(1994). Perils of a modern Cassandra: Rhetorical aspects of public indifference to the population explosion. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, Public Indifference to Population Issues, pp. 221-237.

(2014). Explosive Population Growth in Tropical Africa: Crucial Omission in Development Forecasts—Emerging Risks and Way Out. World Futures: Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 120-139.

Genre discourse is widespread in appreciative practice, whether that is about hip-hop music, romance novels, or film noir. It should be no surprise then, that philosophers of art have also been interested in genres. Whether they are giving accounts of genres as such or of particular genres, genre talk abounds in philosophy as much as it does the popular discourse. As a result, theories of genre proliferate as well. However, in their accounts, philosophers have so far focused on capturing all (...) of the categories of art that we think of as genres and have focused less on ensuring that only the categories we think are genres are captured by those theories. Each of these theories populates the world with far too many genres because they call a wide class of mere categories of art genres. I call this the problem of genre explosion. In this paper, I survey the existing accounts of genre and describe the kinds of considerations they employ in determining whether a work is a work of a given genre. After this, I demonstrate the ways in which the problem of genre explosion arises for all of these theories and discuss some solutions those theories could adopt that will ultimately not work. Finally, I argue that the problem of genre explosion is best solved by adopting a social view of genres, which can capture the difference between genres and mere categories of art. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a series of experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health, the animal ecologist John B. Calhoun offered rats everything they needed, except space. The resulting population explosion was followed by a series of “social pathologies”—violence, sexual deviance, and withdrawal. This essay examines the influence of Calhoun's experiments among psychologists and sociologists concerned with the effects of the built environment on health and behavior. Some saw evidence of the danger of the crowd in Calhoun's “rat cities” (...) and fastened on a method of analysis that could be transferred to the study of urban man. Others, however, cautioned against drawing analogies between rodents and humans. The ensuing dispute saw social scientists involved in a careful negotiation over the structure and meaning of Calhoun's experimental systems and, with it, over the significance of the crowd in the laboratory, institution, and city. (shrink)

A population policy, that assures the negative freedom of the individuals who are not forced to proceed on abortion, their well-being and their positive freedom of escaping from preventable mortality, of avoiding mortality during infancy and childhood, of being free from hunger and undernutrition, is possible in developing countries, if the developed states should realize that they overconsume and that they use nature as their own resource, at the expense of the rest of the world.By avoiding rich nations' overconsumption (...) and injustice towards the poor ones we are moving towards a restraint on resource depletion, environmental degradation, poverty and population explosion, on the destruction of a sustainable life in general. (shrink)

How people pay is critically important to consumers and businesses alike. Many consumers are choosing to pay for goods and services from an increasing number of options. Tech‐savvy urbanites buy coffee by tapping their phone on a reader. Parents returning from a night out use peer‐to‐peer payment apps, such as Venmo, to pay the sitter. The recent explosion of financial innovations promises faster, more efficient, and cheaper transactions. These increasing digital payment options coincide with decreased number and volume of (...) cash transactions. However, vulnerable populations face more constrained payment choices and often rely exclusively on cash. Without experience, devices, or acceptable credit histories, vulnerable populations may have little access to digital transactions. The advantages of falling digital costs and other benefits thus accrue to the digitally connected. At the same time, those who must transact in coins and paper money are likely to find their relative costs increasing. This paper highlights payment trends and the potential impact on vulnerable populations in the United States as we move toward a cashless society. This paper should stimulate discussions of public policy initiatives to mitigate digital payment issues for vulnerable people. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as law and medicine, (...) truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

Over the past generation, the rise of East Asia and especially China, has brought about a sea change in the economic and political world order. At the same time, global warming, environmental degradation, food and water shortages, population explosion, and income inequities have created a perfect storm that threatens the very survival of humanity. It is clear now that the Westphalian model of individual sovereign states seeking their own self-interest will not be able to respond effectively to this (...) win-win or lose-lose crisis. In this volume, a cadre of distinguished scholars comes together to reflect on Confucianism and Deweyan pragmatism as possible resources for a new geopolitics that begins from an ontology of interdependence and recognizes the irreducibly ecological nature of the human experience at every level. Both Confucian and Deweyan traditions emphasize the primacy of experience, the importance of vital relationality, and the moral roots of good governance. The potential benefits of conceptually blending the two are many. Indeed, the contemporary Chinese philosopher Tang Junyi provides us with a cosmological understanding of the "idea" of Confucianism that, in parallel to Dewey's "idea" of democracy, can enable us to anticipate the core values, if not the specific contours, of a "Confucian democracy." Just as Dewey's "idea" of democracy is his vision of the flourishing communal life made possible by the contributions of the uniquely distinguished persons that constitute it, Tang Junyi's Confucianism is a pragmatic naturalism directed at achieving the most highly integrated cultural, moral, and spiritual growth for the individual-in-community. In both, we find an affirmation of communal harmony as a process "starting here and going there" through which those involved learn together to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways. Just such a cosmological understanding of democracy is one way of describing what will be needed to address the many predicaments characterizing the environmental, cultural, socioeconomic, and political dynamics of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Religious naturalism and three scientific revolutions: Introduction -- The cosmological revolution -- The evolutionary revolution -- The ecological revolution -- Inwardness and awareness in nature: Introduction -- Inwardness of life and inwardness of mind -- Mind and consciousness in nature -- The range of conscious awareness on earth -- Presumptive rights and conflicts of rights: Introduction -- Rs of the thou of nature -- A scheme of presumptive natural rights -- A fourth R of the thou of nature -- Conflicts (...) of rights -- Hunting and fishing : Introduction -- Hunting -- Fishing -- Responses to the charge of impractical idealism -- Eating and wearing: Introduction -- Using animals for food -- The vegetarian response -- Using animals for apparel and other purposes -- Other areas of responsibility and concern: Introduction -- Experimenting on animals -- Rodeos, circuses, zoos, and aquariums -- Endangered species and despoliations of natural environments -- The human population explosion -- The threat of global climate change -- A new moral and religious consciousness: Introduction -- Empowerment in religion of nature -- Objections and replies -- Principles and prescriptions. (shrink)

