One of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals is to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030. This goal will be missed. Global hunger is still highly prevalent. In 2021, about 821 million people experience undernourishment every day and more are at risk. Is this necessary? This article calculates the investments needed for both acute and sustainable systems to alleviate food insecurity and decrease global caloric deficits. These economic values are then contextualized by comparing funds spent by (...) individuals and governments on unnecessary or counterproductive products. The results show that divergence of even small fractions of these funds from food waste, tobacco, alcohol, or weapons within the U.S. alone could supplement the caloric needs of those in areas with high levels of food insecurity. America’s net-negative industries whose advertisements and sales could be taxed to improve America’s life expectancy could fund the yearly cost to feed anywhere from 17.1% to 1,467.9% of malnourished people directly, or contribute more than 100% of the estimated cost to sustainably end global hunger. It is concluded that reallocating funds that are detrimental to the U.S. population is a path to achieving food security and sustainable food production for the entire globe. (shrink)

Joshua Greene and Peter Singer argue, on the basis of empirical evidence, that deontological moral judgments result from emotional reactions while dispassionate reasoning leads to consequentialist judgments. Given that there are good reasons to doubt these emotionally driven intuitions, they argue that we should reject Kantian ethics. I argue that the evidence does not support the claim that consequentialism is inherently more reason-based or less emotion-based than Kantian ethics. This is partly because the experiments employ a functional definition of (...) ‘deontological’ that is so broad as to include any non-consequentialist theory, including virtue ethics, divine command theory, and even rule-utilitarianism. Thus the experiments failed to capture the reasons behind the judgments. Also, the results of the experiments are partly due to the extensive use of moral dilemmas like the footbridge version of the trolley scenario. The options in these dilemmas involve different levels of moral thinking. The consequ.. (shrink)

Seminal work in moral neuroscience by Joshua Greene and colleagues employed variants of the well-known trolley problems to identify two brain networks which compete with each other to determine moral judgments. Greene interprets the tension between these brain networks using a dual process account which pits deliberative reason against automatic emotion-driven intuitions: reason versus passion. Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests, however, that the critical tension that Greene identifies as playing a role in moral judgment is not so much a tension (...) between reason and passion, but a tension between distinct forms of deliberative reasoning: analytic versus empathetic. In this paper we present results from several new studies supporting this alternative hypothesis. (shrink)

As COVID-19 spread, clinicians warned of mental illness epidemics within the coronavirus pandemic. Funding for digital mental health is surging and researchers are calling for widespread adoption to address the mental health sequalae of COVID-19. -/- We consider whether these technologies improve mental health outcomes and whether they exacerbate existing health inequalities laid bare by the pandemic. We argue the evidence for efficacy is weak and the likelihood of increasing inequalities is high. -/- First, we review recent trends in digital (...) mental health. Next, we turn to the clinical literature to show that many technologies proposed as a response to COVID-19 are unlikely to improve outcomes. Then, we argue that even evidence-based technologies run the risk of increasing health disparities. We conclude by suggesting that policymakers should not allocate limited resources to the development of many digital mental health tools and should focus instead on evidence-based solutions to address mental health inequalities. (shrink)

It has been standard philosophical practice in analytic philosophy to employ intuitions generated in response to thought-experiments as evidence in the evaluation of philosophical claims. In part as a response to this practice, an exciting new movement—experimental philosophy—has recently emerged. This movement is unified behind both a common methodology and a common aim: the application of methods of experimental psychology to the study of the nature of intuitions. In this paper, we will introduce two different views concerning the relationship that (...) holds between experimental philosophy and the future of standard philosophical practice (what we call, the proper foundation view and the restrictionist view), discuss some of the more interesting and important results obtained by proponents of both views, and examine the pressure these results put on analytic philosophers to reform standard philosophical practice. We will also defend experimental philosophy from some recent objections, suggest future directions for work in experimental philosophy, and suggest what future lines of epistemological response might be available to those wishing to defend analytic epistemology from the challenges posed by experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Our interest in this paper is to drive a wedge of contention between two different programs that fall under the umbrella of “experimental philosophy”. In particular, we argue that experimental philosophy’s “negative program” presents almost as significant a challenge to its “positive program” as it does to more traditional analytic philosophy.

