A states the phenomenon that requires to be explained. B explains it. C justifies B. D is the furthest reach of the argument and explains C. E. begins the way back, stating the consequence of D and therefore balancing C. F is the inference from E and corresponds to B, and G brings us back to A. The logic is closely knit. And it is pointed by repeats and correspondences. In A the fire is liquidus; in E profundant, in F (...) profundunt. In B the clouds must contain permulta seeds of fire; in D they must conceive multa from the light of the sun, and the repeat of necessest, necessust hammers home the argument. (shrink)

A states the phenomenon that requires to be explained. B explains it. C justifies B. D is the furthest reach of the argument and explains C. E. begins the way back, stating the consequence of D and therefore balancing C. F is the inference from E and corresponds to B, and G brings us back to A. The logic is closely knit. And it is pointed by repeats and correspondences. In A the fire is liquidus; in E profundant, in F (...) profundunt. In B the clouds must contain permulta seeds of fire; in D they must conceive multa from the light of the sun, and the repeat of necessest, necessust hammers home the argument. (shrink)

This book is a selection of articles by David Zilberman, a prolific author, whose tragic untimely death did not allow to finish many of his undertakings. Zilberman’s work represents a fresh word in the way of philosophizing or philosophy-building and the technique of modal methodology. This book comprises of thirteen independent articles that are not related by content. The point of thematic convergence of these articles is the way they reflect the new way of methodological thinking through the application (...) and benefits of modalization or modal methodology that unfolds unbound possibilities of philosophic elaborations. By shifting constantly from one position to another, Zilberman disclosed the antinomicity of all types of thought. Such an approach led him to outline for the first time his major attempt to start creating not "systems" but "sums" of philosophies so that the philosophical activity would be able to re-emerge on the slopes of such "sums." The book can be used as a starting point of a discussion, especially in study of philosophy. We imagine it can be used in undergraduate classes on World Philosophies or Intercultural Philosophy courses. With that, it can serve as a useful resource for adding intercultural elements into Western-centered courses. (shrink)

David B. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities, moralities that exist across different traditions and cultures, all of which address facets of the same problem: how we are to live well together. Wong examines a wide array of positions and texts within the Western canon as well as in Chinese philosophy, and draws on philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, history, and literature, to make a case for the importance of pluralism in moral life, and to (...) establish the virtues of acceptance and accommodation. Wong's point is that there is no single value or principle or ordering of values and principles that offers a uniquely true path for human living, but variations according to different contexts that carry within them a common core of human values. We should thus be modest about our own morality, learn from other approaches, and accommodate different practices in our pluralistic society. (shrink)

The main lines of this exploration are quite simply drawn. That the God whom Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship outstrips our capacities for characterization, and hence must be unknowable, will be presumed as uncontested. The reason that God is unknowable stems from our shared confession that ‘the Holy One, blessed be He’, and ‘the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth’, and certainly ‘Allah, the merciful One’ is one ; and just why God's oneness entails God's being unknowable deserves discussion, (...) though that will occur as we move along. The issue facing us is the one which preoccupied al-Ghazali: how does a seeker respond to that unknowability? The root meaning of the Arabic word for ‘student’ means ‘seeker’, and that attitude of ‘seeking the face of God’, along with the indescribability of the face, will be presumed throughout our discussion. That's why we are struck with the clumsy term ‘unknowable’ rather than its more euphonious Greek form ‘agnostic’. For Western agnostics are such largely because they cannot find God sufficiently compelling, while they ‘would not have the impudence to claim to be atheists’ – as one contemporary seeker puts it. So theologians feel it necessary to enclose the term in quotation marks when discussing, say, Aquinas' ‘agnosticism’ regarding divinity. Yet a genuine unknowing does lie at the heart of the inquiry of the Jew, Christian or Muslim seeking after God; indeed, it is the unknowing which distinguishes a search for God from lusting after idols. So let us follow al-Ghazali in an effort to discover the lineaments of both search and seeker after an unknowable God. (shrink)