A simple exogenous growth model gives conservative estimates of the economic implications of machine intelligence. Machines complement human labor when they become more productive at the jobs they perform, but machines also substitute for human labor by taking over human jobs. At first, expensive hardware and software does only the few jobs where computers have the strongest advantage over humans. Eventually, computers do most jobs. At first, complementary effects dominate, and human wages rise with computer productivity. But eventually substitution can (...) dominate, making wages fall as fast as computer prices now do. An intelligence population explosion makes per-intelligence consumption fall this fast, while economic growth rates rise by an order of magnitude or more. These results are robust to automating incrementally, and to distinguishing hardware, software, and human capital from other forms of capital. (shrink)

If it survives for a little longer, the human race will probably start to spread across its galaxy. Germ warfare, though, or environmental collapse or many another factor might shortly drive humans to extinction. Are they likely to avoid it? Well, suppose they spread across the galaxy. Of all humans who would ever have been born, maybe only one in a hundred thousand would have lived as early as you. If, in contrast, humans soon became extinct then because of the (...) population explosion you would have been 'fairly ordinary'. Roughly ten per cent of all humans would have been your contemporaries. Now (as the cosmologist Brandon Carter saw to his dismay) a scientific principle tells us not to treat observations as highly extraordinary when they could easily be fairly ordinary. How to apply the principle is controversial, yet it seems we can safely conclude that humanity's chances of galactic colonization cannot be high. Still, we should work to make them as high as possible, resisting those philosophers who argue that human extinction would be no tragedy. (shrink)

For anyone teaching undergraduates material related to Peter Singer’s (1972) ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’, this chapter is for you. I carefully explain the core of the Affluence Argument, balancing accessibility with rigor. I systematically entertain and undermine the following objections: I can’t save everyone, I reject the conclusion, other people aren’t sacrificing their luxuries, it’s MY money and I don’t work hard so that I have to give it to others, I can’t solve the problem by throwing money at it, (...) (flaming) liberals like Peter Singer propose arguments like this, what’s really important is the eternal destiny of people, luxuries are not themselves immoral, Jesus said, “The poor you will have with you always”, riches to rags, proximity, urgency, certainty, corruption, better than others, communism, motivation, economic collapse, population explosion. (shrink)

Official Catholic opposition to contraception has long been portrayed as a stand that is based in antiquated doctrine and “out of touch” with society and its problems. In fact, Catholic arguments often have been less devoted to doctrine and more reflective of concerns for social justice and human rights. This was certainly the case in Latin America, as international birth control programs evolved in the mid to late 20th century. Programs were targeted at developing nations like those in Latin America (...) which were experiencing what was termed a “population explosion.” This article describes how, in this primarily Catholic region, Catholic authorities responded to popula- tion policy, arguing that overpopulation should not be considered the primary cause of economic strife, nor should birth control be promoted as the solution. (shrink)