Four experiments examined people’s folk-psychological concept of intentional action. The chief question was whether or not _evaluative _considerations — considerations of good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame — played any role in that concept. The results indicated that the moral qualities of a behavior strongly influence people’s judgements as to whether or not that behavior should be considered ‘intentional.’ After eliminating a number of alternative explanations, the author concludes that this effect is best explained by the hypothesis (...) that evaluative considerations do play some role in people’s concept of intentional action.<b> </b>. (shrink)

When people are trying to determine whether an entity is capable of having certain kinds of mental states, they can proceed either by thinking about the entity from a *functional* standpoint or by thinking about the entity from a *physical* standpoint. We conducted a series of studies to determine how each of these standpoints impact people’s mental state ascriptions. The results point to a striking asymmetry. It appears that ascriptions of states involving phenomenal consciousness are sensitive to physical factors in (...) a way that ascriptions of other states are not. (shrink)

Five experiments provide evidence for a class of ‘dual character concepts.’ Dual character concepts characterize their members in terms of both (a) a set of concrete features and (b) the abstract values that these features serve to realize. As such, these concepts provide two bases for evaluating category members and two different criteria for category membership. Experiment 1 provides support for the notion that dual character concepts have two bases for evaluation. Experiments 2-4 explore the claim that dual character concepts (...) have two different criteria for category membership. The results show that when an object possesses the appropriate concrete features, but does not fulfill the appropriate abstract value, it is judged to be a category member in one sense but not in another. Finally, Experiment 5 uses the theory developed here to construct artificial dual character concepts and examines whether participants react to these artificial concepts in the same way as naturally occurring dual character concepts. The present studies serve to define the nature of dual character concepts and distinguish them from other types of concepts (e.g., natural kind concepts), which share some, but not all of the properties of dual character concepts. More broadly, these phenomena suggest a normative dimension in everyday conceptual representation. (shrink)

In a recent paper, I argued that philosophical intuitions are surprisingly robust both across demographic groups and across development. Machery and Stich reply by reviewing a series of studies that do show significant differences in philosophical intuition between different demographic groups. This is a helpful point, which gets at precisely the issues that are most relevant here. However, even when one looks at those very studies, one finds truly surprising robustness. In other words, despite the presence of statistically significant differences (...) between demographic groups, a core finding coming out of those studies is that philosophical intuitions are surprisingly robust across demographic groups. (shrink)

We investigate the value of persons. Our primary goal is to chart a path from equal and extreme value to infinite value. We advance two arguments. Each argument offers a reason to think that equal and extreme value are best accounted for if we are infinitely valuable. We then raise some difficult but fruitful questions about the possible grounds or sources of our infinite value, if we indeed have such value.

A singular thought about an object o is one that is directly about o in a characteristic way—grasp of that thought requires having some special epistemic relation to the object o, and the thought is ontologically dependent on o. One account of the nature of singular thought exploits a Russellian Structured Account of Propositions, according to which contents are represented by means of structured n-tuples of objects, properties, and functions. A proposition is singular, according to this framework, if and only (...) if it contains an object as a constituent. One advantage of the framework of Russellian Structured propositions is that it promises to provide a metaphysical basis for the notion of a singular thought about an object, grounding it in terms of constituency. In this paper, we argue that the attempt to ground the peculiar features of singular thoughts in terms of metaphysical constituency fails, and draw some consequences of our discussion for other debates. (shrink)

I present an intractable puzzle for the currently popular view that belief is weak—the view that expressions like ‘S believes p’ ascribe to S a doxastic attitude towards p that is rationally compatible with low credence that p. The puzzle concerns issues that arise on considering beliefs in conditionals. I show that proponents of weak belief either cannot consistently apply their preferred methodology when accommodating beliefs in conditionals, or they must deny that beliefs in conditionals can be used in reasoning.