Do psychological traits predict philosophical views? We administered the PhilPapers Survey, created by David Bourget and David Chalmers, which consists of 30 views on central philosophical topics (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language) to a sample of professional philosophers (N = 314). We extended the PhilPapers survey to measure a number of psychological traits, such as personality, numeracy, well-being, lifestyle, and life experiences. We also included non-technical ‘translations’ of these views for eventual use (...) in other populations. We found limited to no support for the notion that personality or demographics predict philosophical views. We did, however, find that some psychological traits were predictive of philosophical views, even after strict correction for multiple comparisons. Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism. We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value. (shrink)

During the past decade scientists, public policy analysts, politicians, and laypeople, have become increasingly aware of the importance of ethical conduct in scientific research. In this timely book, David B. Resnik introduces the reader to the ethical dilemmas and questions that arise in scientific research. Some of the issues addressed in the book include ethical decision-making, the goals and methods of science, and misconduct in science. The Ethics of Science also discusses significant case studies such as human and animal (...) cloning, the Challenger accident and Tobacco research. This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the importance of ethics in science. (shrink)

Modern science is big business. Governments, universities, and corporations have invested billions of dollars in scientific and technological research in the hope of obtaining power and profit. For the most part, this investment has benefited science and society, leading to new discoveries, inventions, disciplines, specialties, jobs, and career opportunities. However, there is a dark side to the influx of money into science. Unbridled pursuit of financial gain in science can undermine scientific norms, such as objectivity, honesty, openness, respect for research (...) participants, and social responsibility. In The Price of Truth, David B. Resnik examines some of the important and difficult questions resulting from the financial and economic aspects of modern science. How does money affect scientific research? Have scientists become entrepreneurs bent on making money instead of investigators searching for the truth? How does the commercialization of research affect the public's perception of science? Can scientists prevent money from corrupting the research enterprise? What types of rules, polices, and guidelines should scientists adopt to prevent financial interests from adversely affecting research and the public's opinion of science? (shrink)

David Annis is professor of philosophy at Ball State University. In this essay, Annis offers an alternative to the foundationalist-coherent controversy: "contextualism." This theory rejects both the idea of intrinsically basic beliefs in the foundational sense and the thesis that coherence is sufficient for justification. he argues that justification is relative to the varying norms of social practices.

Evidence suggests that psychedelics bring about their therapeutic outcomes in part through the subjective or qualitative effects they engender and how the individual interprets the resulting experiences. However, psychedelics are contraindicated for individuals who have been diagnosed with certain mental illnesses, on the grounds that these subjective effects may be disturbing or otherwise counter-therapeutic. Substantial resources are therefore currently being devoted to creating psychedelic substances that produce many of the same biological changes as psychedelics, but without their characteristic subjective effects. (...) In this article, we consider ethical issues arising from the prospect of such potential “nonsubjective” psychedelics. We are broadly supportive of efforts to produce such substances for both scientific and clinical reasons. However, we argue that such nonsubjective psychedelics should be reserved for those special cases in which the subjective effects of psychedelics are specifically contraindicated, whereas classic psychedelics that affect subjective experience should be considered the default and standard of care. After reviewing evidence regarding the subjective effects of psychedelics, we raise a number of ethical concerns around the prospect of withholding such typically positive, meaningful, and therapeutic experiences from most patients. (shrink)

This book fills a gap in the literature on the Precautionary Principle by placing the principle within the wider context of precautionary reasoning and uses philosophical arguments and case studies to demonstrate when it does—and does not—apply. The book invites the reader to take a step back from the controversy surrounding the Precautionary Principle and consider the overarching rationales for responding to threats to the environment or public health. It provides practical guidance and probing insight for the intended audience, including (...) scholars, students, journalists, and policymakers. (shrink)