Abortion, euthanasia, racism, sexism, pater­nalism, the rights of children, the population explosion, and the dynamics of economic growth are examined in the light of ethical principles by leading philosophers in order to suggest reasonable judgments. Originally prepared for the distinguished Wayne Leys Memorial Lecture Series at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, the essayists have addressed themselves to the most pressing ethical questions being asked today. William K. Frankena, Professor Emer­itus, University of Michigan, in “The Ethics of Respect for Life” (...) argues for a qualified view of moral respect for human personality. From his viewpoint it is always prima facie wrong to shorten or prevent human life, but not always actually wrong as other moral conditions may counter the presumed wrong. The late William T. Blackstone in “Zero Population Growth and Zero Economic Growth” contends that justice will require the production of the maximal level of goods to fulfill basic human needs com­patible with the avoidance of ecological catastrophe. Richard Wasserstrom, Professor of Phi­losophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, proposes an assimilationist ideal in “Racism, Sexism, and Preferential Treat­ment.” Gerald Dworkin, Professor of Phi­losophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, dares to ask “Is More Choice Better than Less?” Joel Feinberg, Professor of Phi­losophy at the University of Arizona, in “The Child’s Right to an Open Future,” offers a defense of “rights-in-trust” of children. Tom L. Beauchamp, Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy In­stitute-Center for Bioethics of Georgetown University, considers the paternalism used to justify social policies in the practice of medi­cine and insists that it invariably involves a conflict between the ethical principles of be­neficence and autonomy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Encounters with Bertrand RussellBryan Magee and Introduced by Henry HardyBryan Magee (1930–2019), the celebrated philosopher, politician, journalist, author and broadcaster, was (and still is) well known for his brilliant television conversations with prominent philosophers—a triumph of uncondescending popularisation. He was a consummate interviewer and discussion chairman, and one of the most articulate and engaging expositors, especially of ideas, who ever lived.Born a cockney in Hoxton, east London, he was (...) educated at Christ's Hospital School in Sussex, and at Oxford, where he was elected president of the Oxford Union. Early in his career he presented the itv current affairs programme This Week, made documentaries about social issues, and wrote books, including the hugely successful Popper (1973) for Fontana Modern Masters. In 1974 he was elected as Labour mp for Leyton, but in 1982 defected to the sdp, losing his seat in 1983.He talked to philosophers for the bbc in the radio series Conversations with Philosophers (1970–71) and in the two tv series Men of Ideas (1978) and The Great Philosophers (1987). Substantial volumes on Wagner and Schopenhauer were highlights in an eventual total of 23 very various books, including The Story of Philosophy (1998), Ultimate Questions (2016), and three volumes of autobiography: Clouds of Glory: a Hoxton Childhood (2003), Growing Up in a War (2007), and Making the Most of It (2018).He left a large body of unpublished work: finished and unfinished books; essays, poems, interviews, "Notebooks" of short philosophical thoughts, correspondence. It falls to me as his literary executor to publish the best of it. I started with the selection from the Notebooks that appeared last year in the New Statesman, chosen by the editor of the magazine, Jason Cowley. Next in line are his pen-portraits of contemporary figures whom he knew well, or met [End Page 63] and sharply observed. Many of these, including the one published here,1 were written in a thick red bound foolscap notebook. Magee intended them to be published as a book, but never turned to the task.The following vignette of his meetings with Russell turned out to be a dry run for "Getting to Know Russell", Chapter 12 of Confessions of a Philosopher, which I described, when I reviewed it for the Times Higher Education Supplement,2 as a "challenging and readable invitation to philosophy" that is "exemplary in its clarity and breathtaking in its intellectual self-confidence". As Andrew Bone, co-editor of this journal, has observed to me, this original version is "More affectionate and less critical than the longer book-chapter that grew out of it."3 The later version is not as different from the earlier as Magee's closing words below imply it should be, but there are things in both versions that are not there in the other, so that it is worth having both in print. In the book Magee adds that Russell was one of the two geniuses he had the good fortune to get to know (the other, presumably, being Karl Popper), that "My first day with Russell remains for me the most memorable day of talk I have ever experienced", and that "Russell remains the most unforgettable character I've met." There are also factual differences: for example, Magee says below that they spent only "minutes" on the tv project that he visited Russell to discuss, but in the book "We discussed the television programme at useful length." Stories have a way of changing in the retelling. [End Page 64]________25 October 1970I have been putting off writing about Russell, because the task is so great, and the offhand way I have written this book is not appropriate to it. Perhaps first, simply, the facts of my acquaintanceship with him.When I was working at atv in the late 1950s it was wanted to include Russell in a one-hour documentary about the population explosion (a documentary which would have to say a good deal about world hunger). I rang him at his house in Wales to ask him to take part, and told him I was perfectly willing to bring a television unit down to Penrhyndeudraeth to film the... (shrink)

In two shocking articles that appeared in 1968 and 1974, Garrett Hardin argued that the population explosion was producing a “tragedy of the commons.” Since we lack an effective method of sharing common resources, the strong incentive for individuals to appropriate them selfishly would soon lead to their collapse. To mitigate this danger, Hardin proposed a “lifeboat ethic”: less populated and -polluted Western countries should deny food aid to developing nations, where it would save lives only to increase (...) population pressure, and they should close their borders to immigration to prevent their lifeboats from becoming overcrowded and going down with the rest. This paper challenges and complicates Hardin’s account of the tragedy. While there is something right about his view, its vulnerability to a series of empirical challenges reflects its conceptual limitations. I argue that we need to develop a broadly ethical and arguably religious solution to the twin challenges of population growth and pollution. If the liberal commitment to negative freedom is, ironically, largely responsible for our current ecological bind, our only hope of escape is to build bridges between traditions in search of a thicker sense of ethicopolitical obligation. (shrink)

It is commonly supposed that in the eighth century B.c. there was a ‘population explosion’ in Greece which moved the Greeks to send out colonies. A. J. Graham in the Cambridge Ancient History iii, 3 is typical: ‘The basic active cause of the colonizing movement was overpopulation’; ‘at the very time when the Archaic colonising movement began, in the second half of the eighth century, there was a marked increase in population in Greece’ . The presumed connection (...) between overpopulation and colonisation is not immediately obvious. The evidence for the population explosion is found in the increased number of burials in Attica and the Argolid, but Athens sent out no colony before the very end of the seventh century and Argos probably none at all, certainly none in this period. So special explanations have to be formulated for Athens' and Argos' lack of colonies while their postulated ‘population explosion’ is presumed for Greece as a whole and called in to explain the burst of colonising in the eighth century. The hypothesis is not used for seventh-century colonisation when the number of burials declines. (shrink)

