In an ongoing class action suit against large tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, Inc., and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued an opinion on October 15, 2002 making statistical proof available to address plaintiffs’ common questions and prove required elements of consumer fraud.The dilemmas inherent in tobacco litigation as a mass tort action include overcoming the collective action problem, mobilizing appropriate and persuasive legal theories for (...) recovery, and meeting the standards of proof, all in a timely and cost-effective manner. While some tobacco cases have proceeded on products liability theories of defective or negligent design, many recent cases are grounded in consumer fraud laws. (shrink)

In an ongoing class action suit against large tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, Inc., and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued an opinion on October 15, 2002 making statistical proof available to address plaintiffs’ common questions and prove required elements of consumer fraud.The dilemmas inherent in tobacco litigation as a mass tort action include overcoming the collective action problem, mobilizing appropriate and persuasive legal theories for (...) recovery, and meeting the standards of proof, all in a timely and cost-effective manner. While some tobacco cases have proceeded on products liability theories of defective or negligent design, many recent cases are grounded in consumer fraud laws. (shrink)

Background: Studies have found that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to make errors in appropriately producing referring expressions (‘the dog’ vs. ‘the black dog’) than are controls but comprehend them with equal facility. We tested whether this anomaly arises because comprehension studies have focused on manipulating perspective-taking at a ‘generic speaker’ level. Method: We compared 24 autistic eight- to eleven-year-olds with 24 well-matched neuro-typical controls. Children interpreted requests (e.g. ‘Can I have that ball?’) in contexts which (...) would be ambiguous (i.e. because the child can see two balls) if perspective-taking were not utilized. In the interlocutor-specific perspective-taking condition, the target was the particular object which was new for the speaker. Children needed to take into account what the speaker had played with before and the fact that they were now expressing excitement about something new. In two control ‘speaker-generic’ conditions we tested children’s ability to take the visual perspective of the speaker (where any speaker who stood behind a particular barrier would have the same perspective). Results: The autistic group were significantly less likely to select the target and significantly more likely to request clarification in the ‘interlocutor-specific’ condition. Performance in the ‘interlocutor-generic’ (visual) perspective taking conditions did not differ between groups. Conclusion: Autistic children, even those who are not intellectually-impaired, tend to have more difficulty than neuro-typical peers in comprehending referring expressions when this requires understanding that people comment on what is new for them. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to discuss the role of social media during the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in facilitating and promoting the expression of what matters to the protestors in a communicative environment where most traditional media turned away from reporting the events. Furthermore, the role of social media in promoting “interspaces” and constructing “communicative dwellings” that maintain public conversation of diverse ideas during the Gezi Park events is highlighted. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the framework of communication ethics and (...) conflict offered by Arnett et al. that highlights the importance of recognizing “the goods that matter to oneself and others” in a conflict situation. Findings Notwithstanding its potential for misinformation, social media was the only reliable option for Gezi Park protesters. During the Gezi Park protests, social media facilitated the creation of interspaces through which people could make sense of, share, and interactively negotiate meanings about the protests through dialogue. During the Gezi Park protests, social media served both as an alternative source of information and a platform for sharing what people protect and promote that allowed for the construction of multiple narratives of resistance. Social media revealed the many components of the protests collected under the label of Gezi Park. In this historical moment of narrative and virtue contention, it becomes crucial for leaders to sense what matters to oneself and others if conflict is to be constructively engaged, allowing for increased insight and productivity. Originality/value Although there are various studies on Gezi Park protests and the use of social media, there is no discussion related to communication ethics. In this paper, the authors used the communication ethics framework offered by Arnett et al. that underlines the “interplay of ethics and conflict” highlighting ethics as “the good that one seeks to protect and promote” that generate conflict because of “multiplicity of ‘goods’” and contrasting ethical positions. Thus, given the multiplicity in terms of what is considered as that which matters, and the contrasting ethical positions that are at odds with each other, conflict and tension can be generated. There are no other studies in the literature that use the abovementioned communication ethics perspective for discussing the Gezi Park protests in Turkey. (shrink)

Knowledge plays an important role in argumentation. Yet, recent work shows that standard conceptions of knowledge in epistemology may not be entirely suitable for argumentation. This paper explores the role of knowledge in argumentation, and proposes a notion of knowledge that promises to be more suitable for argumentation by taking account of: its dynamic nature, the defeasibility of our commitments, and the non-monotonicity of many of the inferences we use in everyday reasoning and argumentation.

