Uncoupling proteins (UCPs) regulate mitochondrial function, and thus cellular metabolism. Angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) is the central component of endocrine and local tissue renin–angiotensin systems (RAS), which also regulate diverse aspects of whole‐body metabolism and mitochondrial function (partly through altering mitochondrial UCP expression). We show that ACE expression also appears to be regulated by mitochondrial UCPs. In genetic analysis of two unrelated populations (healthy young UK men and Scandinavian diabetic patients) serum ACE (sACE) activity was significantly higher amongst UCP3‐55C (rather than (...) T) and UCP2 I (rather than D) allele carriers. RNA interference against UCP2 in human umbilical vein endothelial cells reduced UCP2 mRNA sixfold (P < 0·01) whilst increasing ACE expression within a physiological range (<1·8‐fold at 48 h; P < 0·01). Our findings suggest novel hypotheses. Firstly, cellular feedback regulation may occur between UCPs and ACE. Secondly, cellular UCP regulation of sACE suggests a novel means of crosstalk between (and mutual regulation of) cellular and endocrine metabolism. This might partly explain the reduced risk of developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome with RAS antagonists and offer insight into the origins of cardiovascular disease in which UCPs and ACE both play a role. (shrink)

A defence of the idea that there are sui generis duties of love: duties, that is, that we owe to people in virtue of standing in loving relationships with them. I contrast this non-reductionist position with the widespread reductionist view that our duties to those we love all derive from more generic moral principles. The paper mounts a cumulative argument in favour of the non-reductionist position, adducing a variety of considerations that together speak strongly in favour of adopting it. The (...) concluding section connects this debate with larger issues in moral theory concerning the general idea of obligation. (shrink)

An introductory exploration on the nature of emotions, and examination of some of the critical issues surrounding the emotional life of God as they relate to happiness, empathy, love, and moral judgments. Covering the different criteria used in the debate between impassibility and passibility, readers can begin to think about which emotions can be predicated of God and which cannot.

Hawthorne and Magidor's criticisms of the model of presupposition and assertion that I have used and defended are all based on a rejection of some transparency or introspection of assumptions about speaker presupposition. This response to those criticisms aims first to clarify, and then to defend, the required transparency assumptions. It is argued, first, that if the assumptions are properly understood, some prima facie problems for them do not apply, second, that rejecting the assumptions has intuitively implausible consequences, and third, (...) that the 'margin of error' argument against the principle of positive introspection has a false premiss. The paper concludes with a response to a criticism of what Hawthorne and Magidor call 'the uniformity principle' that is used in the model to explain some pragmatic phenomena. (shrink)

R.I.G. Hughes presents a series of eight philosophical essays on the theoretical practices of physics. The first two essays examine these practices as they appear in physicists' treatises and journal articles. By treating these publications as texts, Hughes casts the philosopher of science in the role of critic. This premise guides the following six essays which deal with various concerns of philosophy and physics such as laws, disunities, models and representation, computer simulation, explanation, and the discourse of physics.

PREFACE The first three of these lectures, or rather an abbreviated version of them, were first given as the Lindsay Memorial Lectures at the University of ...

The book is written for anyone seriously interested in Plato's thought and in the history of literary theory or of rhetoric. No knowledge of Greek is required. The focus of this account is on how the resources both of persuasive myth and of formal argument, for all that Plato sets them in strong contrast, nevertheless complement and reinforce each other in his philosophy.

T. M. Scanlon's magisterial book What We Owe to Each Other is surely one of the most sophisticated and important works of moral philosophy to have appeared for many years. It raises fundamental questions about all the main aspects of the subject, and I hope and expect that it will have a decisive influence on the shape and direction of moral philosophy in the years to come. In this essay I shall focus on four sets of issues raised by Scanlon's (...) systematic argument, with the aim of clarifying some of Scanlon's central assumptions and presenting alternatives at several key points. The perspective from which I offer these comments is that of a reader who is sympathetic to Scanlon's general approach but not yet convinced on various points of detail. (shrink)