A survey of the history of the ideal of a balance between man and nature in America, this book outlines the development of the conservation movement and summarizes the thinking of such men as Thoreau. One misses a critical discussion of the men and ideas opposed by the conservationists, e.g., Carnegie. The discussion of contemporary problems, the population-explosion and the arms race, is provocative but less careful and well-documented than the rest of the book.—R. J. W.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and DeedsSteven HeineBuddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryūken Williams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press and the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997. xlii + 467 pp. Paper $19.95.Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Ryūken Williams, is the (...) first book in the series on "Religions of the World and Ecology" edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. The book series is an outgrowth of a series of conferences held from 1996 to 1998 at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, funded primarily by the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation in addition to a variety of other sources. Each volume of the series is to be edited by Tucker along with a specialist in the respective tradition. By the time this review appears, several other volumes will have been published, including books on Hinduism and Confucianism. The aim of the series is to examine the similarities and differences in the attitudes of world religions to ecological issues in an era in which "[f]rom resource depletion and species extinction to [End Page 136] pollution overload and toxic surplus, the planet is struggling against unprecedented assaults … [that are] aggravated by population explosion, industrial growth, technological manipulation, and military proliferation heretofore unknown by the human community" (p. xv). The series editors hope to stimulate "scholars of religion to respond as engaged intellectuals with deepening creative reflection" (pp. xxx-xxxi) rather than remain as seemingly uninvolved armchair observers of the ongoing environmental crisis.Buddhism may be a likely candidate for the first religious tradition to be examined in the book series because it appears to have a special affinity with environmental concerns and causes for several reasons. The basic Buddhist philosophy of karmic causality and dependent origination stresses the interdependence of all sentient beings who participate in transmigration throughout the six realms; the nonduality of humans and nature; and the moral retribution that awaits those who violate the sanctity of existence. This nondualistic worldview is enhanced, especially in Mahāyā na Buddhism in East Asia, by interaction with the organic cosmology of indigenous Chinese religions based on yin-yang ideology, and the result is a pantheistic notion that, according to Lewis Lancaster, asserts that "(t)he rocks, trees, lotuses, streams, mountains—all have Buddha-nature" (p. 13).Furthermore, in recent years some Buddhists have been among the leading voices trumpeting the need for ecological awareness and action. For example, the Council of All Beings, a ritual in which one places oneself as in a trance in the position of another species in order to appreciate the impact of ecological decline on it, was designed by Buddhists and has become popular among environmentalists of all persuasions. Also, there are several examples of Buddhist movements establishing environmentally sustainable rural communities in America, and the group known as "engaged Buddhists," many of whom are associated with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, have consistently led protests against the misuse of nuclear power and a host of other issues. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that there has always been another side of Buddhism, which after all is largely a monastic tradition for home-leavers—a side that is hermetic, withdrawing, and socially and environmentally disengaged and, at times in history, corrupt, at least as a by-product of benign neglect.The question is, which side of Buddhism will prevail in the discourse concerning environmental issues? Will it be the one emphasizing how to analyze and act on the ecological crisis based on the inseparability of all forms of existence? Or will it be the face of Buddhism that may appear disconnected with and neglectful of current social issues in focusing exclusively on the individual quest for enlightenment or, as was the case in medieval China, on the growth of powerful, independent temple complexes? While several of the contributions to the volume rather uncritically celebrate the former side of Buddhist discourse, the more constructive essays make it clear that a notion of Buddhist engagement with the environment... (shrink)

Grounded in a postcolonial, liberationist urban vision, this article lamented the theological and political paralysis of urban denialism that fails African cities and African urban populations. Considering different possible urban trajectories towards 2063 – ranging from floundering to flourishing, implosion to explosion, and apocalyptic disaster to complete rebirth – it then proposed theologies of African urban citizenship, as response. It sought to articulate a vision of citizen-driven African cities, remaking cities ‘from below’, through interconnected and intersectional urban movements. It (...) considered urban citizenship not as the decent and orderly conduct of subjects of the nation-state but as the disruptive and transformative presence and participation of citizens of God’s new city, breaking into cities across the African continent. While it bemoaned the absence of ‘Africa’s urban revolution’ from mainstream theologies and politics practised in the African context, and the insufficient attention paid to it even by the Africa 2063 manifesto, it dared to evoke hope, in spite of evidence to the contrary. This should be viewed as a conceptual contribution, fusing literature study with deep urban immersion. Contribution: Grounded in a postcolonial, liberationist urban vision, this article lamented the theological and political paralysis of urban denialism that fails African cities and African urban populations, contemplating theologies of African urban citizenship instead. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. (shrink)