A four-factor model of spiritual intelligence is first proposed. Supportive evidence is reviewed for the capacities of critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. Based on this model, a 24-item self-report measure was developed and modified across two consecutive studies . The final version of the scale, the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory , displayed excellent internal reliability and good fit to the proposed model. Correlational analyses with additional measures of meaning, metapersonal self-construal, mysticism, religiosity, and (...) social desirability offer support for construct and criterion-related validity. According to both intelligence criteria and current psychometric standards, findings validate the proposed model and measure of spiritual intelligence. Future directions are discussed. (shrink)

Environmental Health Ethics illuminates the conflicts between protecting the environment and promoting human health. In this study, David B. Resnik develops a method for making ethical decisions on environmental health issues. He applies this method to various issues, including pesticide use, antibiotic resistance, nutrition policy, vegetarianism, urban development, occupational safety, disaster preparedness and global climate change. Resnik provides readers with the scientific and technical background necessary to understand these issues. He explains that environmental health controversies cannot simply be reduced (...) to humanity versus environment and explores the ways in which human values and concerns - health, economic development, rights and justice - interact with environmental protection. (shrink)

David Albert claims that classical electromagnetic theory is not time reversal invariant. He acknowledges that all physics books say that it is, but claims they are ``simply wrong" because they rely on an incorrect account of how the time reversal operator acts on magnetic fields. On that account, electric fields are left intact by the operator, but magnetic fields are inverted. Albert sees no reason for the asymmetric treatment, and insists that neither field should be inverted. I argue, to (...) the contrary, that the inversion of magnetic fields makes good sense and is, in fact, forced by elementary geometric considerations. I also suggest a way of thinking about the time reversal invariance of classical electromagnetic theory -- one that makes use of the invariant (four-dimensional) formulation of the theory -- that makes no reference to magnetic fields at all. It is my hope that it will be of interest in its own right, Albert aside. It has the advantage that it allows for arbitrary curvature in the background spacetime structure, and is therefore suitable for the framework of general relativity. (The only assumption one needs is temporal orientability.). (shrink)

This essay explains the inescapability of moral demands. I deny that the individual has genuine reason to comply with these demands only if she has desires that would be served by doing so. Rather, the learning of moral reasons helps to shape and channel self- and other-interested motivations so as to facilitate and promote social cooperation. This shaping happens through the “embedding” of reasons in the intentional objects of motivational propensities. The dominance of the instrumental conception of reason, according to (...) which reasons must be based in desires of the individual, has made it harder to recognize that reasons shape desires. I attempt to undermine this dominance by arguing that the concept of a self that extends over time is constructed to meet the demands of social cooperation. Prudential reasons to act on behalf of the persisting self's desires are often taken to constitute the paradigm of reasons based on desires of the individual. But such reasons, along with the very concept of the persisting self, are constructed to promote human cooperation and to shape the individual's desires. (shrink)

In America today, the problem of achieving racial justice--whether through "color-blind" policies or through affirmative action--provokes more noisy name-calling than fruitful deliberation. In Color Conscious, K. Anthony Appiah and Amy Gutmann, two eminent moral and political philosophers, seek to clear the ground for a discussion of the place of race in politics and in our moral lives. Provocative and insightful, their essays tackle different aspects of the question of racial justice; together they provide a compelling response to our nation's most (...) vexing problem.Appiah begins by establishing the problematic nature of the idea of race. He draws on the scholarly consensus that "race" has no legitimate biological basis, exploring the history of its invention as a social category and showing how the concept has been used to explain differences among groups of people by mistakenly attributing various "essences" to them. Appiah argues that, while people of color may still need to gather together, in the face of racism, under the banner of race, they need also to balance carefully the calls of race against the many other dimensions of individual identity; and he suggests, finally, what this might mean for our political life.Gutmann examines alternative political responses to racial injustice. She argues that American politics cannot be fair to all citizens by being color blind because American society is not color blind. Fairness, not color blindness, is a fundamental principle of justice. Whether policies should be color-conscious, class conscious, or both in particular situations, depends on an open-minded assessment of their fairness. Exploring timely issues of university admissions, corporate hiring, and political representation, Gutmann develops a moral perspective that supports a commitment to constitutional democracy.Appiah and Gutmann write candidly and carefully, presenting many-faceted interpretations of a host of controversial issues. Rather than supplying simple answers to complex questions, they offer to citizens of every color principled starting points for the ongoing national discussions about race. (shrink)

