Scientific peer reviewers play an integral role in the grant selection process, yet very little has been reported on the levels of participation or the motivations of scientists to take part in peer review. The American Institute of Biological Sciences developed a comprehensive peer review survey that examined the motivations and levels of participation of grant reviewers. The survey was disseminated to 13,091 scientists in AIBS’s proprietary database. Of the 874 respondents, 76% indicated they had reviewed grant applications in the (...) last 3 years; however, the number of reviews was unevenly distributed across this sample. Higher review loads were associated with respondents who had submitted more grant proposals over this time period, some of whom were likely to be study section members for large funding agencies. The most prevalent reason to participate in a review was to give back to the scientific community and the most common reason to decline an invitation to review was lack of time. Interestingly, few suggested that expectation from the funding agency was a motivation to review. Most felt that review participation positively influenced their careers through improving grantsmanship and exposure to new scientific ideas. Of those who reviewed, respondents reported dedicating 2–5% of their total annual work time to grant review and, based on their self-reported maximum review loads, it is estimated they are participating at 56–87% of their capacity, which may have important implications regarding the sustainability of the system. Overall, it is clear that participation in peer review is uneven and in some cases near capacity, and more needs to be done to create new motivations and incentives to increase the future pool of reviewers. (shrink)

The primary goal of the peer review of research grant proposals is to evaluate their quality for the funding agency. An important secondary goal is to provide constructive feedback to applicants for their resubmissions. However, little is known about whether review feedback achieves this goal. In this paper, we present a multi-methods analysis of responses from grant applicants regarding their perceptions of the effectiveness and appropriateness of peer review feedback they received from grant submissions. Overall, 56–60% of applicants determined the (...) feedback to be appropriate, although their judgments were more favorable if their recent application was funded. Importantly, independent of funding success, women found the feedback better written than men, and more white applicants found the feedback to be fair than non-white applicants. Also, perceptions of a variety of biases were specifically reported in respondents’ feedback. Less than 40% of applicants found the feedback to be very useful in informing their research and improving grantsmanship and future submissions. Further, negative perceptions of the appropriateness of review feedback were positively correlated with more negative perceptions of feedback usefulness. Importantly, respondents suggested that highly competitive funding pay-lines and poor inter-panel reliability limited the usefulness of review feedback. Overall, these results suggest that more effort is needed to ensure that appropriate and useful feedback is provided to all applicants, bolstering the equity of the review process and likely improving the quality of resubmitted proposals. (shrink)

BackgroundFunding agencies have long used panel discussion in the peer review of research grant proposals as a way to utilize a set of expertise and perspectives in making funding decisions. Little research has examined the quality of panel discussions and how effectively they are facilitated.MethodsHere, we present a mixed-method analysis of data from a survey of reviewers focused on their perceptions of the quality, effectiveness, and influence of panel discussion from their last peer review experience.ResultsReviewers indicated that panel discussions were (...) viewed favorably in terms of participation, clarifying differing opinions, informing unassigned reviewers, and chair facilitation. However, some reviewers mentioned issues with panel discussions, including an uneven focus, limited participation from unassigned reviewers, and short discussion times. Most reviewers felt the discussions affected the review outcome, helped in choosing the best science, and were generally fair and balanced. However, those who felt the discussion did not affect the outcome were also more likely to evaluate panel communication negatively, and several reviewers mentioned potential sources of bias related to the discussion. While respondents strongly acknowledged the importance of the chair in ensuring appropriate facilitation of the discussion to influence scoring and to limit the influence of potential sources of bias from the discussion on scoring, nearly a third of respondents did not find the chair of their most recent panel to have performed these roles effectively.ConclusionsIt is likely that improving chair training in the management of discussion as well as creating review procedures that are informed by the science of leadership and team communication would improve review processes and proposal review reliability. (shrink)

Linguistics. Artificial intelligence. Related fields. Computation.

