There have been serious controversies in the latter part of the 20th century about the roles and functions of scientific and medical research. In whose interests are medical and biomedical experiments conducted and what are the ethical implications of experimentation on subjects unable to give competent consent? From the decades following the Second World War and calls for the global banning of medical research to the cautious return to the notion that in controlled circumstances, medical research on human subjects is (...) in the best interest of the given individual and the broader population, this book addresses the key implications of experimentation on humans. This volume covers major ethical themes within biomedical research providing historical, philosophical, legal and policy reflections on the literature and specific issues in the field of research on human subjects. Focusing on special populations (the elderly, children, prisoners and the cognitively impaired) it represents the most up-to-date review of the special ethical and legal conflicts that arise with relation to experimentation on subjects from these groups. In the light of current initiatives for law reform pertaining to research ethics the world over, this volume provides a timely, comprehensive and provocative exploration of the field. The volume has been carefully organized to present important philosophical perspectives on organizing principles that should underlie any practical application. A forward-looking historical review of the regulatory regimes of principal jurisdictions, including of the legal controls already in place, provides the backdrop for future policy initiatives. Additionally, in the light of global restructuring of health care systems, several chapters have been devoted to epidemiological research and related issues. (shrink)

This article addresses all of the issues involved in the debate about whether or not bioethicists should be paid by private biomedical companies to perform consultations. These issues include the following: differentiation of this role from bioethicists' other roles, an analysis of to whom bioethicists owe a duty, consideration of what bioethicists are “selling,” whether bioethicists should be allowed to get paid, when payment becomes problematic, and whether consulting fee arrangements should be regulated. The author often compares bioethicists' relationship to (...) the companies to bioethicists' other relationships, as well as to professional relationships in other fields, such as law and accounting. (shrink)

"Using an historical approach, Virtue's Own Feature explores nine of Shakespeare's most successful works as representations of the passions, virtues, and vices as they are complexly and extensively set out by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas." "The work first undertakes to describe the late Elizabethan poetic of Sir Philip Sidney, which is demonstrated to be Shakespeare's poetic as well. Second, this study explores Shakespeare's plays in relation to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of moral philosophy, one important branch of a major sixteenth-century philosophical (...) tradition."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Drawing conceptually and directly on music notation, this book investigates landscape architecture's inherent temporality. It argues that the rich history of notating time in music provides a critical model for this under-researched and under-theorised aspect of landscape architecture, while also ennobling sound in the sensory appreciation of landscape. It makes available to a wider landscape architecture and urban design audience the works of three influential composers - Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti and Michael Finnissy - presenting a critical evaluation of their (...) work within music, as well as a means in which it might be used in design research. Each of the musical scores is juxtaposed with design representations by Kevin Appleyard, Bernard Tschumi and William Kent, before the author examines four landscape spaces through the development of new landscape architectural notations. In doing so, this work offers valuable insights into the methods used by landscape architects for the benefit of musicians, and by bringing together musical composition and landscape architecture through notation, it affords a focused and sensitive exploration of temporality and sound in both fields. (shrink)

Broad in scope and edited by two massive names in geography, this is a critical exploration of how the field has emerged and fared over the course of its modern institutionalization.

This book provides a current review of Medical Research Ethics on a global basis. The book contains chapters that are historically and philosophically reflective and aimed to promote a discussion about controversial and foundational aspects in the field. An elaborate group of chapters concentrates on key areas of medical research where there are core ethical issues that arise both in theory and practice: genetics, neuroscience, surgery, palliative care, diagnostics, risk and prediction, security, pandemic threats, finances, technology, and public policy.This (...) book is suitable for use from the most basic introductory courses to the highest levels of expertise in multidisciplinary contexts. The insights and research by this group of top scholars in the field of bioethics is an indispensable read for medical students in bioethics seminars and courses as well as for philosophy of bioethics classes in departments of philosophy, nursing faculties, law schools where bioethics is linked to medical law, experts in comparative law and public health, international human rights, and is equally useful for policy planning in pharmaceutical companies. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative issues such as climate change adaptation, forest management, and sustainable agriculture. Applied ethnobiology emphasizes the practical importance of local and traditional knowledge in tackling these issues but thereby also raises complex theoretical questions about the integration of heterogeneous knowledge systems. The aim of this article is to develop a framework for addressing questions of integration through four core domains of philosophy - epistemology, ontology, value theory, and political theory. In each of (...) these dimensions, we argue for a model of “partial overlaps” that acknowledges both substantial similarities and differences between knowledge systems. While overlaps can ground successful collaboration, their partiality requires reflectivity about the limitations of collaboration and co-creation. By outlining such a general and programmatic framework, the article aims to contribute to developing “philosophy of ethnobiology” as a field of interdisciplinary exchange that provides new resources for addressing foundational issues in ethnobiology and also expands the agenda of philosophy of biology. (shrink)

