The National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control was conceived by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a strategic conference to review the current status of legal preparedness for obesity prevention and control, identify potential gaps, and develop specific action options for improving the contribution law can make to reduce the health threat posed by obesity. Working with the collaborating partners and planning committe, the host committe planned and modeled after the Summit CDC’s 2007 conference (...) on public health emergency legal preparedness that resulted in the National Action Agenda for Public Health Emergency Legal Preparedness. The summit was a working meeting that offered invited participants a structured opportunity to deliberate about the laws and legal issues that impact obesity prevention and control from a public health perspective. (shrink)

The National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control was conceived by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a strategic conference to review the current status of legal preparedness for obesity prevention and control, identify potential gaps, and develop specific action options for improving the contribution law can make to reduce the health threat posed by obesity. Working with the collaborating partners and planning committe, the host committe planned and modeled after the Summit CDC’s 2007 conference (...) on public health emergency legal preparedness that resulted in the National Action Agenda for Public Health Emergency Legal Preparedness. The summit was a working meeting that offered invited participants a structured opportunity to deliberate about the laws and legal issues that impact obesity prevention and control from a public health perspective. (shrink)

A set of amino acid side chains that confer specificity for the coenzyme NADPH and the substrate glutathione in the flavoprotein disulphide oxidoreductase, glutathione reductase, has been identified. Systematic replacement of these amino acid residues in the coenzyme‐binding site switches the specificity of the enzyme from its natural strong preference for NADPH to a marked preference For NADH. The amino acids replaced all lie in a structural motif within the dinucleotide‐binding domain of the protein. Since this domain is a feature (...) common to most dehydrogenases (reductases) that use nicotinamide coenzymes, it may be that the coenzyme specificities of all such enzymes can be manipulated in this way. Similarly, amino acid residues involved in the selective recognition of trypanothione by trypanothione reductase, an enzyme related to glutathione reductase and exclusive to trypanosomatids, were identified. Suitable mutation of the corresponding residues in E. coli glutathione reductase switched its substrate specificity towards trypanothione. A better understanding of the substrate specificity of these enzymes could open up a route to the chemotherapy of trypanosomal infections. (shrink)

Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing is a technology which provides information about fetal genetic characteristics very early in pregnancy by examining fetal DNA obtained from a sample of maternal blood. NIPT is a morally complex technology that has advanced quickly to market with a strong push from industry developers, leaving many areas of uncertainty still to be resolved, and creating a strong need for health policy that reflects women’s social and ethical values. We approach the need for ethical policy-making by studying the (...) use of NIPT and emerging policy in the province of Ontario, Canada. Using an adapted version of constructivist grounded theory, we conducted interviews with 38 women who have had personal experiences with NIPT. We used an iterative process of data collection and analysis and a staged coding strategy to conduct a descriptive analysis of ethics issues identified implicitly and explicitly by women who have been affected by this technology. The findings of this paper focus on current ethical issues for women seeking NIPT, including place in the prenatal pathway, health care provider counselling about the test, industry influence on the diffusion of NIPT, consequences of availability of test results. Other issues gain relevance in the context of future policy decisions regarding NIPT, including funding of NIPT and principles that may govern the expansion of the scope of NIPT. These findings are not an exhaustive list of all the potential ethical issues related to NIPT, but rather a representation of the issues which concern women who have personal experience with this test. Women who have had personal experience with NIPT have concerns and priorities which sometimes contrast dramatically with the theoretical ethics literature. These findings suggest the importance of engaging patients in ethical deliberation about morally complex technologies, and point to the need for more deliberative patient engagement work in this area. (shrink)

Problematic substance use (PSU) among nurses has wide‐ranging adverse implications. A critical integrative literature review was conducted with an emphasis on building knowledge regarding the influence of structural factors within nurses' professional environments on nurses with PSU. Five thematic categories emerged: (i) access, (ii) stress, and (iii) attitudes as contributory factors, (iv) treatment policies for nurses with PSU, and (v) the culture of the nursing profession. Conclusions were that an overemphasis on individual culpability and failing predominates in the literature and (...) that crucial knowledge gaps exist regarding the influence of structural factors on driving and shaping nurses' substance use. (shrink)

Genomic research results and incidental findings with health implications for a research participant are of potential interest not only to the participant, but also to the participant's family. Yet investigators lack guidance on return of results to relatives, including after the participant's death. In this paper, a national working group offers consensus analysis and recommendations, including an ethical framework to guide investigators in managing this challenging issue, before and after the participant's death.

This anthology identifies four central themes in Wittgenstein's Investigations — reference and meaning, rules and their application, the interiority of mind and the alleged uses of private languages, and necessity and grammar-and provides important recent essays that explore these themes in lucid detail. Intended for both the novice and experienced reader of Wittgenstein's classic work, this book includes important notes and references to help make his problems and arguments more accessible.

