It has been argued that if an animal is psychologically like us, there may be more scientific reason to experiment upon it, but less moral justification to do so. Some scientists deny the existence of this dilemma, claiming that although there are scientifically valuable similarities between humans and animals that make experimentation worthwhile, humans are at the same time unique and fundamentally different. This latter response is, ironically, typical of pre-Darwinian beliefs in the relationship between human and non-human animals. Another (...) irony is that debate about such issues has facilitated the participation once more of philosophers in questions concerning experimental psychology: ironic because laboratory-oriented psychologists, especially since the turn of the last century, had been eager to establish the independence of their subject from any influence of philosophy and its investigative methods, as well as from any kind of anthropomorphism.In Britain, certainly more so than in the United States, ethical constraints have prevented the development of psychological research with animals along certain routes. By the 1980s British professional and academic societies had published codes of conduct and guidelines for their members, in part responding to public concern about the welfare of animals in the psychological laboratory. What led to the establishment of these codes and guidelines? This paper analyses the historical background against which professional concern for ethical cost in experimental animal psychology began to take shape, leading to the societies’ open pronouncements of the 1980s. (shrink)

Questions of Miracle will be a valuable reference book and teaching tool for scholars and students of theology, religious studies, and philosophy. Contents The Logic of Probabilities in Hume's Argument against Miracles - Fred Wilson David Hume and the Miraculous - Robert Larmer Miracles and the Laws of Nature - Robert Larmer Against Miracles - John Collier Against "Against Miracles" - Robert Larmer Miracles and Conservation Laws - Neil MacGill Miracles and Conservation Laws: A Reply to Professor MacGill (...) - Robert Larmer Miracles and Criteria - Robert Larmer Miracles and Natural Explanations - David Basinger Miracles and Natural Explanations: A Rejoinder - Robert Larmer Miracles as Evidence for Theism: A Surrejoinder - David Basinger Miracles, Evidence, and Theism: A Further Apologia - Robert Larmer Authenticating Biblical Reports of Miracles - Phillip Wiebe Miracles and Testimony: A Reply to Wiebe - Robert Larmer Miracles as Evidence against the Existence of God - Christine Overall Miracles and the Existence of God: A Reply - Robert Larmer. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

Brightman's thought, like that of Bowne and Kierkegaard, was formed by a dissatisfaction with the manner in which Hegel's preoccupation with an objective spirit out in the world and in society tended to cover up "the grit of the individual," and smother his need for a very personal approach to his ultimate perspective. Metaphysics, accordingly, Brightman holds, must start not with naively objecto-centric concerns but with what W. H. Werkmeister called "first person experience." As Brightman said in an earlier work, (...) whether or not existentialism is a fad, personal existence is no fad. (shrink)

Background: There is a growing interest in using cognitive behavioural therapy with people who have Asperger Syndrome and comorbid mental health problems. Aims: To examine whether modified group CBT for clinically significant anxiety in an AS population is feasible and likely to be efficacious. Method: Using a randomised assessor-blind trial, 52 individuals with AS were randomised into a treatment arm or a waiting-list control arm. After 24 weeks, those in the waiting-list control arm received treatment, while those initially randomised to (...) treatment were followed-up for 24 weeks. Results: The conversion rate for this trial was high, while attrition was 13%. After 24 weeks, there was no significant difference between those randomised to the treatment arm compared to those randomised to the waiting-list control arm on the primary outcome measure, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety. Conclusions: Trials of psychological therapies with this population are feasible. Larger definitive trials are now needed. Declaration of Interest: None Trial Registration: ISRCTN 30265294, UKCRN 8370. (shrink)