"--Brian Greene, Columbia University "This book includes material that is intellectually innovative and comes as a surprise even to specialists in the field.

Business ethics can be regarded as a field dealing with corporate _self-regulation_ as it relates to the treatment of stakeholders. However, a concern for corporate stakeholders need not take a corporate-centric perspective, as shown by recent efforts (especially Singer in Bus Ethics Q 25(1):65–92, 2015) to situate corporate conduct within Rawls’ political theory. Although Rawls was largely mute on the subject himself, his theory has implications for business ethics and corporate governance more specifically. Given an understanding of a “Rawlsian (...) society” as a whole—where corporations as associations are a part—this paper addresses how a Rawlsian perspective would safeguard against corporate harms in society. We argue that a Rawlsian society would primarily regulate corporate conduct through exogenous constraints in the form of legislation. To the extent that business ethics is concerned with endogenous constraints in the form of corporate-centric self-regulation regarding _stakeholders_, to adopt a Rawlsian perspective is to assume instead a society-centric perspective and to impose exogenous constraints on corporate conduct in the form of legislation for the benefit of _citizens_. In the context of Rawls’ political liberalism, normative concerns in business are accounted for through legislation and the system of background justice. In a clear departure from Singer (Bus Ethics Q 25(1):65–92, 2015, Bus Ethics J Rev 6(3):11–17, 2018a), we further develop our argument to propose that Rawls' theory can be interpreted as providing a rule for corporate governance. The rule—which is imposed exogenously for the good of society—states: After choosing the corporate constraint mechanism (exogenous vs. endogenous) that best promotes the Liberty Principle, choose the corporate control regime (shareholder vs. stakeholder) that maximizes economic efficiency. (shrink)

How do educators better reach their students, better capture their attention and imagination without sacrificing scholarship? Teachable Moments: Essays on Experiential Education examines the pedagogy of Prescott College, a school that has embraced experiential education and been finding success with it for over thirty years. These essays—from scholars in fields as wide ranging as religious studies, environmental science, psychology, dance, literature, adventure education, and peace studies—examine the challenges and, ultimately, the rewards of student-centered education.

The “basic debate” in business ethics between shareholder theory and stakeholder theory has underlined the field since its inception, with wide ranging normative, descriptive, and instrumental arguments offered on both sides. We maintain that insofar as this is primarily a normative debate, clarity can be brought by elucidating how it is framed by the political philosophies of liberalism and libertarianism.With liberalism represented by John Rawls’s theory of justice and libertarianism represented by the ideas of Milton Friedman and Robert Nozick, (...) and Edward Freeman, the paper shows that both liberalism and libertarianism can be interpreted to justify shareholder and stakeholder theory respectively. The debate between shareholder theory and stakeholder theory is framed by liberal and libertarian justifications that hinge primarily on whether and to what extent one should have exogenous or endogenous safeguards on corporate behavior. Accordingly, political philosophy turns out to be highly relevant to both business ethics and corporate governance, not because the corporation resembles the state, but because of the potential safeguards placed on the corporation by the state. (shrink)