This article aims to provide an a priori argument—termed the Flourishment Argument, for the veracity of the Christian conception of the Abrahamic religion that centres on God’s action of sending a divine and atoning prophet into the world. This specific informal argument will be presented through the formulation of a set of a priori reasons for why God would seek to interact with the world—developed in light of the work of Richard Swinburne, John Finnis, Linda Zagzebski and Alexander Pruss—which, in (...) combination, will provide individuals with grounds for believing in the veracity of these important Christian teachings. (shrink)

This article aims to provide an explication of the Christian doctrine of eternal generation. A model of the doctrine is formulated within the ground-theoretic framework of Jonathan Schaffer and E. Jonathan Lowe, which enables it to be explicated clearly and consistently, and two often raised objections against the doctrine can be successfully answered.

Experimental philosophy has emerged as a very specific kind of response to an equally specific way of thinking about philosophy, one typically associated with philosophical analysis and according to which philosophical claims are measured, at least in part, by our intuitions. Since experimental philosophy has emerged as a response to this way of thinking about philosophy, its philosophical significance depends, in no small part, on how significant the practice of appealing to intuitions is to philosophy. In this paper, I defend (...) the significance of experimental philosophy by defending the significance of intuitions—in particular, by defending their significance from a recent challenge advanced by Timothy Williamson. (shrink)

This article aims to provide an a posteriori argument from love for the Trinity. A reformulation of the argument from love is made by proposing a novel version of the argument that is situated within an objective, empirical, natural theological framework. Reformulating the argument in this specific manner will enable it to ward of an important objection that is often raised against it, and ultimately render this argument of great use in establishing the necessity of the Trinity.

Richard Watson maintains that deep ecology suffers from an internal contradiction and should therefore be rejected. Watson contends that deep ecology claims to be non-anthropocentric while at the same time is committed to setting humans apart from nature, which is inherently anthropocentric. I argue that Watson’s objection arises out of a fundamental misunderstanding of how deep ecologist’s conceive of the ‘Self.’ Drawing on resources from Buddhism, I offer an understanding of the ‘Self’ that is fully consistent with deep ecology, and (...) does not lead to the anthropocentric contradiction that Watson identifies. The paper will proceed as follows: First, I articulate Watson’s objection, and briefly discuss the traditional deep ecology position. Next, I turn to a discussion of the ‘Self’ and show that there are conceptions of human nature that are not separate from ‘Nature.’ It will thus be shown that deep ecology is not inconsistent and need not be rejected. (shrink)

Disagreement is a hot topic right now in epistemology, where there is spirited debate between epistemologists who argue that we should be moved by the fact that we disagree and those who argue that we need not. Both sides to this debate often use what is commonly called “the method of cases,” designing hypothetical cases involving peer disagreement and using what we think about those cases as evidence that specific normative theories are true or false, and as reasons for believing (...) as such. With so much weight being given in the epistemology of disagreement to what people think about cases of peer disagreement, our goal in this paper is to examine what kinds of things might shape how people think about these kinds of cases. We will show that two different kinds of framing effect shape how people think about cases of peer disagreement, and examine both what this means for how the method of cases is used in the epistemology of disagreement and what this might tell us about the role that motivated cognition is playing in debates about which normative positions about peer disagreement are right and wrong. (shrink)

This article aims to provide an a posteriori argument for the veracity of the Christian conception of the Abrahamic religion that centres on God’s action of sending a divine and atoning prophet—the ‘Messianic Prophet’—into the world, who we can identify as the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This specific argument will be presented through Richard Swinburne’s (modified) explanatory framework, which focuses on assessing the prior and posterior evidence in support of this identification. This, however, will be done in light of (...) the work of Historical Jesus and NT scholars John P. Meier, N.T. Wright, Richard Bauckham and Larry Hurtado—which, in combination, will provide a means to ward off two important objections against Swinburne's methodology, and ultimately allow one to establish the veracity of the ‘Christian Position’, on firm historical grounds. (shrink)

This article aims to introduce a new solution to the Logical Problem of the Trinity. This solution is provided by utilising a number of theses within the field of contemporary metaphysics in order to establish a conceptual basis for a novel account and model of the doctrine of the Trinity termed Monarchical Aspectivalism, which will provide the means for proposing an alternative reading of the Athanasian Creed that is free from any consistency problems.