Violence in the world, explosive population growth, uneven and unfair distribution of wealth, destruction of the environment and/or the ineffectiveness of supranational political and economic tools and institutions and other problems are more and more achieving global character. The growth of number, frequency and intensity of global problems and threats is a reality. In the same time it represents a big challenge: How to find a generally acceptable, adequate global solution? The majority of political and intellectual leaders around the (...) world acknowledge concept of sustainable development/sustainable living as the most important tool for protecting the biosphere and for securing reasonable development for the future. The development and implementation of the sustainable living concept is driven by the effort to reach – as much as possible – the ideals of humanism and the harmony between man and nature, based on the respect of life. Values compatible with a sustainable way of living are a set of values, the implementation of which promote the shift towards sustainable future. These values are not completely new. Just the opposite. They create the core of the common heritage of humankind, since the oldest religious cultures. The submitted study tries to map the recent developments of values compatible with the sustainable way of living problematic from both Czech, Slovak and thinkers from abroad perspectives in the wider framework of relevant international activities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Limits of Our ObligationsRyan C. MavesDisclaimers. No funding was utilized for this manuscript. Dr. Maves is a retired U.S. Navy officer, and the opinions contained herein are his own. The opinions in this manuscript do not reflect the official opinion of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, nor of the U.S. Government.In 2012, I was a commander in the United States Navy, deployed to the NATO (...) Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar Airfield (KAF), Afghanistan. The KAF Role 3 began as a tent hospital under Canadian command, built along the flight line at Ahmad Shah Baba International Airport as [End Page 176] part of an expanding NATO base. By the time of my arrival, it was a small but capable brick-and-mortar building under U.S. Navy command, with four operating rooms, two CT scanners, and a busy intensive care unit (ICU).Not long before my deployment, the KAF Role 3 was described as one of the busiest trauma hospitals in the world. Casualties arrived every day, usually by helicopter. Blast injuries from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were common, ranging in severity from concussions in passengers in armored vehicles, to multiple amputations from blast injuries with concomitant thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic trauma. KAF had a daytime population of over 30,000 in 2012, and our hospital was effectively the referral center for the region, so patients with non-surgical diagnoses were similarly common: myocardial infarctions, seizures, pulmonary emboli, and endemic infections, to name a few.As an infectious disease (I.D.) specialist, I functioned mainly as a hospitalist, managing patients postoperatively, but I also provided any consultative support when needed. During mass casualty events, the intensivists and I would act as backups in the trauma bay, freeing up the surgeons for the most acutely injured patients. It turned out that an I.D. doctor’s skillset lent itself well to acute trauma evaluations; we are well known for having an eye for fine details, combined with low-grade paranoia. These traits served me well during what I came to describe as “my involuntary trauma fellowship.”Our patients could be divided into five key groups: Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF, including the army and national police), non-Afghan coalition military (mostly U.S. and other NATO members), Afghan civilians, NATO civilian contract staff, and the Taliban. Our approach to each of these groups was different. For all patient groups, we would provide the same emergency care, including acute resuscitation and immediate life-saving surgery. It was after this emergency care period that our management plans diverged.For coalition forces, our next priority after acute resuscitation and stabilization was to assess whether a patient could remain in theater. Stable patients with relatively minor injuries could often undergo rehabilitation at KAF; many personnel could subsequently return to combat duty with their units. More seriously-injured patients would be transported out of Afghanistan within 24-48 hours (if not faster). Usually, this would involve stops at Bagram Airfield near Kabul and then Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany before reaching a military hospital in their home countries. There were few limits on whom could be transported. Dedicated critical care air transport teams (CCATT) included intensivists, respiratory therapists, and critical care nurses, who could manage the most unstable patients on board what was effectively a flying ICU. The “lung team” in Landstuhl could fly to KAF to start patients with severe respiratory failure on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and then fly them out on maximal support.NATO civilian contractors would receive comparable care, although the exact details of how they would be transported out of theater would depend on their home countries and the nature of their contract. We cared for one civilian contractor with newly-diagnosed HIV infection whom we were able to stabilize on the ventilator, get him extubated, start on initial antiretroviral therapy, and transport him home with a referral to his local HIV care program.Afghan soldiers were part of the coalition, but there was no distant home country where we could transport them. They were home. After their resuscitations and surgeries, we would arrange transfer to the Kandahar Regional... (shrink)

This collection reports on the latest research on an increasingly pivotal issue for evolutionary biology: cooperation. The chapters are written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and utilize research tools that range from empirical survey to conceptual modeling, reflecting the rich diversity of work in the field. They explore a wide taxonomic range, concentrating on bacteria, social insects, and, especially, humans. -/- Part I (“Agents and Environments”) investigates the connections of social cooperation in social organizations to the conditions that make (...) cooperation profitable and stable, focusing on the interactions of agent, population, and environment. Part II (“Agents and Mechanisms”) focuses on how proximate mechanisms emerge and operate in the evolutionary process and how they shape evolutionary trajectories. Throughout the book, certain themes emerge that demonstrate the ubiquity of questions regarding cooperation in evolutionary biology: the generation and division of the profits of cooperation; transitions in individuality; levels of selection, from gene to organism; and the “human cooperation explosion” that makes our own social behavior particularly puzzling from an evolutionary perspective. (shrink)