The “basic debate” in business ethics between shareholder theory and stakeholder theory has underlined the field since its inception, with wide ranging normative, descriptive, and instrumental arguments offered on both sides. We maintain that insofar as this is primarily a normative debate, clarity can be brought by elucidating how it is framed by the political philosophies of liberalism and libertarianism.With liberalism represented by John Rawls’s theory of justice and libertarianism represented by the ideas of Milton Friedman and Robert Nozick, (...) and Edward Freeman, the paper shows that both liberalism and libertarianism can be interpreted to justify shareholder and stakeholder theory respectively. The debate between shareholder theory and stakeholder theory is framed by liberal and libertarian justifications that hinge primarily on whether and to what extent one should have exogenous or endogenous safeguards on corporate behavior. Accordingly, political philosophy turns out to be highly relevant to both business ethics and corporate governance, not because the corporation resembles the state, but because of the potential safeguards placed on the corporation by the state. (shrink)

The question of what explains individual differences in expertise within complex domains such as music, games, sports, science, and medicine is currently a major topic of interest in a diverse range of fields, including psychology, education, and sports science, to name just a few. Ericsson and colleagues’ deliberate practice view is highly influential perspective in the literature on expertise and expert performance—but is it viable as a testable scientific theory? Here, reviewing more than 25 years of Ericsson and colleagues’ writings, (...) we document critical inconsistencies in the definition of deliberate practice, along with apparent shifts in the standard for evidence concerning deliberate practice. We also consider the impact of these issues on progress in the field of expertise, focusing on the empirical testability and falsifiability of the deliberate practice view. We then discuss a multifactorial perspective on expertise, and how open science practices can accelerate progress in research guided by this perspective. (shrink)

Do dissociations imply independent systems? In the memory field, the view that there are independent implicit and explicit memory systems has been predominantly supported by dissociation evidence. Here, we argue that many of these dissociations do not necessarily imply distinct memory systems. We review recent work with a single-system computational model that extends signal-detection theory (SDT) to implicit memory. SDT has had a major influence on research in a variety of domains. The current work shows that it can be (...) broadened even further in its range of application. Indeed, the single-system model that we present does surprisingly well in accounting for some key dissociations that have been taken as evidence for independent implicit and explicit memory systems. (shrink)

The evolution of the understanding of evidence-based proof and decision processes in the law, especially criminal law, and standards of proof in this area, has a long-standing and controversial history. Competing accounts cause the legal scholarship to engage in critical and thoughtful exchanges. Some of the divergent views reflect different methodological perspectives similarly recognized in other fields, such as applied psychology and economy, and the broader interdisciplinary research fields of judgment and decision-making, system analysis and decision science. One such methodological (...) perspective asserts that accounts of juridical proof should provide a description and explanation of how the legal system actually works as a whole. Other—more mathematical and analytical accounts—concentrate on how, ideally, legal decision-making under uncertainty ought to be made in order be considered sensible. This paper focuses on the relative plausibility account advocated by Professors Allen and Pardo as an example of the former perspective. Its logical structure and argumentative implications are analysed using elements of decision theory, which is the prime representative of the latter, more mathematical approach to legal proof. Using formal diagrammatic schemes to depict the structural relationships between the core elements of the two accounts, it is demonstrated in what sense they can be considered logically related and congruent. The demonstration shows that the principal disagreements among the proponents of the two examined theories derive from differences in the criteria used to judge the adequacy of competing accounts of legal decision-making, and the level of formalization of the bases of decisions in each candidate account. This structural analysis supports the view that adherence to one or the other of the examined perspectives does not imply a contradiction, but reflects the coverage of different aspects of the same overall decision architecture. Using decision-theoretic notions, our analyses also provide a way to explain RP decisions through an explicit criterion, thus providing a reply to the recurrent critique that RP theory lacks specific means to justify its decisional framework. (shrink)

Recent EEG studies on the early postmortem interval that suggest the persistence of electrophysiological coherence and connectivity in the brain of animals and humans reinforce the need for further investigation of the relationship between the brain’s activity and the dying process. Neuroscience is now in a position to empirically evaluate the extended process of dying and, more specifically, to investigate the possibility of brain activity following the cessation of cardiac and respiratory function. Under the direction of the Center for Healthy (...) Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, research was conducted in India on a postmortem meditative state cultivated by some Tibetan Buddhist practitioners in which decomposition is putatively delayed. For all healthy baseline and postmortem subjects presented here, we collected resting state electroencephalographic data, mismatch negativity, and auditory brainstem response. In this study, we present HB data to demonstrate the feasibility of a sparse electrode EEG configuration to capture well-defined ERP waveforms from living subjects under very challenging field conditions. While living subjects displayed well-defined MMN and ABR responses, no recognizable EEG waveforms were discernable in any of the tukdam cases. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded (...) in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