This book reassesses the contribution to international thought of some of the most important thinkers of the inter-war period. It takes as its starting point E.H. Carr's famous critique which, more than any other work, established the reputation of the period as the "utopian" or "idealist" phase of international relations theorizing. This characterization of inter-war thought is scrutinized through ten detailed studies of such writers as Norman Angell, J.A. Hobson, J.M. Keynes, David Mitrany, and Alfred Zimmern. The studies demonstrate (...) the diversity of perspectives within so-called "idealism" and call into question the descriptive and analytical value of the entire notion. It is concluded that "idealism" is an overly general term, useful for scoring debating points rather than providing a helpful category for analysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychophysical Causation and a Pragmatist Approach to Human BehaviorDavid H. Brendel (bio)Keywordsmind-body problem, philosophy, pragmatism, psychology, psychophysical causationJochen Fahrenberg and Marcus Cheetham have performed a valuable service by conducting and presenting an empirical study of some basic philosophical assumptions of psychologists, philosophers, and scientists. Well-designed, large-scale empirical studies of this kind are all too rare in the literature. Those of us interested in the human sciences are rather in (...) the dark about the assumptions of others working in our own and related fields. For the most part, we are privy only to the philosophical assumptions of friends and colleagues we know intimately and of those relative few who publish their views. We can only speculate about the views of the countless others with whom we have not had the opportunity to establish direct philosophical discourse. The findings presented by Fahrenberg and Cheetham give us an intriguing glimpse at some of the key philosophical assumptions of a variety of clinicians and academics who are interested in human nature and the human sciences.My aim in this commentary is to present an interpretation of a central finding of this questionnaire study: that psychologists were more likely than philosophers and scientists to embrace “psychophysical causation” as a part of their philosophical worldview. It is not, I think, too much of an oversimplification to define psychophysical causation as the presumption that mental events and physical events can cause other mental events and physical events. Psychophysical causation can be distinguished from other positions on the mind–body relation, some of which Fahrenberg and Cheetham mention in their article. Among these alternative positions is epiphenomenalism, the position that physical events cause other physical events and can cause mental events, but that mental events themselves have no causal power. Another philosophical position distinct from psychophysical causation is monism, which holds that all events in the world in general (and in human beings in particular) are physical and are best described in physical terms. Fahrenberg and Cheetham do not describe the multiple forms of monism in detail, but it is worth noting that reductive materialism (Wilson 1998) and eliminative materialism (Churchland 1981) are two highly developed forms of the kind of monism to which they allude. It is beyond the scope of this commentary to explore the differences between the two, but suffice it to say that both these forms of materialism reject the legitimacy of mental [End Page 205] events or the mental vocabulary that refers to such events.It is also beyond the scope of this commentary to advance arguments either for or against psychophysical causation in the philosophy of mind. The concept of psychophysical causation certainly has multiple proponents among philosophers, including those who are ontological monists. The compelling nonreductive materialism of a philosopher such as Terence Horgan, for example, suggests the viability of combining ontological monism with methodological pluralism. In a book chapter entitled “Nonreductive Materialism and the Explanatory Autonomy of Psychology,” Horgan (1993) developed the position that the world is entirely physical (i.e., there are no disembodied minds, persons, or other entities) but is so complex that it can only be understood and explained by employing many vocabularies and methodologies, spanning “the microphysical, neurobiological, macrobiological, and psychological.” This kind of methodological pluralism in the philosophy of mind can be disputed on conceptual grounds, but it seems to be at least as justifiable (and perhaps more justifiable) when compared with other well-defined positions on the mind–body relation.The appeal of nonreductive materialism and psychophysical causation comes into particularly clear focus in contexts where our philosophical concerns are pragmatic in nature. In other words, when we need to achieve practical goals in our everyday lives, we usually benefit from a philosophy that provides us with the flexibility to use a broad range of ideas, conceptual tools, and causal hypotheses that can be adapted to specific needs and challenges. Nonreductive materialism regards the world as a purely physical place, but ensures this kind of conceptual and methodological flexibility when it comes to explaining and predicting complex human experience and behavior. “Typically, certain context-relative features of discourse,” Horgan wrote (1993, 298), “will determine, in a given... (shrink)

It has always concentrated upon man, and usually the comparative approach has not been used to study the evolution of behaviour, but in the hope that ...