Motivated by advances in mass customization in business practice, explosion in the number of internet of things devices, and the lack of published research on privacy differentiation and customization, we propose a contextual information relevance model of privacy. We acknowledge the existence of individual differences with respect to unique security and privacy protection needs. We observe and argue that it is unfair and socially inefficient to treat privacy in a uniform manner whereby a large proportion of the population (...) remain unsatisfied by a common policy. Our research results provide quantifiable means to measure and evaluate the customized privacy. We show that with privacy differentiation, the social planner will observe increases in demand and overall social welfare. Our results also show that business practitioners could profit from privacy customization. (shrink)

In general, existential threats are those that may potentially result in the extinction of the entire human species, if not significantly endanger its living population. Among the said threats include, but not limited to, pandemics and the impacts of a technological singularity. As regards pandemics, significant work has already been done on how to mitigate, if not prevent, the aftereffects of this type of disaster. For one, certain problem areas on how to properly manage pandemic responses have already been (...) identified, like the following: (a) not being able to learn from previous experiences, (b) the inability to act on warning signals, and (c) the failure to reach a global consensus on a problem (i.e., in a timely manner). In terms of a singularity, however, it may be said that further research is still needed, specifically on how to aptly respond to its projected negative outcomes. In this paper, by treating the three problem areas noted above as preliminary assessment measures of a country’s capacity to coordinate a national response to large-scale disasters, we examine the readiness of the Philippines in preparing for an intelligence explosion. By citing certain instances of how the said country, specifically its national government, faced the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, it puts forward the idea that the likely Philippine disaster response towards a singularity needs to be worked on, appealing for a more comprehensive assessment of such for a more informed response plan. (shrink)

The digitization of society and academic research endeavours have led to an explosion of interest in the potential uses of population data in research. Alongside this, increasing attention is focussing on the conditions necessary for maintaining a social license for research practices. Previous research has pointed to the importance of demonstrating “public benefits” from research for maintaining public support, yet there has been very little consideration of what the term “public benefits” means or what public expectations of “public (...) benefits” are. In order to address this pressing issue a series of deliberative workshops with members of the public were held across Scotland in May and June 2017. The workshops aimed to engage a cross-section of the Scottish population in in-depth discussions of the ways that the public – or publics – might benefit from data-intensive health research. The findings reported here discuss workshop participants’ understandings and expectations of health research; who they considered to be “the public” that should benefit from health research and; in what ways they felt “the public” should benefit. Workshop participants’ preference was clearly for the widest possible public benefit to be felt by all, but they also acknowledged the value in research aiming to primarily benefit vulnerable groups within society. A key focus of discussions was the extent to which workshop participants were confident that potential public benefits would be realised. A crucial consideration then is the extent to which mechanisms and political support are in place to realise and maximise the public benefits of data-intensive health research. (shrink)