This book provides a framework for approaching ethical and policy dilemmas in research with human subjects from the perspective of trust. It explains how trust is important not only between investigators and subjects but also between and among other stakeholders involved in the research enterprise, including research staff, sponsors, institutions, communities, oversight committees, government agencies, and the general public. The book argues that trust should be viewed as a distinct ethical principle for research with human subjects that complements other principles, (...) such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The book applies the principle of trust to numerous issues, including informed consent, confidentiality, risk minimization, risks and benefits, protection of vulnerable subjects, experimental design, research integrity, and research oversight.This work also includes discussions of the history of research involving human subjects, moral theories and principles, contemporary cases, and proposed regulatory reforms. The book is useful for undergraduate and graduate students studying ethical policy issues related to research with human subjects, as well as for scientists and scholars who are interested in thinking about this topic from the perspective of trust. (shrink)

Demonstrates there are two separate (albeit remarkably similar) versions of the philosopher's engraved bookplate. Presents arguments as to which is the earlier. Speculates that the later version was produced for Hume's favorite nephew and the inheritor of his library, David Hume the Younger.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

Most early studies of consciousness have focused on human subjects. This is understandable, given that humans are capable of reporting accurately the events they experience through language or by way of other kinds of voluntary response. As researchers turn their attention to other animals, “accurate report” methodologies become increasingly difficult to apply. Alternative strategies for amassing evidence for consciousness in non-human species include searching for evolutionary homologies in anatomical substrates and measurement of physiological correlates of conscious states. In addition, creative (...) means must be developed for eliciting behaviors consistent with consciousness. In this paper, we explore whether necessary conditions for consciousness can be established for species as disparate as birds and cephalopods. We conclude that a strong case can be made for avian species and that the case for cephalopods remains open. Nonetheless, a consistent effort should yield new means for interpreting animal behavior. (shrink)

The fact that the names of biological species refer independently of identifying descriptions does not support the view of Ghiselin and Hull that species are individuals. Species may be regarded as natural kinds whose members share an essence which distinguishes them from the members of other species and accounts for the fact that they are reproductively isolated from the members of other species. Because evolutionary theory requires that species be spatiotemporally localized their names cannot occur in scientific laws. If natural (...) kind status is denied to species on this ground, it must also be denied to most classes of concrete entities which are now accorded such status. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of science have rejected the “value-free ideal” for science, arguing that non-epistemic values have a legitimate role to play in scientific inquiry. However, this philosophical position raises the question of how to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate influences of values in science. In this paper, we argue that those seeking to address this “new” demarcation problem can benefit by drawing lessons from the “old” demarcation problem, in which philosophers tried to find a way of distinguishing (...) between science and non-science. Many of those who worked on this problem ultimately found that efforts to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for defining science failed, and most concluded that the best solution to the problem was to characterize scientific hypotheses, theories, and research programs in terms of some common norms. We suggest that those seeking to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate value influences on science would do well to adopt a similar approach. Rather than attempting to establish necessary and sufficient conditions for identifying appropriate value influences, it will be more fruitful to evaluate scientific activities based on their adherence to a set of epistemic and ethical norms that can be implemented in scientific practice by means of rules, conventions, policies, and procedures. (shrink)

We propose an "explanation scheme" for why the Gibbs phase average technique in classical equilibrium statistical mechanics works. Our account emphasizes the importance of the Khinchin-Lanford dispersion theorems. We suggest that ergodicity does play a role, but not the one usually assigned to it.

Valid Informed consent to medical treatment or research participation has traditionally been viewed as consisting of the following requirements: the person has t...

