and troublesome. In this article, we first argue, against the mainstream, that the punishment passage is an indispensable part of the main argument in FR (section 1) and elucidate in what sense Strawson can be called ‘a retributivist’ (section 2). We then elaborate our own hypothesis of symbolic retribution to explain the continuum between (...) moral reactive attitudes and punishment that Strawson only adumbrates (section 3). After this justification of the punitive response to wrongdoing, we compare and contrast our specific kind of retributivist hypothesis with other positions in the so-called ‘new retributivism’ (section 4). Our hypothesis differs from other subvarieties of expressive retributivism in putting centre stage the idea of punishment as taking up a reverential stance towards the victim. (shrink)

One can assign three different aims to the desire for knowledge : utility, pleasure, truth-for-truth's-sake. Whereas the first two aims have a concretely determinable content and therefore look evident, the third one has been looked upon as strange and problematic : it is not immediately clear what kind of value is defended in this case. Popper is one of the recent defenders of the traditional ideal of truth-for-truth's-sake. He wants to defend the ideal against three positions : a primitive taboo-ridden (...) fear for knowledge and truth, relativism, instrumentalism. Analysing Popper's ethic of cognition we do not agree with the instrumentalist's critique of it. However, precisely in advocating a non-instrumentalist value, Popper's position is not unique, but paradoxically resembles the „primitive” position. Popper's belief that there is an objective or absolute truth is, in his opinion, implied by the belief that the search for knowledge makes sense. We try to show that this thesis of absolute truth is based on a conceptual mistake. In opposition to Popper's view, we sketch a form of relativism avoiding this confusion, without doing away with any concrete possibility of discussion or search for truth. At the same time, we try to understand Popper's aversion to relativism as well as the appeal of his position, in that it is a strange mixture of a heroic cognitive ethic and a desire for imaginary control over the uncontrolable. We argue that the form of relativism we advocate easily and perhaps better fulfilb the „heroic” readiness to forsake security in cognitive matters. (shrink)

Susan Wolf argues that meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness. Whereas we can agree with her claim that the conception of meaning invokes an objective standard, we think it is questionable whether a radically subjective fulfillment is a real possibility. Several reasons are provided why this cannot be the case.

Peter Strawson makes a crucial distinction between reactive attitudes and the objective attitude. Reactive attitudes such as gratefulness, anger and indignation imply that we take each other seriously as responsible agents. The objective attitude implies that we stop taking each other seriously. Strawson argues that the objective attitude is not merely psychologically difficult: it is inconceivable that we would systematically refrain from taking each other seriously and stop discussing with each other or blaming ourselves or others. Strawson, however, only discusses (...) the reactive attitudes from a general point of view. In this paper, we argue that the reactive attitudes of remorse and moral indignation are forms of ”symbolic restoration’. Retributive punishment should also be interpreted from this perspective. Consequently, our concern with moral blame cannot be understood independently from a concern with the harm that has occurred. Our attitude to the outcome determines our attitude to the agent. The concern with the mental state is secondary: it is structured by its place within the practice of symbolic restoration. (shrink)

Utopianism aims at a global transformation in virtue of which both the external world and our own reality will develop in such ways as to be in greater harmony with our wishes. What utopianism does not take into account, however, is the existence of two important kinds of desire. In the first place, human beings have the need to react symbolically to what cannot be changed. In the second place, they also have a desire for recognition and for a significant (...) life. With these desires, human beings have aims that go beyond morality’s protective ideals. Offering the example of transhumanism as a paradigm case of utopianism in our own days, the present article illustrates how utopianism ignores the fact that human beings indirectly desire that certain of their objects of desire remain beyond their control. (shrink)

Professor Toynbee observes in his Study of History that as he walked down Whitehall one day in the spring of 1918, and passed the Board of Education offices which had been commandeered for a new department of the War Office, “improvised in order to make an intensive study of trench warfare,” he found himself repeating the passage from St. Matthew's Gospel.

In Physics 4.11, Aristotle says that changes are continuous because magnitude is continuous. I suggest that this is not Aristotle’s considered view, and that in Generation and Corruption 2.10 Aristotle argues that this leads to the unacceptable consequence that alterations can occur discontinuously. Physics 6.4 was written to amend this theory, and to argue that changes are continuous because changing bodies are so. I also discuss the question of Aristotle’s consistency on the possibility of discontinuous alterations, such as freezing.