Mathematicalnominalists have argued that we can reformulate scientific theories without quantifying over mathematical objects.However, worries about the nature and meaningfulness of these nominalistic reformulations have been raised, like Burgess and Rosen’s dilemma. In this paper, I’ll review (what I take to be) a kind of emerging consensus response to this dilemma: appeal to the idea of different levels of analysis and explanation, with philosophy providing an extra layer of analysis “below” physics, much as physics does below chemistry. I’ll argue that (...) one can address certain lingering worries for this approach by appeal to the apparent usefulness of a distinction between foundational and non-foundational contexts within mathematics and certain (admittedly controversial) arguments for Potentialism about set theory. (shrink)

Introduction No consent for health and medical research is appropriate when the criteria for a waiver of consent are met, yet some ethics committees and data custodians still require informed consent. Methods A single-blind parallel-group randomised controlled trial: 1129 families of children born at a South Australian hospital were sent information explaining data linkage of childhood immunisation and hospital records for vaccine safety surveillance with 4 weeks to opt in or opt out by reply form, telephone or email. A subsequent (...) telephone interview gauged the intent of 1026 parents (91%) in relation to their actions and the sociodemographic differences between participants and non-participants in each arm. Results The participation rate was 21% (n=120/564) in the opt-in arm and 96% (n=540/565) in the opt-out arm (χ2 (1 df) = 567.7, p<0.001). Participants in the opt-in arm were more likely than non-participants to be older, married/de facto, university educated and of higher socioeconomic status. Participants in the opt-out arm were similar to non-participants, except men were more likely to opt out. Substantial proportions did not receive, understand or properly consider study invitations, and opting in or opting out behaviour was often at odds with parents' stated underlying intentions. Conclusions The opt-in approach resulted in low participation and a biased sample that would render any subsequent data linkage unfeasible, while the opt-out approach achieved high participation and a representative sample. The waiver of consent afforded under current privacy regulations for data linkage studies meeting all appropriate criteria should be granted by ethics committees, and supported by data custodians. Trial registration number Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12610000332022. (shrink)

There is considerable debate amongst philosophers as to the basic philosophical problem Wittgenstein is attempting to solve in _Philosophical Investigations_. In this bold and original work, Meredith Williams argues that it is the problem of "normative similarity". In _Blind Obedience_ Williams demonstrates how Wittgenstein criticizes traditional, representationalist theories of language by employing the ‘master/novice’ distinction of the learner, arguing that this distinction is often overlooked but fundamental to understanding philosophical problems about mind and language. The book not only provides (...) revealing discussions of Wittgenstein’s corpus but also intricate analyses of the work of Brandom, Dummett, Frege, Sellars, Davidson, Cavell and others. These are usefully compared in a bid to better situate Wittgenstein’s non-intellectualist, non-theoretical approach and to highlight is unique features. (shrink)

Bullot & Reber (B&R) provide compelling evidence that sensitivity to context, history, and design stance are crucial to theories of art appreciation. We ask how these ideas relate to broader aspects of human cognition. Further open questions concern how psychological essentialism contributes to art appreciation and how essentialism regarding created artifacts (such as art) differs from essentialism in other domains.

The most arresting aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment is its conception of commercial society as a distinct and distinctive social formation. Christopher Berry explains why Enlightenment thinkers considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, and charts the contemporary debates and tensions between Enlightenment thinkers that this idea raised. The book analyses the full range of literature on the subject, from key works like Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations', David Hume's 'Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects' (...) and Adam Ferguson's 'Essay on the History of Civil Society' to lesser-known works such as Robert Wallace's 'Dissertation on Numbers of Mankind'. (shrink)

There are clear associations between the overall quantity of input children are exposed to and their vocabulary acquisition. However, by uncovering specific features of the input that matter, we can better understand the mechanisms involved in vocabulary learning. We examine whether exposure to wh-questions, a challenging quality of the communicative input, is associated with toddlers' vocabulary and later verbal reasoning skills in a sample of low-income, African-American fathers and their 24-month-old children. Dyads were videotaped in free play sessions at home. (...) Videotapes were transcribed and reliably coded for sheer quantity of fathers' input as well as the number of wh-questions fathers produce. Children's productive vocabulary was measured at 24 months using the McArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory MCDI, and children's verbal reasoning skills were measured 1 year later using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Results indicate that the overall quantity of father talk did not relate to children's vocabulary or reasoning skills. However, fathers' use of wh-questions related to both vocabulary and reasoning outcomes. Children's responses to wh-questions were more frequent and more syntactically complex, measured using the mean length of utterance, than their responses to other questions. Thus, posing wh-questions to 2-year-olds is a challenging type of input, which elicits a verbal response from the child that likely helps build vocabulary and foster verbal reasoning abilities. (shrink)