Uterus transplantation is an emerging technology adding to the arsenal of treatments for infertility; specifically the only available treatment for uterine factor infertility. Ethical investigations concerning risks to uteri donors and transplant recipients have been discussed in the literature. However, missing from the discourse is the potential of uterus transplantation in other groups of genetically XY women who experience uterine factor infertility. There have been philosophical inquiries concerning uterus transplantation in genetically XY women, which includes transgender women and women with (...) complete androgen insufficiency syndrome. We discuss the potential medical steps necessary and associated risks for uterus transplantation in genetically XY women. Presently, the medical technology does not exist to make uterus transplantation a safe and effective option for genetically XY women, however this group should not be summarily excluded from participation in trials. Laboratory research is needed to better understand and reduce medical risk and widen the field to all women who face uterine factor infertility. (shrink)

Vector spaces over unspecified fields can be axiomatized as one-sorted structures, namely, abelian groups with the relation of parallelism. Parallelism is binary linear dependence. When equipped with the n-ary relation of linear dependence for some positive integer n, a vector-space is existentially closed if and only if it is n-dimensional over an algebraically closed field. In the signature with an n-ary predicate for linear dependence for each positive integer n, the theory of infinite-dimensional vector spaces over algebraically closed fields (...) is the model-completion of the theory of vector spaces. (shrink)

This is an introductory guide to the basic principles of constructing good arguments and criticizing bad ones. It is nontechnical in its approach, and is based on 150 key examples, each discussed and evaluated in clear, illustrative detail. The author explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound argument strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical questions for responding. Among the many subjects covered are: techniques of posing, (...) replying to, and criticizing questions, forms of valid argument, relevance, appeals to emotion, personal attack, uses and abuses of expert opinion, problems in deploying statistics, loaded terms, equivocation, and arguments from analogy. (shrink)

One of Chicago's great cultural achievements, the Institute of Design was among the most important schools of photography in twentieth-century America. It began as an outpost of experimental Bauhaus education and was home to an astonishing group of influential teachers and students, including Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind. To date, however, the ID's enormous contributions to the art and practice of photography have gone largely unexplored. Taken by Design is the first publication to examine thoroughly this remarkable institution (...) and its lasting impact. With nearly 300 illustrations, including many never-before published photographs, Taken by Design examines the changing nature of photography over this critical period in America's midcentury. It starts by documenting the experimental nature of Moholy's Bauhaus approach and photography's new and enhanced role in training the "complete designer." Next it traces the formal and abstract camera experiments under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, which aimed at achieving a new kind of photographic subjectivity. Finally, it highlights the ID's focus on conscious references to the processes of the photographic medium itself. In addition to photographs by Moholy, Callahan, and Siskind, the book showcases works by Barbara Crane, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Joseph Jachna, Kenneth Josephson, Gyorgy Kepes, Nathan Lerner, Ray K. Metzker, Richard Nickel, Arthur Siegel, Art Sinsabaugh, and many others. Major essays from experts in the field, biographies, a chronology, and reprints of critical essays are also included, making Taken by Design an essential work for anyone interested in the history of American photography. Contributors include: Keith Davis, Lloyd Engelbrecht, John Grimes, Nathan Lyons, Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Elizabeth Siegel, David Travis, Larry Viskochil, James N. Wood. (shrink)

Using a basic theorem from mathematical logic, I show that there are field-extensions ofRon which a class of orderings that do not admit any real-valued utility functions can be represented by uncountably large families of utility functions. These are the lexicographically decomposable orderings studied in Beardon et al. (2002a). A corollary to this result yields an uncountably large family of very simple utility functions for the lexicographic ordering of the real Cartesian plane. I generalise these results to the lexicographic (...) ordering of \mathbb{R}^n, for every n > 2, and to lexicographic products of lexicographically decomposable chains. I conclude by showing how almost all of these results may be obtained without any appeal to the Axiom of Choice. (shrink)

