Abstract Differing interpretations of the political thought of David Hume have tended to emphasize either conservative, gradualist elements similar to Burke or rationalist aspects similar to Hobbes. The concept of indirect utility as used by Hume reconciles these two approaches. Indirect utility is best illustrated by Hume's conception of justice, in contrast to his conception of benevolence, which yields direct benefits. This understanding of Hume's consequentialism also helps underscore certain egalitarian aspects of Hume's thought.

Is it possible to advance democracy by empowering ordinary citizens to make key decisions about the design of political institutions and policies? In 2004, the government of British Columbia embarked on a bold democratic experiment: it created an assembly of 160 near-randomly selected citizens to assess and redesign the province's electoral system. The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly represents the first time a citizen body has had the power to reform fundamental political institutions. It was an innovative gamble that has been (...) replicated elsewhere in Canada and in the Netherlands, and is gaining increasing attention in Europe as a democratic alternative for constitution-making and constitutional reform. In the USA, advocates view citizens' assemblies as a means for reforming referendum processes. This book investigates the citizens' assembly in British Columbia to test and refine key propositions of democratic theory and practice. (shrink)

Critics of reliability theories of epistemic justificationoften claim that the `generality problem' is an insurmountabledifficulty for such theories. The generality problem is theproblem of specifying the level of generality at which abelief-forming process is to be described for the purposeof assessing its reliability. This problem is not asintractable as it seems. There are illuminating solutionsto analogous problems in the ethics literature. Reliabilistsought to attend to utilitarian approaches to choices betweeninfinite utility streams; they also ought to attend towelfarist approaches to social (...) choice situations that donot demand full aggregation of individual welfares.These analogies suggest that the traditional `single number'approach to reliability is misguided. I argue that a newapproach – the `vector reliability' approach – is preferable.Vector reliability theories associate target beliefs withreliability vectors – that is, structured collections ofreliability numbers – and construct criteria of epistemicjustification that appeal to these vectors. The bulk of thetheoretical labor involved in a reliability account of epistemicjustification is thus transferred from picking a uniquereliability number to constructing a plausible criterionof epistemic justification. (shrink)

Critics of reliability theories of epistemic justificationoften claim that the `generality problem' is an insurmountabledifficulty for such theories. The generality problem is theproblem of specifying the level of generality at which abelief-forming process is to be described for the purposeof assessing its reliability. This problem is not asintractable as it seems. There are illuminating solutionsto analogous problems in the ethics literature. Reliabilistsought to attend to utilitarian approaches to choices betweeninfinite utility streams; they also ought to attend towelfarist approaches to social (...) choice situations that donot demand full aggregation of individual welfares.These analogies suggest that the traditional `single number'approach to reliability is misguided. I argue that a newapproach – the `vector reliability' approach – is preferable.Vector reliability theories associate target beliefs withreliability vectors – that is, structured collections ofreliability numbers – and construct criteria of epistemicjustification that appeal to these vectors. The bulk of thetheoretical labor involved in a reliability account of epistemicjustification is thus transferred from picking a uniquereliability number to constructing a plausible criterionof epistemic justification. (shrink)

This article examines the logic that connects democracy to the state and argues that the functions of the state in enabling democracy are as important now and in the future as they have been in the past. It identifies the animating ideas and values of democracy and describes the ways in which these ideas are entwined with state power and the ways in which state institutions can become generative in ways that exceed the inherent limitations of the state's media of (...) organization. (shrink)

Some adaptationist explanations are regarded as maximally solid and others fanciful just-so stories. Just-so stories are explanations based on very little evidence. Lack of evidence leads to circular-sounding reasoning: “this trait was shaped by selection in unseen ancestral populations and this selection must have occurred because the trait is present.” Well-supported adaptationist explanations include evidence that is not only abundant but selected from comparative, populational, and optimality perspectives, the three adaptationist subdisciplines. Each subdiscipline obtains its broad relevance in evolutionary biology (...) via assumptions that can only be tested with the methods of the other subdisciplines. However, even in the best-supported explanations, assumptions regarding variation, heritability, and fitness in unseen ancestral populations are always present. These assumptions are accepted given how well they would explain the data if they were true. This means that some degree of “circularity” is present in all evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary explanation corresponds not to a deductive structure, as biologists usually assert, but instead to ones such as abduction or induction. With these structures in mind, we show the way to a healthier view of “circularity” in evolutionary biology, and why integration across the comparative, populational, and optimality approaches is necessary. (shrink)

Despite the periodic table having been discovered by chemists half a century before the discovery of electronic structure, modern designs are invariably based on physicists’ definition of periods. This table is a chemists’ table, reverting to the phenomenal periods that led to the table’s discovery. In doing so, the position of hydrogen is clarified.