In an effort to reassess the status of Phenomenology of Perception and its relation to The Visible and the Invisible, this essay argues that Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's text and his discussion of the “field of presence” in La temporalité are intended to think through the field in which time makes its appearance as one of passage. Time does not show itself as presence or in the present but manifests itself as Ablauf, as lapse or flow, an écoulement that is (...) simultaneously an explosion, an éclatement. Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in these pages is thus legible as recovering the primordial experience of time as a self-differentiating déhiscence in its dual power of articulation and erosion. Time is thus simultaneously the vehicle of the world's appearance and of its “disarticulation”, the passage of a rhythm of affirmation and disintegration. Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception is oblique, somewhat fragmentary and circuitous.11 References to Merleau-Ponty's works cite the French followed by the English translation. I will use the abbreviation PhP for Phenomenology of Perception and VI for The Visible and the Invisible. Other texts by Merleau-Ponty will be referenced by the title. References to Husserl and Heidegger use the German followed by the translation. I will use the abbreviations ZB for the Zeitbewußtsein lectures; FT for Formale und transzendentale Logik; EU for Erfahrung und Urteil; and SZ for Sein und Zeit. View all notes While of course this phenomenon comes under close scrutiny in La temporalité, a brief inspection of this text as a whole finds it to be virtually everywhere.22 The theme of temporality is introduced as early as the Preface to Part I, “Experience and Objective Thought” and appears again in almost every subsequent chapter: the first chapter of Part I ; in his discussion on number blindness and Goldstein's patient known as Schneider in La spatialité du corps et la motricité ; in the sexuality chapter ; in the discussion of memory in La corps comme expression et la parole ; in Le sentir ; in the discussion of depth in L'espace ; in La chose et le monde naturel ; in Autrui et le monde humain and in Le cogito. Rather than providing the perhaps much called for synopsis of these scattered accounts of time or trying to locate a unified account in Phenomenology of Perception through such a synopsis, this essay will focus only on La temporalité, particularly the discussion of Husserl's diagram from the Zeitbewußtsein and the “champ de présence”. View all notes It is this apparent ubiquity that will motivate scholars such as Renaud Barbaras to claim that “… the entire structure of Phenomenology of Perception rests on a chapter devoted to temporality”.33 Barbaras The Being of the Phenomenon, 218. View all notes In spite of this ubiquity and apparent centrality, however, the treatment of temporality seems to neglect a systematic and thoroughgoing approach, and whether this work manages to address this theme with a sufficient degree of rigor remains open to debate. Furthermore, beyond the scattered and fragmented appearance of temporality in the text, the chapter devoted to its exploration contains numerous, well-recognized problems.44 Merleau-Ponty's misinterpretation of Bergson in this chapter has received much warranted attention. Alia Al-Saji, for example, has criticized Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in this chapter of Phenomenology of Perception for this misreading as well as its perhaps too uncritical infatuation with Husserl and his emphasis on presence. See Lawlor Thinking Through French Philosophy, Al-Saji “The Temporality of Life” and “A Past Which Has Never Been Present” and Barbaras “The Turn of Experience”. View all notes Among these difficulties, Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's lectures on time-consciousness, the Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins,55 The 1928 publication of the Zeitbewußtsein, edited by Heidegger, is what appears in the bibliography of Phenomenology of Perception. This version, from the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologishe Forschung, as Brough notes, appears as “Part A” of Husserliana X. The notes that constitute this version of the text, furthermore, as Heidegger mentions in his preface to the Jahrbuch version and which Brough repeats were heavily edited by Husserl's assistant at the time, Edith Stein. Merleau-Ponty's references to the Zeitbewußtsein cut across various moments of the text and do not focus on one section in particular, and in fact, he actually references section 11, “Urimpression und retentionale Modifikation”/“Primal impression and retentional modification” in his discussion of the field of presence. As Al-Saji has noted, the extent to which Merleau-Ponty's account of time in La temporalité centres the account of time on “the living present” can be shown to be at play behind the misreading of Bergson. While I do not wish to dispute the specifics of her compelling reading, it is nonetheless worth noting that Al-Saji's reading of the Zeitbewußtsein only focuses on Appendix V, “Gleichzeitigkeit von Wahrnehmung und Wahrgenommenem”/“Simultaneity of Perception and the Perceived”. View all notes looms large, as it seems that his discussion of what he designates as le champ de présence or “field of presence” commits him to the ontological primacy of the present in his account of time. As a result, this earlier work appears to confine itself to a metaphysics organized around the privilege and authority of the present in establishing the structure of time.66 Leonard Lawlor has convincingly argued against this interpretation. Following the famous remark at the end of Le Sentir about “a past which has never been present”, Lawlor argues that precisely because Merleau-Ponty's critique of Bergson is a straw man – that is, because his critique of Bergson is based on a misreading – a closer inspection of Le Sentir and La temporalité shows Merleau-Ponty to be committed to the ontological primacy of an “originary” past. See Lawlor Thinking Through French Philosophy, 89. Marratto, following Lawlor, takes up the charge of a metaphysics of presence in Phenomenology of Perception in dialogue with Derrida. Marratto argues that Derrida's reading selectively overlooks “the very imporant dimensions of difference, discontinuity, and delay and non-self-presence in Merleau-Ponty's descriptions”, located particularly in the latter's theory of subjectivity. I agree with Marratto's assessment, and my aim here is to deepen it by turning in more detail to La temporalité. View all notes This apparent commitment to the ontological primacy of the present, for some readers, has also functioned as an index for tracking the revision of Phenomenology of Perception that is said to figure in The Visible and the Invisible, where a metaphysics of the present is replaced with a commitment to the primacy of an original past, signalling a significant break in the development of Merleau-Ponty's thought.77 This has bearing on the debate mentioned above as the question of temporality and Merleau-Ponty's evolving relationship with Bergson are also cited as part of the index for tracking the differences between Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible. What we see, according to this reading, is Merleau-Ponty move away from a more strictly phenomenological orientation of Phenomenology of Perception, an orientation that is said to adversely mediate his early, critical stance with respect to Bergson, toward a progressively less Husserlian and more Bergsonian stance in The Visible and the Invisible. While he does not specifically address Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Bergson, Marratto's reading also places a special emphasis on the significance of the past, specifically Merleau-Ponty's reference to a “past