Democracy is not naturally plausible. Why turn such important matters over to masses of people who have no expertise? Many theories of democracy answer by appealing to the intrinsic value of democratic procedure, leaving aside whether it makes good decisions. In Democratic Authority, David Estlund offers a groundbreaking alternative based on the idea that democratic authority and legitimacy must depend partly on democracy's tendency to make good decisions.Just as with verdicts in jury trials, Estlund argues, the authority and legitimacy (...) of a political decision does not depend on the particular decision being good or correct. But the "epistemic value" of the procedure--the degree to which it can generally be accepted as tending toward a good decision--is nevertheless crucial. Yet if good decisions were all that mattered, one might wonder why those who know best shouldn't simply rule.Estlund's theory--which he calls "epistemic proceduralism"--avoids epistocracy, or the rule of those who know. He argues that while some few people probably do know best, this can be used in political justification only if their expertise is acceptable from all reasonable points of view. If we seek the best epistemic arrangement in this respect, it will be recognizably democratic--with laws and policies actually authorized by the people subject to them. (shrink)

David M. Zientek; Response to the Consensus Statement of the Working Group on Roman Catholic Approaches to Determining Appropriate Critical Care, Christian bioe.

Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps (...) sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications. (shrink)

Robert C. Hockett’s “franchise view” argues, convincingly, that the capacity of banks or quasi-bank financial entities to create money rests on the laws, regulations, and guarantees of the state under which they operate. Fred Block advocates the use of this insight as a beachhead for establishing the legitimacy of locally embedded, nonprofit lenders whose investments would be dedicated to public purposes. However, given the pervasive influence of “everyday libertarianism,” which fosters blindness to the public character of private economic power, this (...) commentary warns of possible counterproductive consequences of this proposal unless it is fused to the democratization of central banking. An end to central bank independence would highlight the ineliminable role of the state in the market and make that role easier to reshape. It would also end the dynamic whereby monetary easing provides political cover for damaging fiscal austerity and thus lead to better democratic deliberation on the contours of policy. (shrink)

How might experimental media art help theorise what falls by the wayside in the digital public sphere? Working in the years immediately following the launch of YouTube in 2005, some media artists centred their creative praxis towards the end of that decade upon rescuing, revalorising, and placing back into digital circulation audiovisual media formats and technologies that appeared aged or obsolete. Although there may be a degree of nostalgia behind such practices, these artworks articulate a cogent critique of the drive (...) towards constant innovation that was responsible for the invention and global expansion of cinema, but in recent decades has been responsible for its decay—or, perhaps more accurately, for its perpetual transformation. The article explores this 'media-archaeology' sensibility as a way of thinking about AI more widely: an approach that sees histories of media not as a linear, chronological search for origins, but as a critical recovery of artefacts lodged discontinuously in multiple layers of the past. Although digital technologies form a central part of the creative process of the artists considered in this article, their works also act as a critical conscience about digital change, asking what the so-called digital revolution is leaving out, and leaving behind. In so doing, it illuminates some potential positive and negative impacts of digital technologies' mediation of new forms of public engagement, whether in art, archives, or on social media. (shrink)

_The Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Healthcare Ethics Consultants_ instructs clinical ethics consultants to preserve their professional integrity by “not engaging in activities that involve giving an ethical justification or stamp of approval to practices they believe are inconsistent with agreed-upon standards” (ASBH, 2014, p. 2). This instruction reflects a larger model of how to address value uncertainty and moral conflict in healthcare, and it brings up some intriguing and as yet unanswered questions—ones that the drafters of the (...) _Code_, and the profession more broadly, should seek to address in upcoming revisions. The objective of this article is to raise these questions as a way of urging greater clarification of the _Code’s_ overall approach to professional integrity, its meaning, and implications. (shrink)

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

The emphasis is always on the arguments used, and the way one position develops from another. By the end of the book the reader is afforded both a grasp of the state of the controversy, and how we got there.

A curious and comparatively neglected element of death penalty jurisprudence in America is my target in this paper. That element concerns the circumstances under which severely mentally disabled persons, incarcerated on death row, may have their sentences carried out. Those circumstances are expressed in a part of the law which turns out to be indefensible. This legal doctrine—competence-for-execution —holds that a condemned, death-row inmate may not be killed if, at the time of his scheduled execution, he lacks an awareness of (...) his impending death or the reasons for it. I argue that the law of CFE should be abandoned, along with the notion that it is permissible to kill the deeply disturbed just so long as they meet some narrow test of readiness to die. By adopting CFE, the courts have been forced to give independent conceptual and moral significance to a standard for competence that simply cannot bear the weight placed upon it. To be executable, CFE requires that a condemned prisoner meet a standard demonstrating an awareness of certain facts about his death. Yet this standard both leads to confusing and counter-intuitive results and is unsupported either by the reasons advanced by the courts on its behalf or by any of the standard theoretical justifications of criminal punishment. If executing the profoundly psychotic or delusional is wrong the law needs a better account of the wrong done when prisoners like Ford are killed. I suggest wherein that wrong might be located. (shrink)