This article aims to provide a philosophical case for the veracity of the doctrine of the papacy. This specific case will be presented as an a priori argument that will be formulated in light of the work of Richard Swinburne and Linda Zagzebski—which, in combination, will provide us with grounds for believing in the veracity of the papacy from a philosophical perspective, and thus help to further bolster up the historical arguments that are usually brought in support of this doctrine.

Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of ancient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns animal suffering and suggest a possible way forward which employs the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God's will that results in suffering and alienation from God's purposes—precedes the arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhuman animal world long before humans (...) are ever tempted to go astray. This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understanding “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evolutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of freedom and degrees of moral culpability. (shrink)

This article focuses on examining a particular method of Biblical Interpretation. This specific method is that of the Patristic Method of Biblical Interpretation, proposed by Richard Swinburne. The Patristic Method faces a specific issue, ‘the Authority’ Issue, which will thus be dealt with within this article by utilising the notion of epistemic authority, as conceptualised by Linda Zagzebski, and restating it within a Catholic interpretative framework. Doing this will thus enable the Patristic Method to be presented as a robust and (...) cogent contemporary method of Biblical Interpretation that offers a unified and accurate understanding of God's revelation in the Bible. (shrink)

Many recent evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology studies have tested hypotheses by examining correlations between variables measured at a group level (e.g., state, country, continent). In such analyses, variables collected for each aggregation are often taken to be representative of the individuals present within them, and relationships between such variables are presumed to reflect individual-level processes. There are multiple reasons to exercise caution when doing so, including: (1) the ecological fallacy, whereby relationships observed at the aggregate level do not (...) accurately represent individual-level processes; (2) non-independence of data points, which violates assumptions of the inferential techniques used in null hypothesis testing; and (3) cross-cultural non-equivalence of measurement (differences in construct validity between groups). We provide examples of how each of these gives rise to problems in the context of testing evolutionary hypotheses about human behavior, and we offer some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

We review and present a new meta‐analysis of research suggesting that ethicists in the United States appear to behave no morally better overall than do non‐ethicist professors. Measures include: returning library books, peer evaluation of overall moral behavior, voting participation, courteous and discourteous behavior at conferences, replying to student emails, paying conference registration fees and disciplinary society dues, staying in touch with one's mother, charitable giving, organ and blood donation, vegetarianism, and honesty in responding to survey questions. One multi‐measure study (...) found ethicists tending to embrace more stringent moral views, especially about meat eating and charitable donation. The same multi‐measure study found ethicists and other professors to show similarly small‐to‐medium correlations between their expressed normative attitudes and their self‐reported or directly measured behavior. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that junior doctors are morally exploited. Moral exploitation occurs where an individual’s vulnerability is used to compel them to take on additional moral burdens. These might include additional moral responsibility, making weighty moral decisions and shouldering the consequent emotions. Key to the concept of exploitation is vulnerability and here I build on Rosalind McDougall’s work on the key roles of junior doctors to show how these leave them open to moral exploitation by restricting their reasonable (...) options. I argue that there are a number of ways junior doctors are morally exploited. First, their seniors can leverage their position to force a junior to take on some discreet decision. More common is the second type of moral exploitation where rota gaps and staffing issues means junior doctors take on more than their fair share of the moral burdens of practice. Third, I discuss structural moral exploitation where the system offloads moral burdens onto healthcare professionals. Not every instance of exploitation is wrongful and so I conclude by exploring the ways that moral exploitation wrongs junior doctors. (shrink)