This book aims to provide an introduction to Aristotle's Politics, highlighting the major themes and arguments offered in the scholar's work. It begins with a discussion on what Aristotle perceives as human good, which he had described as the ethical purpose of political science, and how he views the political community, or the polis, as a community of persons formed with a view to some good purpose and a supreme entity in the sense that it is not just one aspect (...) of city-state society but is the whole of that society. The book also discusses Aristotle's arguments against the abolition of the household for the ruling class and the communism of families and property, which Plato advocates, and highlights certain inconsistencies and vulnerabilities in his arguments supporting natural slavery and on how the husband should rule over his wife and children. The book presents Aristotle's account of the relative merits of six different types of constitution and his views on the best possible constitution that will help in the realization of the polis' true purpose of achieving the good life. It ends with a discussion on Aristotle's view of political science in relation to the protection of particular constitutions against constitutional change and political disorder. (shrink)

The 1973 archeological discovery of important documents of classical thought known as the Huang-Lao Boshu coupled with advancements in contemporary jurisprudence make possible a reassessment of the philosophies of pre-Qin and early Han China. This study attempts to elucidate the importance of the Huang-Lao school within the intellectual tradition of China through a comparison of the Boshu's philosophical position, particularly its understanding of the relation between law and morality, with the respective views of major thinkers of the period--Confucius, Han Fei, (...) Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, and to a lesser extent, Shen Dao, Shen Buhai and the authors of the Guan Zi and He Guan Zi. So doing reveals Huang-Lao to be a unique and sophisticated social and political philosophy which, until its expulsion from court by Emperor Wu and subsequent adoption by Daoist religion, served as the ideological foundation for the post-Qin reforms of the early Han. (shrink)

The Fine-tuning argument takes the existence of life as evidence that an agent had a hand in making the universe. The argument is thought to hinge on the claim that ‘fine-tuning’ of various parameters is required for life to evolve. Jonathan Weisberg argues that even granting that life can provide evidence for design, further data about the fine-tuning required add nothing to the case. Weisberg charges the argument rests on unsupported assumptions about a designer’s preference for a fine-tuned universe (over (...) and above favouring life). I argue that he is mistaken. The assumptions that Weisberg grants (for the sake of argument) are sufficient to make fine-tuning relevant to design. (shrink)

The argument of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in the Critique of Pure Reason is the deepest and most far-reaching in philosophy. In his new book, Robert Howell interprets main themes of the Deduction using ideas from contemporary philosophy and intensional logic, thereby providing a keener grasp of Kant's many subtleties than has hitherto been available. No other work pursues Kant's argument through every twist and turn with the careful, logically detailed attention maintained here. Surprising new accounts of apperception, (...) the concept of an object, the logical functions of thought, the role of the Metaphysical Deduction, and Kant's relations to his Aristotelian-Cartesian background are developed. Howell makes a precise contribution to the discussion of most of the disputed issues in the history of Deduction interpretation. Controversial in its conclusions, this book demands the attention of all who take seriously the task of understanding Kant's work and evaluating it dispassionately. (shrink)

There are many problems about business ethics. What I want to deal with is only part of the problem: I want to consider just what can properly be expected of business in general terms by way of ethical behaviour and, along with that, what is special about business ethics and how it is related to the personal morality we are all expected to exhibit in our day-to-day lives; I want to consider how it is that ethical confusions arise from people's (...) mistaking the relationship between personal morality and business ethics; and I want to consider what can be done by way of education in business ethics to raise the standards and just what role philosophical ethics can play in that. (shrink)

The essays in The Philosophy of Spirituality address spirituality as a subject of philosophical interest independent of religion and respecting diverse spiritual traditions: African, atheist, Indigenous, Indian, Stoic, and Sufic perspectives, as well as Western analytic and continental views.

Paper read at the 32nd Conference on Value Inquiry: Reason and Evaluation, 8-10/4, 2005, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

In the last ten years or so there has been some lively discussion of the questions of immortality and resurrection. Within the Christian tradition there has been debate at theological and exegetical level over the relative merits of belief in the immortality of the soul, and belief in the resurrection of the dead as an account of life after death. Further to this, however, there has been the suggestion that there may be good philosophical reasons for preferring the latter to (...) the former. It is just this contention which I propose to discuss. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to unveil one problem that surrounds the debate over the moral standing of prenatal genetic enhancement (PGE) and to outline a solution to it. The problem is that we have no way to test our speculations about the consequences of prenatal enhancement without begging the question about the moral permissibility of enhancing unborn children. The only way to empirically support our speculations about the consequences of prenatal enhancement is to resort to ethically worrisome (and (...) radical) experimental genetic research. The suggested solution to this problem is to focus on the character of good parents. The virtue of parental wisdom is introduced and used as a basis for evaluating PGE. It is argued that good parents have good reason not to condone PGE for their children (in very many cases), especially as part of the first wave of genetically altered humans. (shrink)

