Kamm’s response to Tse’s comments deals with the following issues (among others): (1)the relevance of empirical facts to moral arguments about physician assisted suicide (PAS); (2) the moral relevance of the difference between foreseen risk and certainty of death as well as the difference between certain death and immediate death; (3) whether intention matters to the permissibility of giving morphine for pain relief (MPR) and whether objective factors can be the same whether one intends MPR or death in giving morphine; (...) (4) the relevance of the permissibility of MPR or terminating life-saving treatment for the permissibility of PAS. (shrink)

In this paper, I will defend a strategy for employing perfect being theology that Jeff Speaks calls “restriction strategy.” In Section I, I will outline what the restriction strategy is and explicate Speaks’s objection to it. In Section II, I will propose a response to Speaks’s objection. In Section III, the response will be refined to avoid objections. My contention will be that this refined version of perfect being theology avoids Speaks’s objection, and therefore can help theists find what divine (...) attributes God has. (shrink)

This article reviews the edited volume “Evolvability: A Unifying Concept in Evolutionary Biology?” through biological and philosophical lenses. The book provides diverse angles on evolvability, which is affected by various hierarchical levels, timescales, and types of variation, thus moving beyond a purely genomics perspective. Evolvability is important to biosemiotics because understanding the dynamics of topological genotype spaces could help one better comprehend the phenotypic spaces of meaning, as developmental codes and interrelations can influence the emergence of biological novelty over time. (...) This book is successful in provoking thought on evolvability's role as both a product and a driver of evolutionary innovations and explores the philosophical implications of how evolution has the capacity to generate novel forms of meaning. (shrink)

Delineation of the subthalamic nuclei on MRI is critical for deep brain stimulation surgery in patients with Parkinson’s disease. We propose this retrospective cohort study for quantitative analysis of MR signal-to-noise ratio, contrast, and signal difference-to-noise ratio of the STN on pre-operative three-dimensional stereotactic MRI in patients with medication-refractory PD. Forty-five consecutive patients with medication-refractory PD who underwent STN-DBS surgery in our hospital from January 2018 to June 2021 were included in this study. All patients had whole-brain 3D MRI, including (...) T2-weighted imaging, T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, and susceptibility-weighted imaging, at 3.0 T scanner for stereotactic navigation. The signal intensities of the STN, corona radiata, and background noise were obtained after placing regions of interest on corresponding structures. Quantitative comparisons of SNR, contrast, and SDNR of the STN between MR pulse sequences, including the T2WI, FLAIR, and SWI. Subgroup analysis regarding patients’ sex, age, and duration of treatment. We used one-way repeated measures analysis of variance for quantitative comparisons of SNR, contrast, and SDNR of the STN between different MR pulse sequences, and we also used the dependent t-test for the post hoc tests. In addition, we used Mann–Whitney U test for subgroup analyses. Both the contrast and SDNR were highest on FLAIR. The SNR was highest on SWI, and both the SNR and SDNR were lowest on T2WI. Subgroup analyses demonstrated significantly lower SDNR on SWI for patients receiving medication treatment for ≥13 years. In conclusion, on 3D stereotactic MRI of medication-refractory PD patients, the contrast and SDNR for the STN are highest on FLAIR, suggesting the optimal delineation of STN on FLAIR. (shrink)

Many research ethics guidelines now oblige researchers to offer research participants the results of research in which they participated. This practice is intended to uphold respect for persons and ensure that participants are not treated as mere means to an end. Yet some scholars have begun to question a generalised duty to disclose research results, highlighting the potential harms arising from disclosure and questioning the ethical justification for a duty to disclose, especially with respect to individual results. In support of (...) this view, we argue that current rationales for a duty of disclosure do not form an adequate basis for an ethical imperative. We review policy guidance and scholarly commentary regarding the duty to communicate the results of biomedical, epidemiological and genetic research to research participants and show that there is wide variation in opinion regarding what should be disclosed and under what circumstance. Moreover, we argue that there is fundamental confusion about the notion of “research results,” specifically regarding three core concepts: the distinction between aggregate and individual results, amongst different types of research, and across different degrees of result veracity. Even where policy guidance and scholarly commentary have been most forceful in support of an ethical imperative to disclose research results, ambiguity regarding what is to be disclosed confounds ethical action. (shrink)