Bringing together major writings on a wide range of conceptual issues underlying the theory and practice of journalism, this unique anthology covers topics such as what makes a story newsworthy, journalism and professional ethics, the right of free speech, privacy and news sources, politicsand the power of the press, objectivity and bias, and the education of journalists. Including papers by key contemporary and classical authors such as Walter Lippmann, Joshua Halberstam, Tom L. Beauchamp, Fred Smoller, Edward J. Epstein, Herbert (...) Gans, John Stuart Mill, Philip Meyer, and Theodore L.Glasser, this book introduces provocative issues in press ethics and philosophy that color or determine much of what we see and hear in today's media. (shrink)

In our society, some aspects of life are off-limits to commerce. We prohibit the selling of children and the buying of wives, juries, and kidneys. Tainted blood is an inevitable consequence of paying blood donors; even sophisticated laboratory tests cannot supplant the gift-giving relationship as a safeguard of the purity of blood. Like blood, health care is too precious, intimate, and corruptible to entrust to the market.The hospice movement in the United States is approximately 40 years old. During these past (...) four decades, the concept of holistic, multidisciplinary care for patients who are suffering from a terminal illness has evolved from a modest, grassroots constellation of primarily volunteer-run and community-governed endeavors to a multimillion dollar industry where the surviving nonprofits compete with for-profit providers, often publicly traded, managed by M.B.A.-trained executives, and governed by corporate boards. The relatively recent emergence of for-profit hospice reflects an increasing commercialization of health care in the United States, the potentially adverse impact of which has been well documented. (shrink)

This article critically questions the commercialization of hospice care and the ethical concerns associated with the industry's movement toward “market-driven medicine” at the end of life. For example, the article examines issues raised by an influx of for-profit hospice providers whose business model appears at its core to have an ethical conflict of interest between shareholders doing well and terminal patients dying well. Yet, empirical data analyzing the experience of patients across the hospice industry are limited, and general claims that (...) end-of-life patient care is inferior among for-profit providers or even that their business practices are somehow unseemly when compared to nonprofit providers cannot be substantiated. In fact, non-profit providers are not immune to potentially conflicting concerns regarding financial viability (i.e., “no margin, no mission”). Given the limitations of existing empirical data and contrasting ideological commitments of for-profit versus non-profit providers, the questions raised by this article highlight important areas for reflection and further study. Policymakers and regulators are cautioned to keep ethical concerns in the fore as an increasingly commercialized hospice industry continues to emerge as a dominant component of the U.S. health care system. Both practitioners and researchers are encouraged to expand their efforts to better understand how business practices and commercial interests may compromise the death process of the patient and patient's family — a process premised upon a philosophy and ethical tradition that earlier generations of hospice providers and proponents established as a trusted, end-of-life alternative. (shrink)

Abstract:In this essay I document what I call the “environmental turn” in Locke Scholarship. I present an examination of environmental readings of John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government over the last fifty years in order to suggest that the growing number of these interpretations, when taken together, signal an environmental turn in Locke scholarship similar to the widely discussed religious turn. I also argue that environmental readings imply a reassessment of Locke’s conception of the political sphere. Specifically, I argue that (...) this turn implies that Locke has a relational environmental theory of political agency. Instead of supporting an autonomous conception of agency, the Second Treatise suggests human and material relations that fundamentally condition and position the political agent within a network of dependencies and obligations. I conclude the essay by discussing the limits of Locke scholarship in the environmental turn. I suggest that the implications and insights of the environmental turn remain limited because a full account needs to address the specific types of people who are considered political agents by Locke. That is, these authors often assume Locke is discussing all human beings, but as significant critiques developed by feminists and critical race theorists demonstrate, it is unclear if this is the case. Future writings on Locke’s environmental political theory will need to address these literatures in order to fully substantiate their claims. (shrink)