Institutional ethics committees remain largely absent from the literature on error reduction and patient safety. This paper attempts to fill the gap. Healthcare professionals are on the front lines in the defense against medical error, but the changes that are needed to reduce medical errors and enhance patient safety are cultural and systemic in nature. As noted in the Hastings Centers recent report, Promoting Patient Safety, the occurrence of medical error involves a complex web of multiple factors. Human misstep is (...) certainly one such factor, but not the only one. In this paper, I build on the Hasting Centers report on patient safety in arguing that institutional ethics committees ought to play an integral role in the transformation of a culture of blame to a culture of safety in healthcare delivery. (shrink)

While a great deal has been written on Plato's Lysis in philosophy and philology journals over the last thirty years, nothing has been published on Lysis in the major Anglo-American philosophy of education journals during that time. Nevertheless, this dialogue deserves attention from educators. In this essay, Mark Jonas argues that Lysis can serve as a model for educators who want to move their students beyond mere aporia, but also do not want to dictate answers to students. Although the (...) dialogue ends in Socrates's affirmation of aporia, his affirmation is actually meant to persuade his interlocutors to reflect on an epiphany they had previously experienced. In what follows, Jonas offers a close reading of relevant passages of Lysis, demonstrating the way that Socrates leads his interlocutors to an epiphany without forcing his answers upon them. (shrink)

For those who teach students in psychology, education, and the social sciences, the _Handbook of Demonstrations and Activities in the Teaching of Psychology, Second Edition_ provides practical applications and rich sources of ideas. Revised to include a wealth of new material, these invaluable reference books contain the collective experience of teachers who have successfully dealt with students' difficulty in mastering important concepts about human behavior. Each volume features a table that lists the articles and identifies the primary and secondary courses (...) in which readers can use each demonstration. Additionally, the subject index facilitates retrieval of articles according to topical headings, and the appendix notes the source as it originally appeared in _Teaching of Psychology_, the official journal of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Division Two of the American Psychological Association. Volume I consists of 97 articles about strategies for teaching introductory psychology, statistics, research methods, and the history of psychology classes. Divided into four sections, the book suggests ways to stimulate interest, promote participation, grasp psychological terminology, and master necessary scientific skills. (shrink)

Democracy, rule of the people, is comprised of complex webs of accountabilities between people and those who use power to govern on their behalf. Democratic accountability is comprised of justifications for these uses of power, combined with distributions of empowerments in such a way that those affected can sanction its use. Key problems for democracies include forming principals and agents among whom accountability relations might hold, designing institutions that limit costs of accountability mechanisms so they can be used by citizens, (...) and developing forms of accountability that match the increasing scale and complexity of political issues and organizations. (shrink)

James Bohman’s Democracy across borders aims to conceptualize transnational democracy. But it is more than that: Bohman begins to articulate a paradigm shift in how we conceive democracy in complex, pluralized, globalized contexts comprised of multiple, overlapping constituencies which often have broad extension in space and time. The paradigm shift is not Bohman’s alone: it has been some time in the making*two decades at least*and has multiple sources in contemporary theories of power, inclusion and exclusion, pluralism, deliberation, as well as (...) in theories of social and system complexity. The importance of Bohman’s book is that it consolidates many of these elements into an important statement that breaks with those kinds of theory that conceptualize democracy as a way of organizing relatively simple, territorial, state-organized units of political organization. My comments highlight those elements of Bohman’s argument that add up to a paradigm shift; they are critical only in the sense that there is a danger that this contribution could be overshadowed by the book’s primary focus democracy across borders, important though this is. Most of my comments aim at extracting and reconstructing the paradigm shift within Bohman’s text. (Published: 5 February 2010) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2010, pp. 47-54. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i1.4853. (shrink)