No mental phenomenon is more central than consciousness to an adequate understanding of the mind. Nor does any mental phenomenon seem more stubbornly to resist theoretical treatment. Consciousness is so basic to the way we think about the mind that it can be tempting to suppose that no mental states exist that are not conscious states. Indeed, it may even seem mysterious what sort of thing a mental state might be if it is not a conscious state. On this way (...) of looking at things, if any mental states do lack consciousness, they are exceptional cases that call for special explanation or qualification. Perhaps dispositional or cognitive states exist that are not conscious, but nonetheless count as mental states. (shrink)

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

"My work has had nothing to do with gay liberation," Michel Foucault reportedly told an admirer in 1975. And indeed there is scarcely more than a passing mention of homosexuality in Foucault's scholarly writings. So why has Foucault, who died of AIDS in 1984, become a powerful source of both personal and political inspiration to an entire generation of gay activists? And why have his political philosophy and his personal life recently come under such withering, normalizing scrutiny by commentators as (...) diverse as Camille Paglia, Richard Mohr, Bruce Bawer, Roger Kimball, and biographer James Miller? David M. Halperin's Saint Foucault is an uncompromising and impassioned defense of the late French philosopher and historian as a galvanizing thinker whose career as a theorist and activist will continue to serve as a model for other gay intellectuals, activists, and scholars. A close reading of both Foucault and the increasing attacks on his life and work, it explains why straight liberals so often find in Foucault only counsels of despair on the subject of politics, whereas gay activists look to him not only for intellectual inspiration but also for a compelling example of political resistance. Halperin rescues Foucault from the endless nature-versus-nurture debate over the origins of homosexuality ("On this question I have absolutely nothing to say," Foucault himself once remarked) and argues that Foucault's decision to treat sexuality not as a biological or psychological drive but as an effect of discourse, as the product of modern systems of knowledge and power, represents a crucial political breakthrough for lesbians and gay men. Halperin explains how Foucault's radical vision of homosexuality as a strategic opportunity for self-transformation anticipated the new anti-assimilationist, anti-essentialist brand of sexual identity politics practiced by contemporary direct-action groups such as ACT UP. Halperin also offers the first synthetic account of Foucault's thinking about gay sex and the future of the lesbian and gay movement, as well as an up-to-the-minute summary of the most recent work in queer theory. "Where there is power, there is resistance," Michel Foucault wrote in The History of Sexuality, Volume I. Erudite, biting, and surprisingly moving, Saint Foucault represents Halperin's own resistance to what he views as the blatant and systematic misrepresentation of a crucial intellectual figure, a misrepresentation he sees as dramatic evidence of the continuing personal, professional, and scholarly vulnerability of all gay activists and intellectuals in the age of AIDS. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS IN THE LAW is the perfect introduction to the philosophy of law. This collection of articles and cases helps you consider philosophical problems associated with the law through examples, case studies, and decision scenarios. Case examples and recent decisions such as Boumediene v. Bush (rights of Guantanamo detainees) and Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (freedom of expression and violent video games) coupled with new readings help you see the real-world relevance of what you are learning.

This essay reviews the Roman Catholic moral tradition surrounding treatments at the end of life together with the challenges presented to that tradition by the Texas Advance Directives Act. The impact on Catholic health care facilities and physicians, and the way in which the moral tradition should be applied under this statute, particularly with reference to the provision dealing with conflicts over end-of-life treatments, will be critically assessed. I will argue, based on the traditional treatment of end-of-life issues, that Catholic (...) physicians and institutions should appeal to the conflict resolution process of the Advance Directives Act only under a limited number of circumstances. The implications, under the Texas statute, of varied interpretations of Pope John Paul II's recent allocution on artificial feeding and hydration in the persistent vegetative state will also be considered. (shrink)

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

A growing number of technologies are currently being developed to improve and distribute thinking and decision-making. Rapid progress in brain-to-brain interfacing and swarming technologies promises to transform how we think about collective and collaborative cognitive tasks across domains, ranging from research to entertainment, and from therapeutics to military applications. As these tools continue to improve, we are prompted to monitor how they may affect our society on a broader level, but also how they may reshape our fundamental understanding of agency, (...) responsibility, and other key concepts of our moral landscape.In this paper we take a closer look at this class of technologies – Technologies for Collective Minds – to see not only how their implementation may react with commonly held moral values, but also how they challenge our underlying concepts of what constitutes collective or individual agency. We argue that prominent contemporary frameworks for understanding collective agency and responsibility are insufficient in terms of accurately describing the relationships enabled by Technologies for Collective Minds, and that they therefore risk obstructing ethical analysis of the implementation of these technologies in society. We propose a more multidimensional approach to better understand this set of technologies, and to facilitate future research on the ethics of Technologies for Collective Minds. (shrink)

Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from (...) 33 countries located on six continents and five islands. For 27 countries, demographic data on actual age at marriage provided a validity check on questionnaire data. Females were found to value cues toresource acquisitionin potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signalingreproductive capacitywere valued more by males than by females. These sex differences may reflect different evolutionary selection pressures on human males and females; they provide powerful cross-cultural evidence of current sex differences in reproductive strategies. Discussion focuses on proximate mechanisms underlying mate preferences, consequences for human intrasexual competition, and the limitations of this study. (shrink)

This book provides an exploration of the ethics of cardiology practice. The chapters are divided by five broad areas of practice: beginning-of-life, end-of-life, transplantation and allocation of expensive or scarce resources, professionalism, and research.

Abstract While agreeing that dynamical models play a major role in cognitive science, we reject Stepp, Chemero, and Turvey's contention that they constitute an alternative to mechanistic explanations. We review several problems dynamical models face as putative explanations when they are not grounded in mechanisms. Further, we argue that the opposition of dynamical models and mechanisms is a false one and that those dynamical models that characterize the operations of mechanisms overcome these problems. By briefly considering examples involving the generation (...) of action potentials and circadian rhythms, we show how decomposing a mechanism and modeling its dynamics are complementary endeavors. (shrink)

Background Over the last decades, the neurosciences, behavioral sciences, and the social sciences have all seen a rapid development of innovative research methods. The field of bioethics, however, has trailed behind in methodological innovation. Despite the so-called “empirical turn” in bioethics, research methodology for project development, data collection and analysis, and dissemination has remained largely restricted to surveys, interviews, and research papers. We have previously argued for a “Design Bioethics” approach to empirical bioethics methodology, which develops purpose-built methods for investigation (...) of bioethical concerns. In this paper we compare a research tool created using a design bioethics approach to a “methods-as-usual” approach in empirical bioethics. Methods Our study compared dimensions of engagement with a digital game we created, called “Tracing Tomorrow,” to a standard vignette survey. The two tools investigated the same subject matter, digital phenotyping for mental health, in a sample of 301 UK adolescents. Results Participants who played the game reported a greater sense of presence, emotional engagement, cognitive absorption, and mental health ethics insight, compared to participants who completed the vignette survey. Perceived authenticity and curiosity/motivation to learn more was equivalent for both methods. Conclusion The results of this study highlights the importance of purpose-built methodology for empirical bioethics research. (shrink)

This critical note responds to Guiaşu and Tindale’s “Logical fallacies and invasion biology,” from our perspective as ecologists and philosophers of science engaged in debates about invasion biology and invasive species. We agree that “the level of charges and dismissals” surrounding these debates might be “unhealthy” and that “it will be very difficult for dialogues to move forward unless genuine attempts are made to understand the positions being held and to clarify the terms involved.” Although they raise several important scientific, (...) conceptual, and ethical issues at the foundations of invasion biology, we believe Guiaşu and Tindale’s attempts to clarify the debate were unsuccessful. Like some other critics of the field, they tend to misrepresent invasion biology by cherry-picking and constructing “straw people,” inaccurately portraying invasion biology, and thus failing to elevate the dialogue. In this critique, we clarify areas in the invasion biology literature misrepresented by Guiaşu and Tindale. We attempt to provide a more balanced view of areas of reasonable debate within invasion biology, including disputes about empirical evidence, diverse risk attitudes, and other diverse ethical commitments. (shrink)

This book explores food from a philosophical perspective, bringing together sixteen leading philosophers to consider the most basic questions about food: What is it exactly? What should we eat? How do we know it is safe? How should food be distributed? What is good food? David M. Kaplan’s erudite and informative introduction grounds the discussion, showing how philosophers since Plato have taken up questions about food, diet, agriculture, and animals. However, until recently, few have considered food a standard subject (...) for serious philosophical debate. Each of the essays in this book brings in-depth analysis to many contemporary debates in food studies—Slow Food, sustainability, food safety, and politics—and addresses such issues as “happy meat,” aquaculture, veganism, and table manners. The result is an extraordinary resource that guides readers to think more clearly and responsibly about what we consume and how we provide for ourselves, and illuminates the reasons why we act as we do. (shrink)

We give an axiomatic framework for the non-modular simple 0-categorical structures constructed by Hrushovski. This allows us to verify some of their properties in a uniform way, and to show that these properties are preserved by iterations of the construction.