A major obstacle to broad support of clinical ethics consultation is suspicion regarding the nature of the moral expertise it claims to offer. The suspicion seems to be confirmed when the field fails to make its moral expertise explicit. In this vacuum, critics suggest the following:Clinical ethics consultation's legitimacy depends on its ability to offer an expertise in moral matters.Expertise in moral matters is knowledge of a singular moral truth which applies to everyone.The claim that a clinical ethics consultant can (...) offer knowledge of a singular moral truth in virtue of her professional training is absurd, false, or gravely immoral.Therefore,The field is illegitimate. (shrink)

Abram Brummett and Christopher Ostertag offer critiques of my argument that clinical ethics consultants have expertise but are not “ethics experts”. My argument begins within our less-than-ideal world and asks what a justification of a clinical ethics consultation recommendation might look like under those conditions. It is a challenge to what could be called an “inflationary” position on ethics expertise that requires agreement on or rational proof of metaethical facts about the values at stake in clinical ethics consultation. Brummett and (...) Ostertag critique three distinct steps in the argument. Two of those I have a brief answer for, and an assessment of the third demonstrates that Brummett and Ostertag do not consider the premise upon which I based my account. Instead, they assert a counter-premise without argument, which at best results in a stalemate between our two accounts. However, the reasons supporting my premise still seem to me to be stronger, so I am in the end unconvinced by their critiques. (shrink)

This volume evaluates Thomas Bradwardine's view of time as a mathematical, philosophical and theological concept within the context of ancient and medieval ...

Arguments strong enough to justify skeptical theism will be strong enough to justify the position that every claim about God is empirically unfalsifiable. This fact is problematic because that position licenses further arguments which are clearly unreasonable, but which the skeptical theist cannot consistently accept as such. Avoiding this result while still achieving the theoretical objectives looked for in skeptical theism appears to demand an impossibly nuanced position.

A bibliographical search through the major libraries of Italy has revealed a large and various collection of writings of logic published during the 19th century before the rise of Peano and his school (from the 1880son). A survey of current findings is provided.

“Chiaroscuro” is a art technique that makes use of light and shade to suggest depth and solidity on a flat surface. I argue that the standards regarding accountability in the second edition of the Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation , are chiaroscuro, because, despite the offered lists of competencies, it is very difficult to imagine how consultants might be held accountable to such standards. It is not clear to which of the many suggested standards a consultant should be held (...) accountable, and even if one stipulates that only the tabulated competencies are meant as standards, the vague wording makes it hard to know how a consultant might fail to meet the standards or perform excellently. In addition, because terms such as “ethics” and “ethical” are not defined in the document, we are left with no way to determine whether consultants have made appropriate recommendations. The document is useful as a point of discussion, but not yet ready to serve as a tool for holding practitioners accountable. (shrink)

This book provides a reading of Kant's theory of the construction of mathematical concepts through a fully contextualised analysis. In this work the author argues that it is only through an understanding of the relevant eighteenth century mathematics textbooks, and the related mathematical practice, that the material and context necessary for a successful interpretation of Kant's philosophy can be provided.

Farm to school programs have been positioned as interventions that can support goals of the global food sovereignty movement, including strengthening local food production systems, improving food access and food justice for urban populations, and reducing distancing between producers and consumers. However, there has been little assessment of how and to what extent farm to school programs can actually function as a mechanism leading to the achievement of food sovereignty. As implemented in North America, farm to school programs encompass activities (...) not only related to school food procurement, but also to the development of student knowledge and skills under the framework of food literacy. Research on farm to school initiatives has largely been conducted in countries with government-supported national school feeding programs; this study examines farm to school organizing in Canada, where there is no national student nutrition program. Using qualitative fieldwork and document analysis, we investigate the farm to school movement in British Columbia, in a context where civil society concerns related to education and health have been the main vectors of farm to school mobilization. Our analysis suggests that, despite limited institutional infrastructure for school meals, the British Columbia farm to school movement has contributed toward realizing goals of food sovereignty through two main mechanisms: advocacy for institutional procurement of local and sustainable foods and mobilizing food literacy for increased public engagement with issues of social justice and equity in food systems. (shrink)

The legitimacy of clinical ethics consultation is often implied to rest on the legitimacy of moral expertise. In turn, moral expertise seems subject to many serious critiques, the success of which implies that clinical ethics consultation is illegitimate. I explore a number of these critiques, and forward “ethics expertise,” as distinct from “moral expertise,” as a way of avoiding these critiques. I argue that “ethics expertise” succeeds in avoiding most of the critiques, captures what clinical ethics consultants might justifiably do, (...) and expresses a subject matter which can be taught and assessed. (shrink)