The impact of Nietzsche's engagement with the Greek skeptics has never before been systematically explored in a book-length work - an inattention that belies the interpretive weight scholars otherwise attribute to his early career as a professor of classical philology and to the fascination with Greek literature and culture that persisted throughout his productive academic life. Jessica N. Berry fills this gap in the literature on Nietzsche by demonstrating how an understanding of the Pyrrhonian skeptical tradition illuminates Nietzsche's own (...) reflections on truth, knowledge, and ultimately, the nature and value of philosophic inquiry. This entirely new reading of Nietzsche's epistemological and ethical views promises to make clear and render coherent his provocative but often opaque remarks on the topics of truth and knowledge and to grant us further insight into his ethics-since the Greek skeptics, like Nietzsche, take up the position they do as a means of promoting well-being and psychological health. In addition, it allows us to recover a portrait of Nietzsche as a philologist and philosophical psychologist that has been too often obscured by commentaries on his thought. "The book addresses a number of central issues in Nietzsche's philosophy, including perspectivism and his conception of truth. The idea that his views in these areas owe much to the ancient Pyrrhonists casts them in an important new light, and is well supported by the texts. A lot of people from a lot of different areas in philosophy will have good reason to take notice." - Richard Bett, Johns Hopkins University. (shrink)

The emphasis on individual differences in evolutionary theories is important and has not received adequate attention. Strategic Pluralism makes a major contribution by addressing these issues, but like other evolutionary models (e.g., game theory) does not articulate the specific mechanisms underlying strategy selection. Specification of such mechanisms is an essential next step in the development of these models.

What's not to like about shared decision‐making? These programs employ specially crafted decision aids to educate patients about their treatment options and then merge the newly informed patient preferences, both general and treatment‐specific, with guidance from physicians to optimize medical decisions. Sounds great, right? Even better, recent evidence indicates that shared decision‐making programs may also help bend the proverbial cost curve by reducing the use of medical interventions that patients, now properly educated about their options, often say they do not (...) want. The notion that programs to inform and elicit patient choice might also help to align health care delivery with patient preferences for less invasive and therefore less costly treatment options seems the rarest of mutual wins in health care, in which what is best for the individual might also benefit the whole. Yet there has been scant attention to how the goals of patient care and cost‐containment, and perhaps even profitability, coincide or conflict. (shrink)

In Science as a Profession and Vocation, Max Weber presents a clear task to scientists: he claims that they have the responsibility to present uncomfortable knowledge to politicians, students and o...

The way a rational agent changes her belief in certain propositions/hypotheses in the light of new evidence lies at the heart of Bayesian inference. The basic natural assumption, as summarized in van Fraassen's Reflection Principle, would be that in the absence of new evidence the belief should not change. Yet, there are examples that are claimed to violate this assumption. The apparent paradox presented by such examples, if not settled, would demonstrate the inconsistency and/or incompleteness of the Bayesian approach, and (...) without eliminating this inconsistency, the approach cannot be regarded as scientific. The Sleeping Beauty Problem is just such an example. The existing attempts to solve the problem fall into three categories. The first two share the view that new evidence is absent, but differ about the conclusion of whether Sleeping Beauty should change her belief or not, and why. The third category is characterized by the view that, after all, new evidence is involved. My solution is radically different and does not fall into either of these categories. I deflate the paradox by arguing that the two different degrees of belief presented in the Sleeping Beauty Problem are in fact beliefs in two different propositions, i.e., there is no need to explain the change of belief. The Sleeping Beauty Problem The Problem Deflated 2.1 From contradiction to consistency 2.2 The inanimate version 2.3 Back to SB Summary CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Despite great advances in understanding genetic mechanisms, there still exists a bias toward equating genes with innate modules that determine important developmental events. But genes are equally relevant to understanding developmental plasticity shaped by ecological events. In other words, the term 'genetic inheritance' does not specify ontogenetic mechanisms. Here we present a case history of a species assumed to be under the control of prespecified genetic wiring to direct critical behavioral events such as communication and mating. We show, however, that (...) exogenetic processes stemming from the species's ontogenetic niche provide an alternative view of the flexibility of development especially with respect to behavioral performance. (shrink)

This book addresses how Plato, Kant, and Iris Murdoch view the connection aesthetic experience has to morality. While offering an examination of Iris Murdoch’s philosophy, it analyses deeply the suggestive links between Plato’s and Kant’s philosophies. Meredith Trexler Drees considers not only Iris Murdoch’s concept of unselfing, but also its relationship with Kant’s view of Achtung and Plato’s view of Eros. In addition, Trexler Drees suggests an extended, and partially amended, version of Murdoch’s view, arguing that it is more (...) compatible with a religious way of life than Murdoch herself realized. This leads to an expansion of the overall argument to include Kant’s affirmation of religion as an area of life that can be improved through Plato’s and Murdoch’s vision of how being good and being beautiful can be part of the same life-task. (shrink)

_Wittgenstein, Mind and Meaning_ offers a provocative re-reading of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind, and explores the tensions between Wittgenstein's ideas and contemporary cognitivist conceptions of the mental. This book addresses both Wittgenstein's later works as well as contemporary issues in philosophy of mind. It provides fresh insight into the later Wittgenstein and raises vital questions about the foundations of cognitivism and its wider implications for psychology and cognitive science.