The authors describe the ethical considerations underlying the inclusion of mental health services into a prioritized health care system. The Oregon Health Plan is a process for defining and delivering basic health services to an entire state. As the plan was developed, the mental health community needed to decide whether or not to participate in the process and, if so, how. Lengthy discussions among mental health consumers, family members, and providers led to a strategy that emphasized the integration of mental (...) health and chemical dependency services into a comprehensive and universal health care program. This approach appears to have achieved relative parity for mental health. (shrink)

This paper presents a cross-cultural analysis of ethics with U.S. and Hong Kong Chinese managers as subjects. These managers were given the Strategies of Upward Influence instrument and asked to evaluate the ethics of using various political strategies to attain influence within their organizations. Differences were found between Hong Kong and U.S. managers on a variety of dimensions, indicating important differences between these two groups on their perceptions of ethical behavior. In the paper, we identify potential reasons for the findings, (...) and suggest directions for future work in this area. (shrink)

In the course of an immune response, antibodies undergo affinity maturation in order to increase their efficiency in neutralizing foreign invaders. Affinity maturation occurs by the introduction of multiple point mutations in the variable region gene that encodes the antigen binding site. This somatic hypermutation is restricted to immunoglobulin genes and occurs at very high rates. The precise molecular basis of this process remains obscure. However, recent studies using a variety of in vivo and in vitro systems have revealed important (...) regulatory regions, base motifs that are preferred targets of mutation and evidence that transcription may play an active role in hypermutation. BioEssays 20:227–234, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

(2008). Addressing measurement limitations in affective rating scales: Development of an empirical valence scale. Cognition & Emotion: Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 180-192.

In his deliciously funny book, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles, Professor David Hyman argues that Medicare corrupts our most base impulses. It urges us, for example, to grab for more than our fair share of benefits while offering providers “the prospect of staggering amounts of money – even as…actuaries were promising Congress that the Medicare program would be easily affordable.” Modeled on C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Professor Hyman's satirical examination of Medicare takes the form of a memo to Satan from (...) an underling demon in the Department of Illness and Satanic Services, reporting on the success of Satan's diabolical plot to corrupt humanity. Sprinkled with political cartoons, absurd stories of Medicare's over-the-top fraud enforcement efforts, and a historical account of Medicare's genesis, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles gives us a well-researched and easy-to-read primer on the biggest pot of gold in medicine. (shrink)

In his deliciously funny book, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles, Professor David Hyman argues that Medicare corrupts our most base impulses. It urges us, for example, to grab for more than our fair share of benefits while offering providers “the prospect of staggering amounts of money – even as…actuaries were promising Congress that the Medicare program would be easily affordable.” Modeled on C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Professor Hyman's satirical examination of Medicare takes the form of a memo to Satan from (...) an underling demon in the Department of Illness and Satanic Services, reporting on the success of Satan's diabolical plot to corrupt humanity. Sprinkled with political cartoons, absurd stories of Medicare's over-the-top fraud enforcement efforts, and a historical account of Medicare's genesis, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles gives us a well-researched and easy-to-read primer on the biggest pot of gold in medicine. (shrink)

Nishida Kitarô -- Tanabe Hajime -- Kuki Shûzô -- Watsuji Tetsurô -- Miki Kiyoshi -- Tosaka Jun -- Nishitani Keiji.

In his deliciously funny book, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles, Professor David Hyman argues that Medicare corrupts our most base impulses. It urges us, for example, to grab for more than our fair share of benefits while offering providers “the prospect of staggering amounts of money – even as…actuaries were promising Congress that the Medicare program would be easily affordable.” Modeled on C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, Professor Hyman's satirical examination of Medicare takes the form of a memo to Satan from (...) an underling demon in the Department of Illness and Satanic Services, reporting on the success of Satan's diabolical plot to corrupt humanity. Sprinkled with political cartoons, absurd stories of Medicare's over-the-top fraud enforcement efforts, and a historical account of Medicare's genesis, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles gives us a well-researched and easy-to-read primer on the biggest pot of gold in medicine. (shrink)

