This paper provides a retrospective and prospective overview of TU Delft’s approach to engineering ethics education. For over twenty years, the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section at TU Delft has been at the forefront of engineering ethics education, offering education to a wide range of engineering and design students. The approach developed at TU Delft is deeply informed by the research of the Section, which is centered around Responsible Research and Innovation, Design for Values, and Risk Ethics. These theoretical (...) approaches are premised on the notion that technologies are inherently value-laden, and as such contain the possibility of fostering or hindering moral values. Each of these approaches encourages students to take a proactive attitude with respect to their projects and profession, thinking creatively about – and taking responsibility for – how to both prevent harm and do good via the technologies they help develop. To explain how this is put into practice, this paper sketches a brief history of ethics teaching at TU Delft, outlines current activities, and presents future plans for Bachelor and Master’s level engineering ethics education at TU Delft. (shrink)

Considering the vast amount that has been written about "explanation" and "human action," one wonders what remains to be said. But this book is distinguished by the radicalness of the author's point of view. An alternative title might have been, Is Social Science Based On a Mistake? The answer here is an insistent yes. Surveying the social sciences, including psychology, sociology, political science, economics, etc., Louch argues that these disciplines are involved in radical conceptual confusions. The chief difficulty stems from (...) the misguided attempt to impose a univocal theory of generalized explanation on human action. Adapting techniques of Ryle, Austin, and Wittgenstein, Louch argues that "explanation" is a family of cases where there are many types of irreducibly different puzzles and paradigms. Furthermore, in his polemical dismissal of the social sciences, Louch argues that the view of human nature that they foster has pernicious social and moral consequences. The primary reason why human action eludes the distortions of social scientists is because description and explanation of action is possible only by means of moral categories. The concept of human action is itself a moral category where "assessment" terms are essential for its description. While the book is rich in suggestions, too often polemic obscures the need for careful statement and analysis.—-R. J. B. (shrink)

Treatises of this length and care are rarely written today and in the course of Cumming's explorations there is an enormous richness of insight, commentary, and analysis of the history of liberal thought. But at the same time, it is difficult to keep the main themes of this study in clear focus. One gets the impression that Cumming originally set out to understand liberal thought as expressed by John Stuart Mill and found himself digging into origins. Dig he does, taking (...) into account in his intellectual journey through Western Civilization: Polybius, Cicero, Augustine, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Bentham, James Mill and many others along the way. One can learn a great deal about this western political tradition by following Cumming's patient explications and critiques. In the foreground is always John Stuart Mill and at times Cumming fosters the misimpression that Mill culminates this entire tradition. Yet Cumming's attitude toward Mill is strangely ambivalent and toward the end of this study, Cumming seems to be more fascinated with the stages of Mill's development and his mental crisis rather than with the integrity and coherence of his political philosophy. Liberal political thought has recently come in for a severe polemical thrashing and Cumming's study might have been a detailed, eloquent defense of this tradition. But the study is deficient in attempting to show how liberal thought can directly meet the numerous criticisms that have been raised from many sides. In the preface, Cumming reports that the manuscript was on the way to the typesetters during the upheaval at Columbia when police arrived on campus. This episode symbolizes the strange feeling one has that the book is dated by the time it appeared. Despite its weaknesses as an apology for liberal thought, it excels in making us sensitive to its long and vital history.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Kolakowski, who was born in 1927, has long been known as one of the most original and exciting post-Stalinist Polish intellectuals. And this collection of essays show why he deserves this reputation. There is wit, irony, insight, and radical critique evidenced throughout. His discussion of "Karl Marx and the Classical Definition of Truth" provides a fresh, provocative, and fascinating interpretation of Marx's epistemology. His criticism of Stalinist Marxism and the analogies he draws with the history of theology are among the (...) most intelligent and incisive criticisms developed. There is a theme that runs throughout these essays--it is the theme of the individual's moral responsibility in contemporary society. His criticism of orthodoxy including Marxist orthodoxy is pervaded by the spirit of rational criticism that preserves and fosters the best in the Marxist tradition. The book unfortunately lacks a badly needed introduction and there are no bibliographical references for many of the papers.--R. J. B. (shrink)