A model for the structure of point-like fermions as tightly bound composite states is described. The model is based upon the premise that electromagnetism is the only fundamental interaction. The fundamental entity of the model is an object called the vorton. Vortons are semiclassical monopole configurations of electromagnetic charge and field, constructed to satisfy Maxwell's equations. Vortons carry topological charge and one unit each of two different kinds of angular momenta, and are placed in magnetically bound pair states having (...) angular momentum l=1/2. The topological charge prevents the mutual annihilation of the vorton pair. The helicity eigenstates of the vortons' intrinsic angular momenta form the basis for a set of internal quantum numbers for the pair which distinguish the different (point-like) pair states. Sixteen fourcomponent spinor states, eight leptonic and eight hadronic, are obtained. Eleven of these are identified with the quantum numbers of the experimentally known particles: e, ve, μ, vμ, τ, vτ; p, n, Λ, Λc, and b. Thus one new heavy lepton with its neutrino and three new quark states are predicted. Some possibilities for the extension of this model are discussed. (shrink)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted on December 13, 2006, and entered into force on May 3, 2008, constitutes a key landmark in the emerging field of global health law and a critical milestone in the development of international law on the rights of persons with disabilities. At the time of its adoption, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights heralded the CRPD as a rejection of the understanding of persons with disabilities “as (...) objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection” and an embrace of disabled people as “subjects of rights.”The text of the Convention itself, and the highly participatory process by which it was negotiated, signal a definitive break from previous international approaches that focused on disability within a medical model framework. In contrast to traditional approaches, the CRPD embraces a social model of disability, concentrating the disability experience not in individual deficiency, but in the socially constructed environment and the barriers that impede the participation of persons with disabilities in society. (shrink)

Despite burgeoning interest in employee silence, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of (a) the antecedents of employee silence in organizations and (b) the implications of engaging in silence for employees. Using two experimental studies (Study 1a, N = 91; Study 1b, N = 152) and a field survey of full-time working adults (Study 2, N = 308), we examined overall justice as an antecedent of acquiescent (i.e., silence motivated by futility) and quiescent silence (i.e., silence motivated (...) by fear of sanctions). Across the studies, results indicated that overall justice is a significant predictor of both types of silence in organizations. Furthermore, Study 2 indicated that the implications of silence extend beyond the restriction of information flow in organizations to include employee outcomes. Specifically, acquiescent silence partially or fully mediated the relationship between overall justice perceptions and emotional exhaustion, psychological withdrawal, physical withdrawal, and performance. Quiescent silence partially mediated these relationships, with the exception of performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for both the justice and silence literatures are discussed. (shrink)

While there is a growing literature on “dark traits” (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first (...) draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and benefice... (shrink)

Stamos squarely confronts the problem of determining what a biological species is, whether species are real, and the nature of their reality. He critically considers the evolution of the major contemporary views of species and also offers his own solution to the species problem.

Stamos squarely confronts the problem of determining what a biological species is, whether species are real, and the nature of their reality. He critically considers the evolution of the major contemporary views of species and also offers his own solution to the species problem.

This book is designed to appeal both to those interested in Roman poetry and to specialists in ancient philosophy. In it David Sedley explores Lucretius ' complex relationship with Greek culture, in particular with Empedocles, whose poetry was the model for his own, with Epicurus, the source of his philosophical inspiration, and with the Greek language itself. He includes a detailed reconstruction of Epicurus' great treatise On Nature, and seeks to show how Lucretius worked with this as his sole (...) philosophical source, but gradually emancipated himself from its structure, transforming its raw contents into something radically new. By pursuing these themes, the book uncovers many unrecognised aspects of Lucretius ' methods and achievements as a poetic craftsman. (shrink)

Examines Darwin’s concept of species in a philosophical context.