People's treatment of others (humans, nonhuman animals, or other entities) often depends on whether they think the entity is worthy of moral concern. Recent work has begun to investigate which entities are included in a person's moral circle, examining how certain target characteristics (e.g., species category, perceived intelligence) and judge characteristics (e.g., empathy, political orientation) shape moral inclusion. However, the relative importance of target and judge characteristics in predicting moral inclusion remains unclear. When predicting whether a person will deem an (...) entity worthy of moral consideration, how important is it to know who is making the judgment (i.e., characteristics of the judge), who is being judged (i.e., characteristics of the target), and potential interactions between the two factors? Here, we address this foundational question by conducting a variance component analysis of the moral circle. In two studies with participants from the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (N = 836), we test how much variance in judgments of moral concern is explained by between‐target differences, between‐judge differences, and by the interaction between the two factors. We consistently find that all three components explain substantial amounts of variance in judgments of moral concern. Our findings provide two important insights. First, an increased focus on interactions between target and judge characteristics is needed, as these interactions explain as much variance as target and judge characteristics separately. Second, any theoretical account that aims to provide an accurate description of moral inclusion needs to consider target characteristics, judge characteristics, and their interaction. (shrink)

Web-based access to engaging instructional materials for SEE instruction represents an increasingly viable and attractive opportunity for educators. This paper will review research findings that demonstrate important differences in more experienced and novice ethical responses to engaging online materials, including authentic cases, codes, and commentaries. Results demonstrate that experienced ethical thinkers are more likely than novices to appeal to middle level principles that identify professional role-specific obligations (RSO); to make greater use of professional knowledge in order to recognize moral issues (...) and relevant facts; and to employ more ‘contextually sensitive’ reasoning strategies when crafting resolutions to moral problems — e.g., identify alternative moral issues, assess the moral implications of actions, and provide alternative practical resolutions to conflicts. These findings suggest that when effectively integrated into SEE courses, authentic instructional materials have the potential to effectively challenge students and enhance student learning. however, there is evidence that the uses and benefits of these materials are not well understood. In the second part of this paper, five research-based instructional principles will be identified and discussed that can help SEE instructors better understand how to effectively integrate these materials into their courses. (shrink)

Knowing Words will be welcomed by sinologists, classicists, and scholars of comparative philosophy and literature.

Deanna Kuhn's theory of informal argumentation (1991) evaluates arguments according to a theory/evidence model where subjects first articulate a theory and then must provide critical testing of alternatives on the basis of evidence. Using this model, Kuhn reports that many subjects fail to supply adequate evidence for their 'theories' and are often unable or unwilling to generate alternatives. In this paper an account of practical reasoning is provided that suggests an alternate interpretation for Kuhn's subjects' poor perfonnance. It is argued (...) that treating practical arguments as failed theoretical justifications causes Kuhn to misrepresent the contribution of many of her subjects' arguments. (shrink)

. The concept of bodily health is problematic for mechanists like Descartes, as it seems that they need to appeal to something extrinsic to a machine, i.e., its purpose, to determine whether the machine is working well or badly, and so healthy or unhealthy. I take issue with this claim. By drawing on the history of medicine, I suggest that in the seventeenth century there was space for a non-teleological account of health. I further argue that mechanists can and did (...) appeal to structural integrity, as a non-teleological notion of form, to ground the norms required for ascriptions of health. (shrink)

This paper concerns the attempt to formulate an empirical version of the problem of evil, and the attempt to counter this version by what is known as ‘sceptical theism’. My concern is to assess what is actually achieved in these attempts. To this end I consider the debate between them against the backdrop of William Rowe's distinction between expanded standard theism and restricted standard theism (which I label E and R respectively). My claim is that the empirical version significantly fails (...) to challenge E in the way that a workable logical version would; and that sceptical theism significantly fails to defend R in the way that a workable theodicy would. My conclusion is that sceptical theism and the empirical argument play a significantly more limited role in the debate over evil than the arguments they are supposed to replace. (Published Online August 11 2004). (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 65-66.

Skeptical theists assume that that God may be thought justified in his actions and permissions through the consequences to which those actions and permissions lead. They also assume that we may not be aware of all the goods and evils there are, so we may not always be able to discern the reasons that justify God's actions and permissions. On this basis, they conclude that we should be skeptical about any claim to know what it would be evil for God (...) to do or permit. I argue that this conclusion poses certain epistemic challenges for theism. First, it seems to undermine arguments from design. And second, it seems to undermine the presumption that God could not be a deceiver because deception is something that it would be evil for God to do. (shrink)