With the increased tensions and frustrations created and fostered by the strains of life in a technological society, combined with an alarming loss of a sense of the dimensions of depth and transcendence in our lives, many people are turning to various types of group sensitivity training programs or meditation groups in hopes of relieving those tensions and finding more effective ways to cope with the demands of life. This book serves both as a study of and a manual for (...) "meditation." Its real merit is that it lacks the sort of pseudo-magical cant that one is accustomed to find in books on the occult. The author refuses to promise the reader a quick-and-easy road to happiness and financial success and instead, plots out a difficult and demanding program of reflection and mental discipline which if followed will foster the spiritual and intellectual progress that is needful to enrich our daily lives. Initiatory teachings for the novice concerning the nature and workings of the mind; the origin and control of the mental processes ; human destiny and the highest aims of life, are accompanied by a logical and scientific exposition of those exercises needed for the development of the meditative processes.--J. B. L. (shrink)

This is an engaging book on a subject which most people in our culture assume went out of fashion long ago. The book had its genesis in one of a series of symposia convened by the Church Society for College Work of Cambridge to explore certain themes and ideas which have great import for our time. The various authors of the essays eschew the habit of viewing Transcendence as the traditional content of metaphysical arguments or revelatory statements about the nature (...) of God outside or independent of the world and seek for signs of the possibility of achieving a renewed sense of Transcendence in the domains of inner experience, history, culture, language, science, technology, and the arts. Huston Smith suggests two options of human fulfillment: psychological and ontological, both providing a kind of transcendence of self and society. He refuses to accept one and reject the other but instead to convince us that both are legitimate. M. Murphy claims that the experience of psychological and social transcendence can be fostered by educational projects such as encounter groups, gestalt therapy workshops and sensitivity training programs. In his "Manifesto for a Dionysian Theology," Sam Keen analyzes the Apollonian way of reasoning and planning which has come to dominate in Western culture and makes a plea for a reassertion of the Dionysian principle in religion which might be expressive of life as dance, centrality of feelings and sensations, a pantheistic conception of God and a theology of play. Harvey Cox asserts that our society has lost its capacity for utopian fantasy resulting in the inability to conceive of any world which is not a mere modification or extension of our own world. He suggests that we consciously become "fools for Christ" again and give full rein to our powers of creative fantasizing even at the risk of contracting "religious madness." Donald Schon urges post-modern man to give up hope for achieving a stable political order and to develop an "ethic for change" appropriate to the demands of our society where change is all-pervasive. Essays by R. Bellah and H. Richardson explore myths of transcendence as ordering structures in society and plead for increased attention to correspondences among the disciplines of theology, sociology, and psychology. E. Fackenheim and W. Kaufman seek to clarify the notion of transcendence in Judaism and Christianity respectively and to "clear the way for a positive revelation." In keeping with the shared notion that transcendent reality is present and active within the human process, two eminent process philosophers, Wieman and Hartshorne discuss the "implications for a concept of transcendence that follows from affirming the creative freedom of man." The essays singly and together reject the notion that the existence and nature of transcendent reality can be arrived at by pursuing a single line of argumentation to its bitter end and instead they work together from various points of view to reinforce our sense of man's renewed thirst for the Divine and the subsequent rediscovery of God's uninterrupted presence within the world of "Immanent Possibility."--J. B. L. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Herdt's Putting On Virtue has two chief aims. The first is to champion the virtue tradition against Christian moral quietism and modern deontological ethics. The second is to facilitate reconciliation between Augustinian and Emersonian virtue. To accomplish these tasks Herdt constructs a counter-narrative to Schneewind's Invention of Autonomy, in which Luther's resignation and Kant's innovation are tragic consequences of “hyper-Augustinianism”—a competitive conception of divine and human agency, which leads to excessive suspicion of acquired virtue. This review argues that Putting On (...) Virtue succeeds in its first aim but leaves its second intriguingly uncompleted. Despite this deficiency, however, this essay also argues that Putting On Virtue makes plausible Herdt's audacious suggestion that Augustinian and Emersonian perfectionism may be reconciled by bringing acquired and infused virtue under a single term. (shrink)

© 2016 Regents of the University of California.The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 3,062 new measurements from 721 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. All the particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We also give numerous (...) tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 117 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including those on Pentaquarks and Inflation. The complete Review is published online in a journal and on the website of the Particle Data Group. The printed PDG Book contains the Summary Tables and all review articles but no longer includes the detailed tables from the Particle Listings. A Booklet with the Summary Tables and abbreviated versions of some of the review articles is also available. (shrink)