Over the past decade much significant new work has appeared in the field of Jewish ethics. While much of this work has been devoted to issues in applied ethics, a number of important essays have explored central themes within the tradition and clarified the theoretical foundations of Jewish ethics. This important text grew out of the need for a single work which accurately and conveniently reflects these developments within the field. The first text of its kind in almost (...) two decades, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality presents wide-ranging and carefully organized recent essays on Jewish ethical theory and practice. Serving as an introduction to Jewish ethics, it acquaints the student with the distinctive methodological issues involved and offers a sampling of Jewish positions on contemporary moral problems. The book features work from both traditionalist and liberal contributors, making this the only volume which encompasses the full range of contemporary Jewish ethical perspectives. Writers such as Harold Schulweis, Judith Plaskow, David Novak, David Hartman, and Blu Greenberg discuss law and ethics, natural law, humility, justice, sex and the family, euthanasia, and other vital issues relating to modern Judaism. Many of the readings appear here for the first time, making this important text the most timely sourcebook in its field. Uniquely qualified to reflect the high level and depth of contemporary work in this area of study, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality is an essential contribution to any course dealing with Jewish ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu HsiDavid L. HallJohn Berthrong. Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu Hsi. SUNY Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. Pp. xvii + 254. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $24.50.Given the irenic and deferential tone of John Berthrong's prose in his Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu Hsi, his readers might (...) not readily suspect that an intellectual drama of real significance is being played out in its pages. In this brief review I will attempt to provide the outlines of that drama, and to assess Berthrong's directing skills.We begin with the rather startling fact that before the "Dictionary Supplement" to the 1971 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published, one would have searched that work in vain for the principal word in the title of Berthrong's book. The OED entry on "creativity" contains three illustrations of its use-one from a literary critic (1875) and the other two from A. N. Whitehead's Religion in the Making (1926).Berthrong is to be congratulated for recognizing, as most process thinkers have not, that Whitehead introduced not only a new word into our philosophical vocabulary but also a radically novel means of interpreting the world and our experience of it-one that answers to feelings and forms of understanding that have been seriously marginalized in the West. What this means, of course, is that Whitehead's understanding of "creativity" in terms of the spontaneous emergence of novelty requires a radical transvaluation and reconstruction of the nature and import of ontological speculations within the Western tradition. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Western philosophy simply lacks interpretative insights permitting a responsible elaboration of Whitehead's understanding of creativity. Berthrong must look beyond Western culture to find resources with which to defend [End Page 571] Whitehead's novel understanding of creativity properly against the criticisms of mainstream ontologists such as Robert Neville.It is Whitehead's placement of ontological issues within his speculative scheme against which Neville's criticisms are directed. And, as we shall see, it is this same issue that leads Berthrong to appeal to the Chinese Neo-Confucian Chu Hsi to defend Whitehead against Neville.It is important to recognize that by the time that Berthrong was awakened from the contented slumber of a Whiteheadian scholastic by Neville's Calvinesque critique, he was already expert in the mainstream thought of an alternative cultural milieu. While other champions of Whitehead's novel speculations have been forced to work within the Western philosophical tradition, Berthrong is able to access a tradition in which discussions of creativity as the spontaneous emergence of novelty employ terms such as ch'i ("matter-energy," "energizing field"), tzu-jan ("self-soing"), i ("change," "becoming"), and ch'eng ("self-actualization," "creativity") that did not come late to Chinese dictionaries. Neville is certainly familiar with Chinese philosophical thought, but he approached the Asian traditions in a serious manner only after his principal intuitions had been systematically articulated. Thus, while Berthrong looks to the Chinese Neo-Confucians for assistance in formulating Whitehead's defense, Neville expects these same thinkers to offer exemplifications of his own solidly wrought reflections. The consequence of this state of affairs is that, in his debate with Neville, Berthrong has the advantage of a somewhat greater flexibility.Berthrong's flexibility is demonstrated by his method of engaging his principal interlocutors. He employ's Wayne Booth's "coductive" method, which avoids dialectical sublation or analytic reduction in favor of the analogical correlations of concepts and doctrines. Coduction is essentially an ethos-based method expressed through conversations or debates that aim not at refutation or the establishment of a final view but at an enlargement of understanding leading to what Whitehead termed "wide intellectual tolerance."In his triangulation of Whitehead, Neville, and Chu Hsi, Berthrong provides accurate and balanced presentations of the pertinent ideas of each of the principals. He succinctly articulates Whitehead's understanding of the world as comprised by "actual entities," whose coming into being and passing away express the creative process that is the general... (shrink)