Section I examines historical philosophical understandings of expertise in order to situate the current institution of bioethics. Section II focuses on philosophical analyses of the concept of expertise, asking, among other things, how it should be understood, how it can be acquired, and what such expertise warrants. Finally, section III addresses topics in bioethics and how ethics expertise should or should not be brought to bear in these areas, including expertise in the court room, in the hospital room, in the (...) media, and in making policy. 2. A GUIDED HISTORICAL TOUR As Scott LaBarge points out, Plato’s dialogues can be viewed as an extended treatment of the concept of moral expertise, so it is fitting to begin the volume with an examination of “Socrates and Moral Expertise”. Given Socrates’ protestations that he knows nothing, LaBarge observes that it would be interesting to determine both what a Socratic theory of moral expertise might be and whether Socrates qualified as such an expert. Plato’s model of moral expertise is what LaBarge calls “demonstrable expertise”, which is concerned mainly with the ability to attain a goal and to explain how one did it. The problem with this account is that when one tries to solve the various problems in the model – for example, allowing that moral expertise is not an all-or-nothing skill – then one is immediately faced with the “credentials problem”. As LaBarge puts it, “... (shrink)

An examination of human dietary choice as a unifying cause for both the environmental and animal-rights movements.

We introduce the CUBISM system for the analysis and deep understanding of multi-participant dialogues. CUBISM brings together two typically separate forms of discourse analysis: semantic analysis and sociolinguistic analysis. In the paper proper, we describe and illustrate major components of the CUBISM system, and discuss the challenge posed by the system’s ultimate purpose, which is to automatically detect anomalous changes in participants’ expressed or implied beliefs about the world and each other, including shifts toward or away from cultural and community (...) norms. (shrink)

One finds in the systems of natural languages some explicit means of elaborating not only upon the directness of the causal relationship believed to exist between two events X and Y (i.e. some means of specifying just how inevitably event X gives or gave rise to event Y), but also some manner of indicating just who or what is understood to be the primary instigator of the caused event. The goal of the present paper is to explore these notions in (...) detail and arrive at a formal, logic-based means of capturing them. (shrink)

On several critical occasions in his philosophical and theological musings, we find Abelard having recourse to what is at heart the same philosophical simile -- in one instance drawing comparison to a stone statue, in another to a bronze statue, in a third to a wax image. The common point of comparison is obvious; each of these examples gives us a case where some physical material has come to receive some manner of shape. The doctrine illustrated by these means is (...) not, as might be supposed, a conventional Aristotelian form/matter metaphysics. (shrink)

In the last few decades, religious and secular thinkers have tackled the world's escalating environmental crisis by attempting to develop an ecological ethic that is both scientifically accurate and free of human-centered preconceptions. This groundbreaking study shows that many of these environmental ethicists continue to model their positions on romantic, pre-Darwinian concepts that disregard the predatory and cruelly competitive realities of the natural world. Examining the work of such influential thinkers as James Gustafson, Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, John Cobb, (...) Peter Singer, and Holmes Rolston, Sideris proposes a more realistic ethic that combines evolutionary theory with theological insight, advocates a minimally interventionist stance toward nature, and values the processes over the products of the natural world. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 8, Page W1-W3, August 2012.

This project is a philosophical analysis of the practice of bioethics consultation---what might be called the philosophy of bioethics. It assesses claims made about the purposes and appropriate aims of the field, in order to establish whether an identifiable conceptual unity underlies the practice. The conclusion is that no such unity exists. ;The project begins by assessing the history of the field, in the hope that a historical analysis will explain why the field arose at all, which reason could then (...) be used as a basis for claiming a particular purpose for bioethics consultation. However, it becomes clear that history has bequeathed diverse and sometimes conflicting goals to bioethics consultation. History suggests that the field exists both as a service to physicians and as a service to patients, though the interests of these two parties may be in tension. ;This work also assesses contemporary accounts of bioethics consultation and shows that they are radically divergent and incommensurable, in addition to often being too vague to guide the practice. An investigation of possible philosophical arguments regarding bioethics consultation also fails to disclose a single coherent foundation for the field. The project ends with a conceptual geography of twelve possible roles a bioethics consultant may play, and finds that though some are in tension, none may be ruled out of court on independent grounds in the absence of an overarching account of the appropriate aims of the field. ;What this project demonstrates is that there is no conceptual unity underlying the practice of bioethics consultation. Instead, the enterprise must be understood as comprised of a plurality of roles serving a diversity of purposes and a heterogeneity of goods with no single uniting purpose. (shrink)

We introduce the CUBISM system for the analysis and deep understanding of multi-participant dialogues. CUBISM brings together two typically separate forms of discourse analysis: semantic analysis and sociolinguistic analysis. In the paper proper, we describe and illustrate major components of the CUBISM system, and discuss the challenge posed by the system’s ultimate purpose, which is to automatically detect anomalous changes in participants’ expressed or implied beliefs about the world and each other, including shifts toward or away from cultural and community (...) norms. (shrink)