Kolakowski, who was born in 1927, has long been known as one of the most original and exciting post-Stalinist Polish intellectuals. And this collection of essays show why he deserves this reputation. There is wit, irony, insight, and radical critique evidenced throughout. His discussion of "Karl Marx and the Classical Definition of Truth" provides a fresh, provocative, and fascinating interpretation of Marx's epistemology. His criticism of Stalinist Marxism and the analogies he draws with the history of theology are among the (...) most intelligent and incisive criticisms developed. There is a theme that runs throughout these essays--it is the theme of the individual's moral responsibility in contemporary society. His criticism of orthodoxy including Marxist orthodoxy is pervaded by the spirit of rational criticism that preserves and fosters the best in the Marxist tradition. The book unfortunately lacks a badly needed introduction and there are no bibliographical references for many of the papers.--R. J. B. (shrink)

The use of placebo as a control condition in clinical trials of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders continues to be an area of ethical concern. Typically, opponents of placebo controls argue that they violate the beneficent-based, “best proven diagnostic and therapeutic method” that the original Helsinki Declaration of 1964 famously asserted participants are owed. A more consequentialist, oppositional argument is that participants receiving placebo might suffer enormously by being deprived of their usual medication(s). Nevertheless, recent findings of potential for (...) suicidality in young people treated with antidepressants, along with meta-analyses suggesting that antidepressants add no significant clinical benefit over placebos, warrant a re-evaluation of the arguments against placebo. Furthermore, the nature of placebo treatment in short-term clinical trials is often not well understood, and lack of understanding can foster opposition to it. This paper will show how scientific justifications for placebo use are morally relevant. The fundamental ethical importance of placebo controls is discussed in relation to several aspects of clinical trials, including detection of adverse events, accurate assessment of clinical benefit, advancing understanding of the heterogeneity of depression and anxiety disorders and respecting informed consent requirements. Prohibiting the use of placebo controls is morally concerning in that such prohibitions allow for the possibility of serious adverse public health consequences. Moral worries that research participants receiving placebo are being unduly jeopardised will be shown to be exaggerated, especially in relation to the net benefits for end-users to be gained from the quality of data resulting from using placebo controls. (shrink)

A cross-cultural survey experiment revealed a dominant tendency to rely on a rule’s letter over its spirit when deciding which behaviors violate the rule. This tendency varied markedly across (k = 15) countries, owing to variation in the impact of moral appraisals on judgments of rule violation. Compared with laypeople, legal experts were more inclined to disregard their moral evaluations of the acts altogether and consequently exhibited stronger textualist tendencies. Finally, we evaluated a plausible mechanism for the emergence of textualism: (...) in a two-player coordination game, incentives to coordinate in the absence of communication reinforced participants’ adherence to rules’ literal meaning. Together, these studies (total n = 5,794) help clarify the origins and allure of textualism, especially in the law. Within heterogeneous communities in which members diverge in their moral appraisals involving a rule’s purpose, the rule’s literal meaning provides a clear focal point—an identifiable point of agreement enabling coordinated interpretation among citizens, lawmakers, and judges. (shrink)

Some of the most imaginative analyses in contemporary science have been fostered by the paradox of irreversibility. Rendered as a question the paradox reads: How can the anisotropic macrophysical behavior of a system of molecules be reconciled with the underlying reversible molecular model? Attempts to resolve and dissolve the paradox have appealed to large numbers of particles, jammed correlations, unseen perturbations, hidden variables or constraints, uncertainty principles, averaging procedures (e.g., coarse graining and time smoothing), stochastic flaws, cosmological origins, etc. While (...) acknowledging these efforts as important articulations of basic ideas of statistical mechanics, we question their relevance to irreversibility as it occurs in nature. It seems to us that once the emergence of the phenomenon of equilibrium is understood in terms of molecular dynamics, the macroscopic appearance of irreversibility can also be understood in terms of the frequency of forced withdrawals from young equilibria. We believe that the paradox of irreversibility can be resolved in a simple, logically clear, and aesthetically pleasing manner. (shrink)