What clearly emerges from Hegel's writings is that "Geist" refers to some sort of general consciousness, a single "mind" common to all men. The entire sweep of the Phenomenology of Spirit is away from the "disharmonious" conceptions of men as individuals to the "absolute" conception of all men as one. In the Phenomenology, we are first concerned with the inadequacy of conceptions of oneself as an individual in opposition to others and in opposition to God. This opposition is first resolved (...) in ethics, in the conception of oneself as a member of a family, of a community, of Kant's "Kingdom of Ends," as a citizen of the state, and then in religion, in which one conceives of oneself as "part" of God and a religious community. Absolute consciousness is the explicit recognition of one's identity as universal Spirit. The concept of "Geist" is the hallmark of a theory of self identity--a theory in which I am something other than a person. (shrink)

In this book, Anthony R. D'Augelli and Charlotte J. Patterson bring together top experts to offer a comprehensive overview of what we have discovered--and what we still need to learn--about lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities.

Conceptualizing cosmopolitanism : a reappraisal -- A historical sociology of cosmopolitanism -- Cosmopolitanism and social theory -- Cosmopolitanism : social and cultural research -- Cosmopolitanism : legal and political research -- Cosmopolitanism in Ireland.

The most glamorous and even glorious moments in a legal system come when a high court recognizes an abstract principle involving, for example, human liberty or equality. Indeed, Americans, and not a few non-Americans, have been greatly stirred--and divided--by the opinions of the Supreme Court, especially in the area of race relations, where the Court has tried to revolutionize American society. But these stirring decisions are aberrations, says Cass R. Sunstein, and perhaps thankfully so. In Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, (...) Sunstein, one of America's best known commentators on our legal system, offers a bold, new thesis about how the law should work in America, arguing that the courts best enable people to live together, despite their diversity, by resolving particular cases without taking sides in broader, more abstract conflicts. Sunstein offers a close analysis of the way the law can mediate disputes in a diverse society, examining how the law works in practical terms, and showing that, to arrive at workable, practical solutions, judges must avoid broad, abstract reasoning. Why? For one thing, critics and adversaries who would never agree on fundamental ideals are often willing to accept the concrete details of a particular decision. Likewise, a plea bargain for someone caught exceeding the speed limit need not--indeed, must not--delve into sweeping issues of government regulation and personal liberty. Thus judges purposely limit the scope of their decisions to avoid reopening large-scale controversies. Sunstein calls such actions incompletely theorized agreements. In identifying them as the core feature of legal reasoning--and as a central part of constitutional thinking in America, South Africa, and Eastern Europe-- he takes issue with advocates of comprehensive theories and systemization, from Robert Bork to Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, and Ronald Dworkin, who defends an ambitious role for courts in the elaboration of rights. Equally important, Sunstein goes on to argue that it is the living practice of the nation's citizens that truly makes law. For example, he cites Griswold v. Connecticut, a groundbreaking case in which the Supreme Court struck down Connecticut's restrictions on the use of contraceptives by married couples--a law that was no longer enforced by prosecutors. In overturning the legislation, the Court invoked the abstract right of privacy; the author asserts that the justices should have appealed to the narrower principle that citizens need not comply with laws that lack real enforcement. By avoiding large-scale issues and values, such a decision could have led to a different outcome in Bowers v. Hardwick, the decision that upheld Georgia's rarely prosecuted ban on sodomy. And by pointing to the need for flexibility over time and circumstances, Sunstein offers a novel understanding of the old ideal of the rule of law. Legal reasoning can seem impenetrable, mysterious, baroque. This book helps dissolve the mystery. Whether discussing the interpretation of the Constitution or the spell cast by the revolutionary Warren Court, Cass Sunstein writes with grace and power, offering a striking and original vision of the role of the law in a diverse society. In his flexible, practical approach to legal reasoning, he moves the debate over fundamental values and principles out of the courts and back to its rightful place in a democratic state: the legislatures elected by the people. (shrink)

A successful attempt to bring all of Freud's discussions of the concepts of repression and defense into systematic form. Madison also argues that there is an observational language which corresponds to- Freud's theoretical language; by translating these concepts into observational terms, we can bring Freudian psychology "up to date."--S. R.