Initiated by Robert Wesson, _Evolution and Human Values_ is a collection of newly written essays designed to bring interdisciplinary insight to that area of thought where human evolution intersects with human values. The disciplines brought to bear on the subject are diverse - philosophy, psychiatry, behavioral science, biology, anthropology, psychology, biochemistry, and sociology. Yet, as organized by co-editor Patricia A. Williams, the volume falls coherently into three related sections. Entitled Evolutionary Ethics, the first section brings contemporary research to an (...) area first explored by Herbert Spencer. Evolutionary ethics looks to the theory of evolution by natural selection to find values for human living. The second section, Evolved Ethics, discusses the evolution of language and religion and their impact on moral thought and feeling. Evolved ethics was partly Charles Darwin's subject in _The Descent of Man._ The last section bears the title Scientific Ethics. A nascent field, scientific ethics asks about the evolution of human nature and the implications of that nature for ethical theory and social policy. Together, the essays collected here provide important contemporary insights into what it is - and what it may be - to be human. (shrink)

_Employment and Employee Rights_ addresses the issue of rights in the workplace. Although much of the literature in this field focuses on employee rights, this volume considers the issue from the perspective of both employees and employers. Considers the rights of both employees and employers. Discusses the moral and legal landscape and traditional assumptions about right in employment. Investigates arguments for guaranteeing rights, particularly for employees, which are derived from relational, developmental, and economic bases. Explores new dimensions of employment including (...) a model that incorporates growing workplace diversity, builds upon our understanding of the legal landscape, and expands upon our justifications for recognizing and protecting rights. (shrink)

Correspondence theories are frequently either too vaguely expressed – “true statements correspond to the way things are in the world,” or implausible – “true statements mirror raw, mind-independent reality.” I address this problem by developing features and roles that ought to characterize what I call ldquo;modest” correspondence theories. Of special importance is the role of correspondence in directing our responses to cases of suspected non-factuality; lack of straightforward correspondence shows the need for, and guides us in our choice of, various (...) kinds of reconstrual projects. This, I argue, is in contrast to the approaches suggested by deflationism and coherence, and thus modest correspondence theories are appropriately distinct from rivals. (shrink)

A collection of lectures which focussed on the small, constant aggressions of racism.

In commerce, many moral failures are due to narrow mindsets that preclude taking into account the moral dimensions of a decision or action. In turn, sometimes these mindsets are caused by failing to question managerial decisions from a moral point of view, because of a perceived authority of management. In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted controversial experiments to investigate just how far obedience to an authority figure could subvert his subjects' moral beliefs. In this thought-provoking work, the authors examine the (...) prevalence of narrow mental models and the phenomenon of obedience to an authority to analyse and understand the challenges which business professionals encounter in making ethical decisions. Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making proposes processes - including collaborative input and critique - by which individuals may reduce or overcome these challenges. It provides decision-makers at all levels in an organisation with the means to place ethical considerations at the heart of managerial decision-making. (shrink)

As we look to the future in a world with porous borders and boundaries transgressed by technologies, an inevitable question is:Can there be a single, global bioethics? Intimately intertwined with this question is a second one: How might a global bioethics account for profound - and constantly transforming - sources of cultural difference? Can a uniform, global bioethics be relevant cross-culturally? These are not simple questions, rather, a multi-dimensional answer is required. It is important to distinguish between two meanings of (...) bioethics: the academic discipline of bioethics as opposed to bioethics as a set of practices governing clinical care and scientific research. There is growing evidence to support the notion of a shared global understanding of bioethics as a field of inquiry focused on the moral dimensions of science and biomedicine. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 2 Seiten: 218-246.

The development of the Functional Genomics Investigation Ontology (FuGO) is a collaborative, international effort that will provide a resource for annotating functional genomics investigations, including the study design, protocols and instrumentation used, the data generated and the types of analysis performed on the data. FuGO will contain both terms that are universal to all functional genomics investigations and those that are domain specific. In this way, the ontology will serve as the “semantic glue” to provide a common understanding of data (...) from across these disparate data sources. In addition, FuGO will reference out to existing mature ontologies to avoid the need to duplicate these resources, and will do so in such a way as to enable their ease of use in annotation. This project is in the early stages of development; the paper will describe efforts to initiate the project, the scope and organization of the project, the work accomplished to date, and the challenges encountered, as well as future plans. (shrink)

Three recent, influential critiques (Stich 1978; Fodor 1981c; Block 1980) have argued that various tasks on the agenda for computational psychology put conflicting pressures on its theoretical constructs. Unless something is done, the inevitable result will be confusion or outright incoherence. Stich, Fodor, and Block present different versions of this worry and each proposes a different remedy. Stich wants the central notion of belief to be jettisoned if it cannot be shown to be sound. Fodor tries to reduce confusion in (...) computational psychology by dismissing some putative tasks as impossible. Block argues that the widespread faith in functionalism is just not warranted. I argue that all these critiques are misguided because they depend on holding cognitive psychology to taxonomic standards that other sciences routinely rise above. (shrink)

Consciousness, self-consciousness, mental unity, and the necessary conditions for cognition are issues of paramount importance for two prima facie distinct intellectual endeavors: contemporary cognitive science and interpretations of Kant. The goal of Andrew Brook’s timely and useful book is to contribute to both of these projects by showing how a better understanding of Kant’s views can also illuminate current controversies about how to model the mind.