Growing evidence suggests that natural environments – whether in outdoor or indoor settings – foster psychological health and physiological relaxation, indicated by increased wellbeing, reduced stress levels, and increased parasympathetic activity. Greater insight into differential psychological aspects modulating psychophysiological responses to nature-based relaxation videos could help understand modes of action and develop personalized relaxation interventions. We investigated heart rate variability as an indicator of autonomic regulation, specifically parasympathetic activity, in response to a 10-min video intervention in two consecutive studies (...) as well as heart rate. We hypothesized that a nature-based relaxation video elicits HRV increase and HR decrease, with response magnitude being affected by aspects of early life adversity and trait mindfulness. In Study 1, N = 60 participants watched a relaxation video intervention depicting different natural scenery. We analyzed changes in HR and respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a standard HRV measure, both based on 3-min segments from the experimental session, in multiple growth curve models. We found a decrease in HR and increase of RSA during the video intervention. Higher paternal care and lower trait mindfulness observing skills were associated with higher RSA values before but not during video exposure. In Study 2, N = 90 participants were assigned to three video conditions: natural scenery from Study 1, meditation video, or short clip from “The Lord of the Rings.” Again, HR decreased, and RSA increased during video segments, yet without expected group differences across different video types. We found higher parental care and lower parental overprotection to predict higher RSA at different times during the experiment. Interestingly, lower paternal overprotection predicted overall higher RSA. These results suggest a generic relaxation effect of video interventions on autonomic regulation that we discuss in light of different theories mapping restorative effects of natural environments. Further, psychological characteristics like aspects of early life adversity and trait mindfulness could contribute to individual differences in autonomic regulation. This study contributes to a better understanding of autonomic and psychological responses to relaxation videos. (shrink)

A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects (...) of the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research. (shrink)

Various authors see human flourishing as the overarching aim to which education should contribute. We ask whether fostering _wonder_ can help education attain this aim. We discuss two possibilities: firstly, it may be that having a sense of wonder as adults (possibly fostered by and/or refined due to education) contributes to flourishing itself. Secondly, it may be that fostering wonder in education increases the likelihood that education promotes flourishing, which it might do simply by increasing children’s intrinsic interest in what (...) they learn. We argue that there are many plausible connections between wonder and human flourishing (relating to its epistemic and aesthetic dimensions, among others), and that we have reason to believe that early experiences can influence adults’ capacity for wonder. Furthermore, wonder increases the likelihood that education ‘succeeds’; and it supports people’s ability to live well by heightening their appreciation for the world, helping to uncover baseless beliefs, and increasing their awareness of possible goods. In sum, while having a sense of wonder may not be a constitutive element of human flourishing, it is hard to imagine education for human flourishing that is not also wonder-full education. (shrink)

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

BackgroundPeople with upper extremity amputations report receiving insufficient information about treatment options. Furthermore, patients commonly report not knowing what questions to ask providers. A question prompt sheet, or list of questions, can support patient-centered care by empowering patients to ask questions important to them, promoting patient-provider communication, and increasing patient knowledge. This study assessed information needs among people with UE amputations about UE vascularized composite allotransplantation and developed a UE VCA-QPS.MethodsThis multi-site, cross-sectional, mixed-methods study involved in-depth and semi-structured interviews with (...) people with UE amputations to assess information needs and develop a UE VCA-QPS. Qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis; quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The initial UE VCA-QPS included 130 items across 18 topics.ResultsEighty-nine people with UE amputations participated. Most were male, had a mean age of 46 years, and had a unilateral and below-elbow amputation. Participants desired information about UE VCA eligibility, evaluation process, surgery, risks, rehabilitation, and functional outcomes. After refinement, the final UE VCA-QPS included 35 items, across 9 topics. All items were written at a ≤ 6th grade reading level. Most semi-structured interview participants reported being ‘completely’ or ‘very’ likely to use a UE VCA-QPS.ConclusionPeople with UE amputations have extensive information needs about UE VCA. The UE VCA-QPS aims to address patients’ information needs and foster patient-centered care. Future research should assess whether the UE VCA-QPS facilitates patient-provider discussion and informed decision-making for UE VCA. (shrink)