Healthcare workers are often assumed to have a duty to work, even if faced with personal risk. This is particularly so for professionals. However, the health service also depends on non-professionals, such as porters, cooks and cleaners. The duty to work is currently under scrutiny because of the ongoing challenge of responding to pandemic influenza, where an effective response depends on most uninfected HCWs continuing to work, despite personal risk. This paper reports findings of a survey of HCWs conducted across (...) three National Health Service trusts in the West Midlands, UK, to establish whether HCWs’ likelihood of working during a pandemic is associated with views about the duty to work. The sense that HCWs felt that they had a duty to work despite personal risk emerged strongly regardless of professional status. Besides a strong sense that everyone should pull together, all kinds of HCWs recognised a duty to work even in difficult circumstances, which correlated strongly with their stated likelihood of working. This suggests that HCWs’ decisions about whether or not they are prepared to work during a pandemic are closely linked to their sense of duty. However, respondents’ sense of the duty to work may conflict with their sense of duty to family, as well as other factors such as a perceived lack of reciprocity from their employers. Interestingly, nearly 25% of doctors did not consider that they had a duty to work where doing so would pose risks to themselves or their families. (shrink)

The use of technology and teaching techniques derived from technology is currently a bourgeoning topic in higher education. Teachers at all levels and types of institutions want to know how these new technologies will affect what happens in and outside of the classroom. Many teachers have already embraced some of these technologies but remain uncertain about their educational efficacy. Other teachers have waited because they are reluctant to try tools or techniques that remain unproven or, as is often the case, (...) lack institutional support. This book is designed to help both groups, so that those with technological expertise can extend their knowledge, while technological novices can "ramp up" at their own pace and for their own purposes. Best Practices for Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning brings together expert teacher-scholars who apply and assess technology's impact on traditional, hybrid or blended, or completely on-line courses, relying on technology as a teaching tool for classroom management and interaction, as well as student-based uses of technology largely independent of instructors. Each chapter will address how technological improvements can be connected to assessment initiatives, as is now routinely advocated in psychology and social science education. The book features current scholarship and pedagogy involving innovative technology that impacts on student learning in psychology and related disciplines, focusing also on student reactions to these novel technologies, and proper assessments of how well they promote learning. This text will serve as the standard reference on emerging technologies for undergraduate instructors. (shrink)

Virtually all the earlier critics — including Sidgwick and the Oxford Idealists — thought J. S. Mill’s arguments for qualities of pleasure and their ranking unacceptable. More recently there has been something of a reversal of this opinion, with commentators such as Skorupski, Donner, Berger and Wilson supporting Mill, and other writers, such as Edwards and Sprigge, arguing that qualitative hedonism is plausible. This paper reconsiders some of the arguments of F.H. Bradley and other earlier critics who dismissed Mill’s (...) quantity-quality distinction. (shrink)

From the time of Reid through Coleridge to T. H. Green, Hume was interpreted as a sceptic and as a wholly negative philosopher. And from their perspective such an interpretation no doubt makes some sense, given the vested interest in religion and the absolute of the idealists: from that perspective it is an essential part of a positive position that it take one beyond the realm of ordinary objects known by sense experience to a realm of entities that transcend that (...) world of everyday life. That interpretation lingers on, like bad jokes, to retail in Philosophy 100 classes. On the other hand, in an age where the demand that one have access to a transcendent entity is less insistent, it has become possible to challenge the orthodox reading of Hume. The first to do this was Norman Kemp Smith, who argued that, while Hume was a sceptic, he in fact also had a positive view, not to be sure that of Reid & Co., but that of anaturalist, that is, one who holds that our beliefs, and our moral commitments, are none of them rational, none of them products of reason, but rather are products of our instinctive and passionate natures. This interpretation continues to have important defenders such as Popkin and Stroud. More recently, however, some scholars have gone further and argued that there are good senses in which Hume is not a sceptic, and that he constructs a case that our instinctual beliefs are not only natural but also rational. Major works defending this reading of Hume as a naturalized epistemologist are those of Livingston and Jones. The Kemp Smith interpretation has, however, found a major new defender in John Wright'sThe Sceptical Realism of David Hume. (shrink)

This brief tour of American law has demonstrated a little of the breadth and currency of legal liability actions which affect nursing. As health care changes and nursing roles change with it, so too will the nature of liability in this area. The American penchant for litigation is such that the chances of disentangling nurses from the continued onslaught of negligence litigation seem remote.