A REALIDADE DAS SERRAS CENTRAIS POTIGUARES E A QUESTÃO DO DESENVOLVIMENTO REGIONAL SOB A PERSPECTIVA DO DIREITO, DESENVOLVIMENTO E SUSTENTABILIDADE.

BioPortal is a Web portal that provides access to a library of biomedical ontologies and terminologies developed in OWL, RDF(S), OBO format, Protégé frames, and Rich Release Format. BioPortal functionality, driven by a service-oriented architecture, includes the ability to browse, search and visualize ontologies (Figure 1). The Web interface also facilitates community-based participation in the evaluation and evolution of ontology content.

In Quod animi mores, Galen says both that there is an identity between the capacities of the soul and the mixtures of the body, and that the soul’s capacities ‘follow upon’ the bodily mixtures. The seeming tension in this text can be resolved by noting that the soul’s capacities are constituted by, and hence are nothing over and above, bodily mixtures, but bodily mixtures explain the soul’s capacities and not the other way around. Galen’s proposal represents a distinctive position in (...) the Ancient debate on the relationship between soul and body. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics 7.7 (= Eudemian Ethics 6.7), Aristotle distinguishes softness (malakia) from lack of self-control (akrasia) and endurance (karteria) from self-control (enkrateia). This paper argues that unqualified softness consists of a disposition to give up acting to avoid the painful toil (ponos) required to execute practical resolutions, and (coincidentally) to enjoy the pleasures of rest and relaxation. The enduring person, in contrast, persists in her commitments despite the painful effort required to enact them. Along the way, I argue that (...) this interpretation qualifies our understanding of the pleasures and pains with which temperance and intemperance are concerned. (shrink)

Most people believe that extraterrestrial beings or porpoises or computers could someday be recognized as persons. Given the significant constitutional differences between these entities and ourselves, the general assumption appears to be that ‘person’ is not a natural kind term. David Wiggins offers an illuminating challenge to this popular dogma in ‘Locke, Butler and the Stream of Consciousness: and Men as a Natural Kind’. Wiggins does not claim that ‘person’ actually is a natural kind term; but he argues hard for (...) the advantages of regarding it as something like a natural kind classification. The problem is that, whatever its merits, there are obvious and fatal objections to the view that person is a natural kind. My aim is to present a modification of the natural kind thesis which avoids these objections and retains the attractions of the basic position. (shrink)

One of the most common threads in the Caribbean tapestry races which have populated the region over the last five centuries largely through forced or voluntary migration, is that there have emerged mixtures of the different racial groups. A large proportion of Caribbean women and men are referred to euphemistically as ‘mixed race’. The terms used to describe people of mixed race vary by territory and have been incrementally added to or changed over time. The original nomenclatures such as sambo, (...) musteephino, mulatto, creole, etc. have been replaced at present to include terms like brown skin, mulatto, clear skin, light skin, red-nigger, dougla and browning. The title of the article comes from a contemporary dancehall song in Jamaica in which the black singer, Buju Banton, unwittingly echoes an unspoken yet shared notion of female desirability in the Caribbean: a preference for ‘brown’ as opposed to black women or unmixed women. In the ongoing constructions of femininity in the region, class and skin colour have intersected with race to produce hierarchies and stereotypes of femininity based on racial mixing. Drawing on some of the historical data available, particularly that of the pioneering research in this area produced by Lucille Mathurin in 1974, this article interrogates some aspects of miscegenation in the Jamaican past, to configure these with gender, race and class relations in the present. The article does not attempt to arrive at conclusive findings but to contribute to the ongoing process in the region, and elsewhere, of differentiating the category ‘woman’ in historiography and sociology. (shrink)

Reason and emotion are often cast as opposites. Yet emotion comes in a wide array of manifestations and has a variety of relations with its supposed opposite. Understanding emotion better is key to grasping how jurisprudence casts the relation between psychology and judicial decision making. Jurisprudents disagree on whether and when (lack of) emotion is a problem for decision makers in the justice system. The aim of this paper is to shed light on unarticulated assumptions in mainstream legal theory concerning (...) this disagreement. The paper plots the different positions jurisprudents hold concerning the role of emotion in judicial decision making, regardless of where they stand on matters such the nature of law. The paper substantiates the claim that legal theorists often take an irrationalist approach to emotion but occasionally develop an alternative account that is closer to a cognitivist approach, the prime example of which is the claim that equity requires practical reasoning. Emotions are then cast as skills to be appreciated. The paper concludes that jurisprudence adopts a simplistic view of emotion. The study of the role of emotion has been hampered by the tendency to view emotions reductively. My classificatory effort warrants the conclusion that lack of emotion – understood as a skill in cognitivist terms – constitutes a problem for justice. (shrink)

This essay rearticulates historical and contemporary security discourse as a politics of desire bound to a masculinist and racialized notion of Selfhood. The Persian Gulf War and the Canada/Spain Turbot War are presented as case studies which typify how the securing of desire through warfare proceeds from an idea of the desirous rival a Other. The essay counters Guardian and Lananian narratives of a desire which emanates from a sense of lack, and leads to violence, with Levinas's understanding of desire (...) as central to, rather than disruptive of, an ethical relation with alterity. (shrink)