Is the ancient Confucian ideal of he 和, ‘harmony,’ a viable ideal in pluralistic societies composed of people and groups who subscribe to different ideals of the good and moral life? Is harmony compatible with accepting, even encouraging, difference and the freedom to think differently? I start with seminal characterizations of harmony in Confucian texts and then aim to chart ways harmony and freedom can be compatible and even mutually supportive while recognizing the constant possibility of conflict between them. I (...) shall point out how the Confucian notion of harmony resonates with the Indian King Asoka's project of promoting religious pluralism. Along the way, I will make some comments of a ‘meta’ nature about the kind of interpretation I am offering of harmony in the Confucian texts and the use to which I am putting this interpretation by setting it in the context of societies that in important respects are quite different from the ones from which concepts of harmony originally emerged. (shrink)

John Norton has recently argued that Newtonian gravitation theory (at least as applied to cosmological contexts where one envisions the possibility of a homogeneous mass distribution throughout all of space) is inconsistent. I am not convinced. Traditional formulations of the theory may seem to break down in cases of the sort Norton considers. But the difficulties they face are only apparent. They are artifacts of the formulations themselves, and disappear if one passes to the so-called "geometrized" formulation of the theory.

A growing body of literature has identified potential problems that can compromise the quality, fairness, and integrity of journal peer review, including inadequate review, inconsistent reviewer reports, reviewer biases, and ethical transgressions by reviewers. We examine the evidence concerning these problems and discuss proposed reforms, including double-blind and open review. Regardless of the outcome of additional research or attempts at reforming the system, it is clear that editors are the linchpin of peer review, since they make decisions that have a (...) significant impact on the process and its outcome. We consider some of the steps editors should take to promote quality, fairness and integrity in different stages of the peer review process and make some recommendations for editorial conduct and decision-making. (shrink)

One reason why the Biological Approach to personal identity is attractive is that it doesn’t make its advocates deny that they were each once a mindless fetus.[i] According to the Biological Approach, we are essentially organisms and exist as long as certain life processes continue. Since the Psychological Account of personal identity posits some mental traits as essential to our persistence, not only does it follow that we could not survive in a permanently vegetative state or irreversible coma, but it (...) would appear that none of us was ever a mindless fetus. But what happens to the organism that was a mindless fetus when the _person_ arrives on the scene?[ii] Can the acquisition of thought destroy an organism? That would certainly be news to biologists. Does one organism cease to exist with the emergence of thought and another organism, one identical to the person, take its place? (Burke,1994) That doesn’t seem much more plausible than the previous move. Should identity and Leibniz. (shrink)

The therapy-enhancement distinction occupies a central place in contemporary discussions of human genetics and has been the subject of much debate. At a recent conference on gene therapy policy, scientists predicted that within a few years researchers will develop techniques that can be used to enhance human traits. In thinking about the morality of genetic interventions, many writers have defended somatic gene therapy, and some have defended germline gene therapy, but only a handful of writers defend genetic enhancement, or even (...) give it a fair hearing. The mere mention of genetic enhancement makes many people cringe and brings to mind the Nazi eugenics programs, Aldous Huxley's BraveNewWorld, or the recent movie Although many people believe that gene therapy has morally legitimate medical uses, others regard genetic enhancement as morally problematic or decidedly evil. (shrink)

In this collection, Stations on the Journey of Inquiry, David Burrell launches a revolutionary reinterpretation of how any inquiry proceeds, boldly critiquing presumptuous theories of knowledge, language, and ethics. While his later publications, Analogy and Philosophical Language (1973) and Aquinas: God and Action (1979), elucidate Aquinas's linguistic theology, these early writings show what often escapes articulation: how one comes to understanding and "takes" a judgment. Although Aquinas serves as an axial figure for Burrell's expansive corpus of scholarship spanning more (...) than fifty years, this selection of essays presents other positions and counterpositions to whom his own philosophical theology is beholden: Plato, Aristotle, Cajetan, Kant, Peirce, Moore, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Weiss, Ross, McInerny, and Lonergan. With renewed interest in philosophy of language by postmodern thinkers as well as in the wake of Mulhall's Stanton Lectures on Wittgenstein and "Grammatical Thomism," the publication of these formative writings proves timely for the academy at large. Burrell invites us to reconsider not only the way in which we conduct an inquiry, but what it is we take language to be and how we take responsibility for what we say. (shrink)