Avi Mintz (2008) has recently argued that Anglo-American educators have a tendency to alleviate student suffering in the classroom. According to Mintz, this tendency can be detrimental because certain kinds of suffering actually enhance student learning. While Mintz compellingly describes the effects of educator’s desires to alleviate suffering in students, he does not examine one of the roots of the desire: the feeling of compassion or pity (used as synonyms here). Compassion leads many teachers to unreflectively alleviate student struggles. While (...) there are certainly times when compassion is necessary to help students learn, there are other times when it must be overcome. Compassion in the classroom is a two-edged sword that must be carefully employed; and yet it is often assumed that it is an unequivocal good that ought to trump all other impulses. In this article I hope to raise awareness concerning the promises and pitfalls of compassion in education by examining the theories of two historical figures who famously emphasised compassion in their philosophical writings: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rousseau and Nietzsche argue that compassion is a powerful educational force but that it must be properly employed. For Rousseau and Nietzsche, compassion is necessary to develop self-mastery in human beings—the ultimate goal of education—but it is a compassion that must hurt in order to help. My hope is that Rousseau’s and Nietzsche’s ideas on compassion will encourage thoughtful reflection on the uses and abuses of compassion in education. (shrink)

Nematodes are important parasites of humans and other animals. Nematode parasitism is thought to have evolved by free‐living, facultatively developing, arrested larvae becoming associated with animals, ultimately becoming parasites. The formation of free‐living arrested larvae of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is controlled by the environment, and involves dafachronic acid (DA) and transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β signalling. Recent data have shown that DA acid signalling plays a conserved role in controlling larval development in both free‐living and parasitic species. In contrast, TGF‐β (...) signalling does not seem to be conserved; this difference perhaps points to how nematode parasitism did evolve. (shrink)

This commentary discusses three features of the general theoretical framework proposed by Nunez: (1) Functional concepts, such as computation and control, are not foundational. (2) A mismatch between the concept of subcortical input and EEG output is problematic for the input/output operator concept of cortical dynamics. (3) The concept of brain state is relatively static.

This commentary highlights methods for using scalp EEG to make inferences about contextual field interactions, which, in view of the target article, may be specially relevant to the study of schizophrenia. Although scalp EEG has limited spatial resolution, prior knowledge combined with experimental manipulations may be used to strengthen inferences about underlying brain processes. Both spatial and temporal context are discussed within the framework of nonlinear interactions. Finally, results from a visual contour integration EEG pilot study are summarized in view (...) of a hypothesis that relates receptive field and contextual field processing to evoked and induced activity, respectively. (shrink)

‘‘Adaptive radiation’’ is an evocative metaphor for explosive evolutionary divergence, which for over 100 years has given a powerful heuristic to countless scientists working on all types of organisms at all phylogenetic levels. However, success has come at the price of making ‘‘adaptive radiation’’ so vague that it can no longer reflect the detailed results yielded by powerful new phylogeny-based techniques that quantify continuous adaptive radiation variables such as speciation rate, phylogenetic tree shape, and morphological diversity. Attempts to shoehorn the (...) results of these techniques into categorical ‘‘adaptive radiation: yes/no’’ schemes lead to reification, in which arbitrary quantitative thresholds are regarded as real. Our account of the life cycle of metaphors in science suggests that it is time to exchange the spent metaphor for new concepts that better represent the full range of diversity, disparity, and speciation rate across all of life. (shrink)

Managed care is evolving in ways that pose unique ethical challenges to those interested in the intersection of clinical and organizational ethics. For example, Disease Management is a form of managed care that has emerged in response to chronic illness. DM is a healthcare management tool that coordinates resources across an entire health care delivery system and throughout the life cycle of chronic disease. Health Maintenance Organizations have reduced some costs in the delivery of acute care, but real cost savings (...) will result only with greater efficiencies in the delivery of costly chronic care. DM is a systematic, population-based approach that identifies persons at risk of chronic ailment, intervenes with specific programs of care, measures clinical and other outcomes, and provides continuous quality improvement. Characterized as a movement to patient-driven services, DM involves a complex web of provider relations. (shrink)

The author argues that bioethicists must develop alternative approaches to facilitate the study of the conditions for the responsible development of nanotechnologies. Proponents of “sustainability” have developed a useful model to integrate multiple perspectives into the evaluation of the impact of technologies on global ecological integrity under conditions of uncertainty.

Scholars who consider the relationship between Marx’s and Hegel’s scientific method often make a critical mistake. In the exposition of the manner in which Marx had made use of Hegel’s logic, they fail to consider the relationship between form and content in the logical progression of categories. They fail to comprehend the circular nature of scientific method, with its attending concepts of “dialectic” and Aufhebung.