Background As citizen science continues to grow in popularity, there remains disagreement about what terms should be used to describe citizen science activities and participants. The question of how to self-identify has important ethical, political, and practical implications to the extent that shared language reflects a common ethos and goals and shapes behavior. Biomedical citizen science in particular has come to be associated with terms that reflect its unique activities, concerns, and priorities. To date, however, there is scant evidence regarding (...) how biomedical citizen scientists prefer to describe themselves, their work, and the values that they attach to these terms.Methods In 2018, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 35 biomedical citizen scientists in connection with a larger study to understand ownership preferences. Interview data were analyzed to identify the terms that interviewees used and avoided to describe themselves and their work, as well as the reasons for their preferences.Results Biomedical citizen scientists self-identified using three main terms: citizen scientist, biohacker, and community scientist. However, there was a lack of consensus among interviewees on the appropriateness of each term, two of which prompted conflicting responses. Self-identification preferences were based on personal judgments about whether specific terms convey respect, are provocative, or are broad and inclusive, as well as the desirability of each of these messages.Conclusions The lack of consensus about self-identification preferences in biomedical citizen science reflects the diversity of experiences and goals of individuals participating in this field, as well as different perceptions of the values signaled by and implications of using each term. Heterogeneity of preferences also may signal the parallel development of multiple communities in biomedical citizen science. (shrink)

Kant's Critique of Judgement analyses our experience of the beautiful and the sublime in relation to nature, morality, and theology. Meredith's classic translation is here lightly revised and supplemented with a bilingual glossary. The edition also includes the important First Introduction.

Psychological essentialism is a folk theory characterized by the belief that a causal internal essence or force gives rise to the common outward behaviors or attributes of a category's members. In two studies, we investigated whether 4- to 7-year-old children evidenced essentialist reasoning about heart transplants by asking them to predict whether trading hearts with an individual would cause them to take on the donor's attributes. Control conditions asked children to consider the effects of trading money with an individual. Results (...) indicated that children reasoned according to essentialism, predicting more transfer of attributes in the transplant condition versus the non-bodily money control. Children also endorsed essentialist transfer of attributes even when they did not believe that a transplant would change the recipient's category membership. This finding runs counter to predictions from a strong interpretation of the “minimalist” position, an alternative to essentialism. (shrink)

I discuss Peter Singer’s claim that the interests of animals merit equal consideration with those of human beings. I show that there are morally relevant differences between humans and animals that Singer’s rather narrow utilitarian conception of morality fails to capture. Further, I argue that Singer’s formal conception of moral equality is so thin as to be virtually vacuous and that his attempts to give it moresubstance point to just the kind of differences between humans and animals that undermine his (...) equalitarian thesis. (shrink)

Review of "The Construction of Logical Space", by Augustin Rayo. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2013. Pp. xix+220. H/b$35.00.

In this paper, I shall investigate Wittgenstein's ‘private language argument,’ that is, the argument to be found in Philosophical Investigations 243-315. Roughly, this argument is intended to show that a language knowable to one person and only that person is impossible; in other words, a ‘language’ which another person cannot understand isn't a language. Given the prolonged debate sparked by these passages, one must have good reason to bring it up again. I have: Wittgenstein's attack on private languages has regularly (...) been misinterpreted. Moreover, it has been misinterpreted in a way that draws attention away from the real force of his arguments and so undercuts the philosophical significance of these passages. (shrink)

Many contemporary theories on good leadership (e.g., ‘moral leadership’, ‘responsible leadership’, ‘authentic leadership’ or ‘transformational leadership’) emphasize the importance of intrinsic motivation in followers and of leading by example. This also involves a rejection of the use of power and manipulation as well as advocacy for virtues such as modesty and a concern for equality. By focusing on magnanimity (Aristotle's virtue of the great), we show that, contrary to what contemporary theories often claim, there are good reasons for exemplary leaders (...) not to be modest, to point out their greatness in comparison with others, and to make use of external goods and incentives, particularly honor. This conceptual virtue ethical analysis results in specific lessons for the ethical manager who wants to lead by example and points to new questions for empirical research on the determinants of effective ethics management. (shrink)