Green bioethics is an area of research and scholarship that examines the impact of healthcare practices and policies on the environment and emphasises environmental values, such as ecological sustainability and stewardship. Some green bioethicists have argued that healthcare providers should inform patients about the environmental impacts of treatments and advocate for options that minimise adverse impacts. While disclosure of information pertaining to the environmental impacts of treatments could facilitate autonomous decision-making and strengthen the patient–provider relationship in situations where patients have (...) clearly expressed environmental concerns, it may have the opposite effect in other situations if makes patients feel like they are being judged or manipulated. We argue, therefore, that there is not a generalisable duty to disclose environmental impact information to all patients during the consent process. Providers who practice green bioethics should focus on advocating for system-level changes in healthcare financing, organisation and delivery and use discretion when bringing up environmental concerns in their encounters with patients. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the concept of public trust in science and offers some guidance for ethicists, scientists, and policymakers who use this idea defend ethical rules or policies pertaining to the conduct of research. While the notion that public trusts science makes sense in the abstract, it may not be sufficiently focused to support the various rules and policies that authors have tried to derive from it, because the public is not a uniform body with a common set of interests. (...) Well-focused arguments that use public trust to support rules or policies for the conduct of research should specify (a) which public is being referred to (e.g. the general public or a specific public, such as a particular community or group); (b) what this public expects from scientists; (c) how the rule or policy will ensure that these expectations are met; and (d) why is it important to meet these expectations. (shrink)

In Playing Politics with Science, David B. Resnik explores the philosophical, political, and ethical issues related to the politicalization of science and ...

Various U.S. laws, such as the Clean Air Act and the Food Quality Protection Act, require additional protections for susceptible subpopulations who face greater environmental health risks. The main ethical rationale for providing these protections is to ensure that environmental health risks are distributed fairly. In this article, we (1) consider how several influential theories of justice deal with issues related to the distribution of environmental health risks; (2) show that these theories often fail to provide specific guidance concerning policy (...) choices; and (3) argue that an approach to public decision making known as accountability for reasonableness can complement theories of justice in establishing acceptable environmental health risks for the general population and susceptible subpopulations. Since accountability for reasonableness focuses on the fairness of the decision-making process, not the outcome, it does not guarantee that susceptible subpopulations will receive a maximum level of protection, regardless of costs or other morally relevant considerations. (shrink)

Hylomorphism offers a third way between animalist approaches to personal identity, which maintain that psychology is irrelevant to our persistence, andneo-Lockean accounts, which deny that humans are animals. This paper provides a Thomistic account that explains the intuitive responses to thought experiments involving brain transplants and the transformation of organic bodies into inorganic ones. This account does not have to follow the animalist in abandoning the claim that it is our identity which matters in survival, or countenance the puzzles of (...) spatially coincident entities that plague the neo-Lockean. The key is to understand the human being as only contingently an animal. This approach to our animality is one that Catholics have additional reason to hold given certain views about purgatory, our uniqueness as free and rational creatures, and our having once existed as zygotes. (shrink)

This paper discusses a dispute concerning the ethics of research on preventing the perinatal transmission of HIV in developing nations. Critics of this research argue that it is unethical because it denies a proven treatment to placebo‐control groups. Since studies conducted in developed nations would not deny this treatment to subjects, the critics maintain that these experiments manifest a double standard for ethical research and that a single standard of ethics should apply to all research on human subjects. Proponents of (...) the research, however, argue that these charges fail to understand the ethical complexities of research in developing nations, and that study designs can vary according to the social, economic, and scientific conditions of research. This essay explores some of the ethical issues raised by this controversial case in order to shed some light on the deeper, meta‐ethical questions. The paper argues that standards of ethical research on human subjects are universal but not absolute: there are some general ethical principles that apply to all cases of human subjects research but the application of these principles must take into account factors inherent in particular situations. (shrink)