In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, among other things, discusses certain qualities any adequate theory of justice ought to incorporate. Two important qualities a theory of justice should account for are impartiality/objectivity and sensitivity to consequences. In order to motivate his discussion of sensitivity to consequences, Sen discusses the debate between Krishna and Arjuna from the religio-philosophical Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita. According to Sen, Arjuna represents a sensitivity to consequences while Krishna is an archetypal deontologist. In this paper (...) it will be argued that Sen's interpretation of the Gita is inaccurate. Further, a more adequate interpretation will be presented. What will be of significance is that the more adequate interpretation actually demonstrates the importance of an impartial spectator in moral reasoning. Finally, there will be a discussion of some lessons that can be taken from the Gita regarding justice generally. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a theory of atonement, termed the "Agápēic Theory," which is formulated within a philosophical framework that has the aim of humans flourishing to the maximum level through partaking in an everlasting relationship of love with God. The Agápēic Theory will be formulated by using a certain conception of love, introduced by Alexander Pruss, into the field of applied ethics, and also various elements from other existing theories of the Atonement found within the fields of analytic (...) theology, in the work of Richard Swinburne, Eleonore Stump and Robin Collins, and systematic/biblical theology, in the work of Karl Barth and N.T Wright, which will both help to ground the Agápēic Theory on firm philosophical and theological grounds and ultimately provide a robust theory of the Atonement. (shrink)

Learning more about philosophical cognition has yielded significant insights into the methods that we employ when doing philosophy, and has led some experimental philosophers to raise concerns about the role that intuitions play in philosophical practice. One popular response to these methodological concerns involves appeal to philosophical expertise, and has become known as the expertise defense because it aims to defend the use of at least some kinds of intuitional evidence in philosophy. The basic idea is that philosophical expertise consists (...) in having developed, through a process of critical reflection, increased conceptual competence and theoretical accuracy, as well as a special knack for reading and thinking about philosophical thought experiments that call upon us to exercise our conceptual competence and theoretical acumen. It turns out to be an open question whether this folk theory of philosophical expertise can restore hope in the value of intuitional evidence, and here we examine two ways of trying to answer that question: one that involves careful reflection on the supposed benefits of philosophical education, and one that involves careful empirical examination of “expert” philosophical intuitions. (shrink)

We develop the concept “political residency” in this essay to highlight both the foundational role of built environments in our political life as well as how access to, and displacement from, built environments is therefore a central feature of political harms and goods. The example of housing and housing displacement is instructive for developing our concept because it is central to most people’s everyday life, yet residential security and stability—having control with other inhabitants over shared, built spaces—is often missing from (...) peoples’ lives, especially those who are most socially and politically vulnerable. (shrink)

Burnout among health professionals is at epidemic proportions. In response, many health institutions have emphasised the importance of self-care, relying particularly on the idea that doctors who are burned out provide worse care for their patients. Although not made explicit, this suggests that doctors might have a responsibility to their patients (and perhaps others) to practice self-care. This chapter explores the potential grounds for such an obligation. We suggest that while there is potential for a limited obligation of self-care, institutional (...) emphasis on this risks instrumentalising doctors' well-being, minimising institutional responsibilities and workers' rights, and being excessively demanding for individuals. (shrink)

Leftwing critiques of philanthropy are not new and so it is unsurprising that the Effective Altruism movement, which regards philanthropy as one of its tools, has been a target in recent years. Similarly, some Effective Altruists have regarded anti-capitalist strategy with suspicion. This essay is an attempt at harmonizing Effective Altruism and the anti-capitalism. My attraction to Effective Altruism and anti-capitalism are motivated by the same desire for a better world and so personal consistency demands reconciliation. More importantly however, I (...) think Effective Altruism will be less effective in realizing its own ends insofar as it fails to recognize that capitalism restricts the good we can do. Conversely, insofar as anti-capitalists fail to recognize the similarity in methods which underlie Effective Altruism thinking about the world, it too risks inefficiency or worse, total failure in replacing capitalism with a more humane economic system. I first argue that Effective Altruism and anti-capitalism are compatible in principle by looking at similarities between Effective Altruist theory and some Marxist writing. I then go on to show that the theoretic compatibility can be mirrored in practice. I demonstrate this by considering and replying to objections to anti-capitalism as they might be raised by Effective Altruists and by replying to objections to Effective Altruism as they might be raised by anti-capitalists. I conclude by suggesting that their reconciliation would lead to better outcomes from the perspective of a proponent of either view. In short, an “Anti-Capitalist Effective Altruism” is not just possible, it’s preferable. (shrink)