Aristotle claims in the Metaphysics that in order to be resourceful in first philosophic inquiry it is useful to go through perplexity well. In this essay, the author argues that that perplexity plays a parallel role in Aristotle’s account of practical, deliberative inquiry in the Nicomachean Ethics. He does so by offering an interpretation of the relation between Aristotle’s account of akratic ignorance in Nicomachean Ethics 7 and his emphasis on the necessity of going through perplexity when inquiring into akrasia. (...) Along the way, the author tries to shed some additional light on Aristotle’s conception of endoxa, his account of the so-called practical syllogism, and the distinction between ethical virtue simply and “authoritative” virtue. But the intention throughout the essay is to examine the role that perplexity about the phenomena of ethical life plays in Aristotle’s account of the kind of thoughtfulness required for excellence of character. (shrink)

Sophocles' Antigone contains the first recorded instance of the word αὑτ ό νομος, the source for our word “autonomous”. I argue that reflection upon the human aspiration toward autonomy is central to that work. I begin by focusing on the difficulty readers of the play have determining whether Antigone's actions in the play should be considered autonomous and then suggest that recognizing this difficulty is crucial to a proper understanding of the play. The very aspects of Antigone's character that seem (...) to militate against understanding her actions within the play as autonomous—her rejection of life, her intimacy with death and the way she seems defined by her incestuous heritage— serve to illustrate the inherently problematic character of a moral ideal that we can provisionally call Antigone's autonomy. I show how the movement of the play can be understood in terms of Antigone's progress from what Kant would characterize as a heteronomous representation of her irremissible duty to bury her dead brother, to a self-conception defined by a recognition and embrace of her autonomy understood as, in Kant's words, “a respect for something entirely different from life”. Antigone's autonomy is exemplified by her choice to be dead, the choice to bear the burden of responsibility to her own. This choice, I argue, must be understood as the choice of herself as defined by her obligation to her own. Sophocles' Antigone suggests that the moral ideal Antigone represents is unliveable, but that this ideal is nonetheless essential to human moral aspiration. (shrink)

In Freedom's Right Axel Honneth seeks to provide a theory of justice by appropriating Hegel's account of ethical substance in the Philosophy of Right, but he wants to do so without endorsing Hegel's more robust idealist commitments. I argue that this project can only succeed if Honneth can offer an alternative, comparatively robust demonstration of the rationality and normative coherence of existing social institutions. I contend that the grounds Honneth provides for this claim are insufficient for his purposes. In particular, (...) I argue that Honneth's claim that “justice and individual self-determination are mutually referential,” even were it to be accepted, would be insufficient to underwrite his more robust identification between the normative foundations of justice, autonomy and reciprocal self-realization. In the final section of the paper, I turn to Honneth's analysis of the “social institution” of friendship, which he, following Hegel, holds up as a paradigmatic instantiation of social freedom understood as, in Hegel's words, “being with oneself in another” . I argue that an analysis of the normative import of friendship wholly in terms of mutual recognition misses an important aspect of the kind of self-realization that friendship makes possible. (shrink)

This provocative text considers whether evolutionary explanations can be used to clarify some of life’s biggest questions. Examines topics of race, sex, gender, the nature of language, religion, ethics, knowledge, consciousness and ultimately, the meaning of life Each chapter presents a main topic, together with discussion of related ideas and arguments from various perspectives Addresses questions such as: Did evolution make men and women fundamentally different? Is the concept of race merely a social construction? Is morality, including universal human rights, (...) a mass delusion? Can religion and evolution really be harmonized? Does evolution render life meaningless? Written in a clear and informative style, with helpful references for further reading and research. (shrink)