The title of this symposium, “Formal Simplicity as a Weight in the Acceptability of Scientific Theories,” to some people might seem to suggest that we are to be making positive proposals about how the concept of simplicity could be defined for formalized languages, defined so as to figure in a formalized theory of confirmation. I must confess at the start that I do not have any such ambitious object in view. I now feel, indeed, that premature formalizations have little power (...) to illuminate the philosophically interesting questions which cluster round the problem of the role of simplicity in scientific thinking. So in this short paper I wish merely to present some elementary considerations, not very novel ones, concerning the role which simplicity seems to me to play in our non-demonstrative reasoning about matters of empirical fact. Although many writers have sought to analyze the logical character of such reasoning, little unanimity has been attained in their over-all views; thus it is that though the considerations which I wish to present are elementary, they are not wholly uncontroversial. But because these matters are elementary in nature, I do feel it appropriate in discussing them to use homely examples of uncomplicated kinds, rather than elaborate examples drawn from the more sophisticated reaches of scientific theory; in doing so, I am taking it for granted that scientific inference as regards its logical character is fundamentally a refinement of everyday thinking, rather than a procedure of some essentially different nature. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We combine prior research on ethical decision-making in organizations with a rational choice theory of corporate crime from criminology to develop a model of corporate offending that is tested with a sample of U.S. managers. Despite demands for increased sanctioning of corporate offenders, we find that the threat of legal action does not directly affect the likelihood of misconduct. Managers’ evaluations of the ethics of the act, measured using a multidimensional ethics scale, have a significant effect, as do outcome expectancies (...) that result from being associated with the misconduct but not facing formal sanctions. The threat of formal sanctions appears to operate indirectly, influencing ethical evaluations and outcome expectancies. Obedience to authority also affects illegal intentions, with managers reporting higher prospective offending when they are ordered to engage in misconduct by a supervisor. (shrink)

The people of classical Athens did not regard suicide as a crime committed by the victim. Instead, the Athenians regarded suicide as a crime committed by the instrument that the victim used, or by the victim's hand as opposed to the victim himself. This non-human agent was culpable, just like non-human agents were blamed for accidental deaths. Although suicide victims were innocent, inanimate agents were guilty. In Sophocles'Ajax, for example, the sword that the hero turned upon himself was blamed for (...) his death. The Athenian response to suicide was more about objects than it was about people. (shrink)

An updated and extended second edition supporting the findings of its well-known predecessor which claimed that courts employ common-sense notions of causation in determining legal responsibility.

First published in 1931 and originally delivered as the Deems Lectures at New York University in 1929, this book examines what scientific discoveries in many different branches of science reveal, and the implications of such discoveries for philosophy. Esteemed philosopher F. S. C. Northrop surveys a variety of advances, including relativity and quantum mechanics, and how they correlate to his epistemological theory of concepts. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of science and (...) the connection between science and philosophy. (shrink)

The present essay is organized into five main sections. We begin with a few preliminary remarks about "cloud computing," which are developed more fully in a later section. This is followed by a brief overview of the evolution of Helen Nissenbaum's framework of "privacy as contextual integrity." In particular, we examine Nissenbaum's "Decision Heuristic" model, described in her most recent work on privacy, to see how it enables the contextual-integrity framework to respond to privacy challenges posed by new and emerging (...) technologies. We then apply that heuristic device to questions surrounding one aspect of cloud computing -- viz., "cloud storage" technology. In particular, we focus on current practices affecting Google Docs as an instance of a cloud-storage system. (shrink)