Healthcare systems need to consider not only how to prevent error, but how to respond to errors when they occur. In the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, one strand of this latter response is the ‘No Blame Culture’, which draws attention from individuals and towards systems in the process of understanding an error. Defences of the No Blame Culture typically fail to distinguish between blaming someone and holding them responsible. This article argues for a ‘responsibility culture’, where healthcare professionals are (...) held responsible in cases of foreseeable and avoidable errors. We demonstrate how healthcare professionals can justifiably be held responsible for their errors even though they work in challenging circumstances. We then review the idea of ‘responsibility without blame’, applying this to cases of error in healthcare. Sensitive to the undesirable effects of blaming healthcare professionals and to the moral significance of holding individuals accountable, we argue that a responsibility culture has significant advantages over a No Blame Culture due to its capacity to enhance patient safety and support medical professionals in learning from their mistakes, while also recognising and validating the legitimate sense of responsibility that many medical professionals feel following avoidable error, and motivating medical professionals to report errors. (shrink)

In this article, I suggest that moksha (liberation or enlightenment) in Advaita Vedanta is best understood psychologically. A psychological understanding is not only consistent with the Advaita Vedanta articulated by Shankara and Gaudapada, but avoids what will be called the problem of jivan mukti. This article will consist of three main parts. First, I will briefly discuss the metaphysics and ontology of Advaita Vedanta. Next, I will present the problem of jivan mukti, and the Advaitin response to the problem. The (...) problem of jivan mukti will lead to the third portion of the article, which is a presentation of what moksha is. At no point in the article will I be arguing the truth of the Advaitin position. Instead, I will be meeting Advaita on its own terms in order to come to some understanding of moksha. (shrink)

This article aims to provide an explication of a new conceptualisation of God's defeat of horrors (i.e., horror-defeat), and a successful solution to the Problem of Horrors—which we can term the ‘Reconciliation Account’. This specific conceptualisation will be formulated in light of the work of Marilyn McCord Adams, with an original extension of her work being made by utilising the work of Richard Swinburne and Robin Collins (amongst others), which, in combination, will provide us with a more robust solution to (...) the issue raised by horrors. (shrink)

In this response article, we challenge a core assumption that lies at the centre of a round table discussion regarding the Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing trial. The round table regards a genetic test for a variant that increases the risk of deafness if a carrier is given the antibiotic gentamicin. The idea is that rapid testing can identify neonates at risk, providing an opportunity to prevent giving an antibiotic that might cause deafness. We challenge the assumption that a (...) positive test unequivocally guides antibiotic choice because, aside from the risk of deafness, all antibiotics for neonatal sepsis are equivalent. We argue that this assumption is faulty and has particularly troubling moral consequences. We claim that giving an alternative to gentamicin is potentially providing inferior treatment and thereby may increase the risk of death. Parents and doctors are faced with a terrible choice as a result of positive point-of-care testing : give gold-standard treatment and risk deafness or give second line care and risk death. While we do not indicate an answer to this choice, what we do argue is that such a deep and difficult choice is one that may make parents wish genetic testing was never undertaken, and therefore, contra some authors in the round table, provides a reason to gain specific consent for POCT. (shrink)

1 The Roots of the Laws Perhaps the most ready assumption of any reader of the Laws-it only because of its title-is that its primary purpose is to provide a ...