This provocative text considers whether evolutionary explanations can be used to clarify some of life’s biggest questions. Examines topics of race, sex, gender, the nature of language, religion, ethics, knowledge, consciousness and ultimately, the meaning of life Each chapter presents a main topic, together with discussion of related ideas and arguments from various perspectives Addresses questions such as: Did evolution make men and women fundamentally different? Is the concept of race merely a social construction? Is morality, including universal human rights, (...) a mass delusion? Can religion and evolution really be harmonized? Does evolution render life meaningless? Written in a clear and informative style, with helpful references for further reading and research. (shrink)

In addition to the distinction between species as a category and speciesas a taxon, the word species is ambiguous in a very different butequally important way, namely the temporal distinction between horizontal andvertical species. Although often found in the relevant literature, thisdistinction has thus far remained vague and undefined. In this paper the use ofthe distinction is explored, an attempt is made to clarify and define it, andthen the relation between the two dimensions and the implications of thatrelation are examined. (...) Using Darwin's analogy of language evolution forspeciesevolution, and by appealing to a major change in the conception of languagebetween 19th- and 20th-century linguistics, it is argued that the horizontaldimension has priority (pragmatic, epistemological, logical, and ontological)over the vertical dimension. This has immense ramifications for the modernspecies problem. Fundamentally, it favors horizontal species concepts oververtical ones. In so doing it places species realism on a much more securefoundation and largely undercuts species pluralism. In addition it raises aserious problem for the increasingly popular family of phylogenetic speciesconcepts, which generally suffer from a dimensionality confusion. However,thereis a recent trend within this family that attempts to restore the priority ofthe horizontal dimension. It is concluded that this trend should be affirmedandthat the species-as-individuals view should be abandoned. (shrink)

This is the compelling story of one of the most fascinating thinkers of the twentieth century- a richly toned portrait of a modern-day Thoreau.

In this book, David McNeill illuminates Plato’s distinctive approach to philosophy by examining how his literary portrayal of Socrates manifests an essential interdependence between philosophic and ethical inquiry. In particular, McNeill demonstrates how Socrates’s confrontation with profound ethical questions about his public philosophic activity is the key to understanding the distinctively mimetic, dialogic, and reflexive character of Socratic philosophy. Taking a cue from Nietzsche’s account of “the problem of Socrates,” McNeill shows how the questions Nietzsche raises are questions that, (...) in Plato's depiction, Socrates was aware of and responded to. McNeill also shows how the Republic provides a view of Socratic moral psychology that resembles Nietzsche’s account of human psychology: it deals with the internalized ethical narratives and justificatory schemes through which human beings orient themselves to their world. McNeill argues that this moral psychology not only determines Socrates’s explicit account of different character types and political regimes but also crucially informs his dialectical engagements with his various interlocutors in the dialogues. In addition to contributing a unique perspective to current debates about Socrates’s philosophic methods and the significance of the literary character of Plato’s dialogues, the book offers a far-reaching interpretation of Plato’s presentation of the theoretical and practical activities of the fifth-century Sophists. And in showing how Plato responds to “modern” theoretical challenges, McNeill provides new evidence to question standard views of the differences between ancient and modern conceptions of the self, society, and nature. (shrink)

Bioethics, once a four-letter word in the private sector, is now an integral part of the decisionmaking process of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. And bioethicists, once confined to the classroom and limited to abstract, philosophical discussions about what is right and wrong in medicine and medical research, now play an important role in the practical implementation of ethical boundaries. Bioethicists increasingly are hired by biomedical companies as consultants to highlight and help resolve complex ethical issues that arise in the companies’ (...) normal business practices. Whether motivated by profit, reputation, or a genuine desire to act morally, these companies are willing to pay bioethicists substantial consultation fees for their “expert” opinions. This fairly recent phenomenon has caused some to be concerned about the potential for bioethicists to encounter conflicts of interests. Specifically, many critics of this new relationship between bioethicists and the private sector “are concerned about the appropriateness of ethicists who should have broader interests, such as concerns about social justice, serving clients whose primary interest is profit-maximizing.”. (shrink)