It is generally believed that the uncertainty relation Δq Δp≥1/2ħ, where Δq and Δp are standard deviations, is the precise mathematical expression of the uncertainty principle for position and momentum in quantum mechanics. We show that actually it is not possible to derive from this relation two central claims of the uncertainty principle, namely, the impossibility of an arbitrarily sharp specification of both position and momentum (as in the single-slit diffraction experiment), and the impossibility of the determination of the path (...) of a particle in an interference experiment (such as the double-slit experiment).The failure of the uncertainty relation to produce these results is not a question of the interpretation of the formalism; it is a mathematical fact which follows from general considerations about the widths of wave functions.To express the uncertainty principle, one must distinguish two aspects of the spread of a wave function: its extent and its fine structure. We define the overall widthW Ψ and the mean peak width wψ of a general wave function ψ and show that the productW Ψ w φ is bounded from below if φ is the Fourier transform of ψ. It is shown that this relation expresses the uncertainty principle as it is used in the single- and double-slit experiments. (shrink)

We discuss some recent work by Tim Maudlin concerning Black Hole Information Loss. We argue, contra Maudlin, that there is a paradox, in the straightforward sense that there are propositions that appear true, but which are incompatible with one another. We discuss the significance of the paradox and Maudlin's response to it.

We show a sense in which the spacetime property of effective completeness—a type of “local hole-freeness” or “local inextendibility”—is not stable.

Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information this book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the of the 29th International Workshop on Logic, Language, Information, and Computation, WoLLIC 2023, held in Halifax, NS, Canada, during July 11–14, 2023. The 24 full papers (21 contributed, 3 invited) included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. The book also contains the abstracts for the 7 invited talks and 4 tutorials presented at WoLLIC 2023. The (...) WoLLIC conference series aims at fostering interdisciplinary research in pure and applied logic. (shrink)

Tort claims have been studied for various reasons. Several studies have found that most tort claims are not related to negligent adverse events and most negligent adverse events do not result in tort claims. Several studies have examined the disposition of tort claims to understand the likelihood of payment once a claim has been made. Still others have proposed that tort-claims trend analysis may help administrators target their quality-improvement efforts and identify problems with quality that would not otherwise be captured.In (...) this article, we conduct a tort-claims analysis to explore areas for quality improvement, specifically for patient safety, in the Veterans Health Administration. Patient safety is an increasingly highlighted aspect of health-care delivery. Failure to assure patient safety can result in bad clinical outcomes, additional costs of care, and a negative organizational image. Filing a tort claim is one way for an individual to express concern about an organization. For our analysis, we draw from resolved tort claims in the Veterans Health Administration from fiscal years 1989 to 2000. (shrink)

Prior thinks that Edwards' argument depends on a metaphysical turn of phrase. Edwards, he says, subsumes "all happenings, or anyhow... all changes, under the idea of the 'beginning to be' either of concrete objects or of abstract ones". We are not to say, "My head began to ache," we are to say, "My headache began to exist." The shift may seem trivial, but actually it is "of the very first importance": Edwards' argument "depends on it." The reason is the following. (...) Edwards says that objects or substances cannot begin to be without a cause; that if they could, it would be prima facie implausible to hold that substances of only one kind, of all the millions of kinds of substance, should causelessly come to be; and that the implausibility cannot be removed by appealing to the nature of what thus comes to be, because until it actually exists there is nothing there to explain anything. Prior agrees with all that. But he holds that it is not impossible that some already existing substances should have a special kind of property which would make it possible for them to change or act causelessly. Of course, if we have to say that a change or an act is just another kind of coming to be of a substance, this too is impossible. Hence Prior thinks that by showing that changes and acts need not be construed as Edwards construes them, he will have made room for the possibility of limited indeterminism. (shrink)

Now it is tempting to try to generalize the view that means-ends considerations play a part in determining what is the right theory. It is tempting, that is, to try to use a similar view to give an account of the nature of truth or knowledge quite generally. For can we not say that truth is simply what we ought to believe, and that knowledge is what we are justified in believing? After all, terms like "true," "false," "probable," "doubtful," "known," (...) "believed," and so on, are not merely descriptive terms. They are used to evaluate the degree to which a belief or proposition is one which we ought to accept. And if in the case of so important an area of human knowledge as scientific theory what we ought to accept is determined in large part by means-ends considerations, may it not be true that in other areas of human knowledge means-ends considerations have a similar function? Perhaps it would even be possible to define truth, or knowledge, in terms of what serves some end or purpose. (shrink)