In this paper, I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of self-overcoming has been largely misinterpreted in the philosophy of education journals. The misinterpretation partially stems from a misconstruction of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, and leads to a conception of self-overcoming that is inconsistent with Nietzsche’s educational ideals. To show this, I examine some of the prominent features of the so-called “debate” of the 1980s surrounding Nietzsche’s conception of self-overcoming. I then offer an alternative conception that is more consistent with Nietzsche’s thought, and (...) provides a more nuanced understanding of Nietzsche’s “anti-democratic” pedagogy. Ultimately, I argue that while Nietzsche’s educational philosophy is not egalitarian, it can be effectively utilized in “democratic” classrooms, assuming his concept of self-overcoming is properly construed. (shrink)

In his 2001 article 'Teaching to Lie and Obey: Nietzsche on Education', Stefan Ramaekers defends Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism against the charge that it is relativistic. He argues that perspectivism is not relativistic because it denies the dichotomy between the 'true' world and the 'seeming' world, a dichotomy central to claims to relativism. While Ramaekers' article is correct in denying relativistic interpretations of perspectivism it does not go far enough in this direction. In fact, the way Ramaekers makes his case (...) may actually encourage the charge of relativism, especially when it comes to his appropriation of perspectivism for education. This article proposes to pick up where Ramaekers left off. It will argue that Nietzsche's denial of the opposition between the 'true' world and the 'seeming' world opens up the possibility for the reestablishment of truth, albeit in a modified form. After examining Nietzsche's modified 'realist' epistemology, the paper will explore the implications of it for his philosophy of education. It will be argued that Nietzsche's educational philosophy is founded on his concept of perspectivism in so far as he demands that students be rigorously inculcated into a pedagogical framework that teaches students to discriminate between 'true' and 'false' perspectives. This framework is essential for the development of an intellectually robust and life-affirming culture. (shrink)

In his 2001 article ‘Teaching to Lie and Obey: Nietzsche on Education’, Stefan Ramaekers defends Nietzsche’s concept of perspectivism against the charge that it is relativistic. He argues that perspectivism is not relativistic because it denies the dichotomy between the ‘true’ world and the ‘seeming’ world, a dichotomy central to claims to relativism. While Ramaekers’ article is correct in denying relativistic interpretations of perspectivism it does not go far enough in this direction. In fact, the way Ramaekers makes his case (...) may actually encourage the charge of relativism, especially when it comes to his appropriation of perspectivism for education. This article proposes to pick up where Ramaekers left off. It will argue that Nietzsche’s denial of the opposition between the ‘true’ world and the ‘seeming’ world opens up the possibility for the reestablishment of truth, albeit in a modified form. After examining Nietzsche’s modified ‘realist’ epistemology, the paper will explore the implications of it for his philosophy of education. It will be argued that Nietzsche’s educational philosophy is founded on his concept of perspectivism in so far as he demands that students be rigorously inculcated into a pedagogical framework that teaches students to discriminate between ‘true’ and ‘false’ perspectives. This framework is essential for the development of an intellectually robust and life-affirming culture. (shrink)

In this essay, Mark Jonas argues that there are three broadly held misconceptions of Plato's philosophy that work against his relevance for contemporary moral education. The first is that he is an intellectualist who is concerned only with the cognitive aspect of moral development and does not sufficiently emphasize the affective and conative aspects; the second is that he is an elitist who believes that only philosopher-kings can attain true knowledge of virtue and it is they who should govern (...) society; the third is that he affirms the realm of the Forms as a literal metaphysical reality and believes that for individuals to attain virtue they must access this realm through contemplation. The goal of this essay is to correct these misconceptions. The rehabilitation of Plato's reputation may enable future researchers in moral education to discover in his philosophy new avenues for exploring how best to cultivate virtues in students. (shrink)

Let’s say that an act requires Person-Affecting Justification if and only if some alternative would have been better for someone. So, Lucifer breaking Xavier’s back requires Person-Affecting Justification because the alternative would have been better for Xavier. But the story continues: While Lucifer evades justice, Xavier moves on and founds a school for gifted children. Xavier’s deepest values become identified with the school and its community. When authorities catch Lucifer, he claims no Person-Affecting Justification is needed: because the attack set (...) Xavier on his life’s path, it’s no longer true that the alternative would have been better by the standard of what Xavier now values most. An unappealingly paternalistic way to hold Lucifer to account is to discount Xavier’s preferences as merely adaptive. Instead, I propose understanding the persons of Person-Affecting Justification to be not persons but person stages. This allows us to hold Lucifer to account without having to discount Xavier’s actual preferences, and has interesting implications for compensatory justice, including making sense of reparations for historical wrongs. (shrink)