which has never been present”. It is also not my intention to enter into the question of Merleau-Ponty's relationship with Bergson. Rather, I will restrict my remarks specifically to Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl and the Zeitbewußtsein in La temporalité in order to show that there are grounds for at least questioning one of the premises of the interpretation mentioned above, namely that Phenomenology of Perception is unequivocally legible as committed to the ontological primacy of the present. As will become clear later in the essay, I also dispute interpretations that would place the emphasis on the ontological primacy of an original past. For my own views on the significance of a “past which has never been present”, see Whitmoyer “The Primary Silence of the Past”. View all notes In considering the manner in which the Zeitbewußtsein figures in La temporalité and Merleau-Ponty's discussion of the field of presence, it will do to think about the parameters in which his engagement with Husserl is staged more generally. It seems that Merleau-Ponty never considered his task in terms of the perhaps false alternative of fidelity and heresy, because “any commemoration is also a betrayal”, and because the task of the interpreter is, as he famously notes, thinking through that “unthought-of element … which is wholly his [Husserl's] and yet opens out on something else”.88 Merleau-Ponty, Signes, 203/160. This methodological dictum is developed in more detail in the notes to the course offered on Husserl's Origin of Geometry in 1959–1960. “We are saying not that Husserl was that, but that Husserl was not only what they say, was also another, bearer of an unthought”. View all notes Following Merleau-Ponty's own indications, we could suggest that Husserl's text, rather than a source of orthodoxy, functions as a point of orientation through which Merleau-Ponty marks out his own theory of temporality.99 I will not, therefore, address the question of the “accuracy” of his interpretation of Husserl because, according to Merleau-Ponty himself, this question presupposes that the author, in this case Husserl, has a privileged access to his thought, as if there is some kernel or essence of what a philosopher thought that interpreters can either get right or wrong. As the remarks in “The Philosopher and His Shadow” make clear, interpretation can never really avail itself of this presupposition and in this manner the question of accuracy is precisely the wrong question. View all notes This essay argues that his discussion of the Zeitbewußtsein in Phenomenology of Perception does not offer an account of time that “centers around the living present”, as some have argued,1010 Al-Saji “A Past Which Has Never Been Present”, 42–44. View all notes but that the discussion of the field of presence and what follows are rather intended to account for the field of temporal phenomenalization – not as a presence – but as écoulement, passage and flux. Time, therefore, does not appear in the present or as presence, but manifests itself as a flow and movement that is simultaneously an éclatement, an eruption, and a self-differentiating “dehiscence”.1111 A favorite word of Merleau-Ponty, borrowed from botany, where it designates the splitting open of a seed-pod or flower as well as medicine, where it refers to the splitting open of a healed or partially healed wound. The idea here is that, in its flow and passage, time splits open in a process of differentiation – which is simultaneously a process of degeneration, decay, and what Merleau-Ponty will term in The Visible and the Invisible, “disarticulation”. View all notes Time's passage is not determined, organized and oriented in advance in accordance with a transcendental synthesis that would give it shape and form, privileging one temporal dimension over another, so much as it is understood in terms of a splitting open, or to use another favoured locution of Merleau-Ponty, a “deflagration”.1212 In Eye and Mind, Merleau-Ponty speaks of the “deflagration of being”. Metaphors of explosiveness and dissonance populate his attempt to think being otherwise than as structure, form, and stability. Here I will focus particularly on écoulement, flux and éclatement, eruption, because these are the terms he uses in his discussion of time in La temporalité. See Merleau-Ponty L’Œil et l'esprit, 64/369. View all notes To this extent, Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception cannot be said to orient itself in terms of the ontological primacy of any one temporal dimension – past, present, or future – but is more accurately understood as an attempt to recover the primordial experience of time as the simultaneity of écoulement and éclatement – an account that thinks time in its dual power of phenomenalization and erosion, the “pulse [pulsation] of my existence, its systole and diastole”.1313 Merleau-Ponty PhP, 337/332. View all notes Time is the vehicle of the world's appearance, and at the same time of its “disarticulation” [désarticulation],1414 This is a term Merleau-Ponty uses in The Visible and the Invisible in a well-known working note entitled “ Transcendence – forgetting – time”. See Merleau-Ponty VI, 247/197. View all notes the vehicle through which “becoming” – rather than being – shows itself. This process of phenomenalization, precisely because it is temporal, never achieves the density of fully realized being – the sense of this becoming is never fully articulate – but is perpetually subject to a temporal erasure that necessitates its repetition and reiteration. Time, in other words, is the principle of the world's eloquence – it is that thanks to which things have and make sense and simultaneously the principle of the world's murmuring stutter, the principle through which the sense of things remains incomplete and even erodes, decays, and degenerates. To begin, I will turn to Merleau-Ponty's reading of Husserl's diagram from the Zeitbewußtsein, which opens his attempt to “arrive at authentic time”.1515 Merleau-Ponty PhP, 477/483. View all notes Rather than simply rehearsing Husserl's discussion of primal impression, retention and protention, Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the diagram provides an opportunity for raising two problems: the problem of time's representability and the problem of its synthesis. Rather than through an “act intentionality” carried out by a transcendental subjectivity, time appears in accordance with an “operative intentionality” always already under way. Turning to the section of La temporalité aptly entitled “Passive Synthesis”, we see that Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the diagram leads him to the paradox of passive synthesis and what he calls, following Husserl, “transition synthesis”. Time does not show itself punctually – time appears neither as presence nor in the present – but only in the dual movement of its flux, its écoulement, and its éclatement, its explosive, self-differentiating unfurling. These reflections, finally, bring Merleau-Ponty into dialogue with Heidegger on what the latter called the Zusammenhang des Lebens. The “unity of a life”, accordingly, is not a question of any “resolution”, but is a function of our immersion in this temporal dehiscence. The important lesson to be learned from Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's Zeitbewußtsein is not something about the ontological primacy of one temporal dimension over another but what Merleau-Ponty famously calls in The Visible and the Invisible the “passivity of our activity”1616 Merleau-Ponty VI, 270/221. View all notes and our immersion in time's power of disarticulation. (shrink)

This paper defends two initial claims. First, it argues that essentially the same cognitive resources are shared by adult creative thinking and problem-solving, on the one hand, and by childhood pretend play, on the other—namely, capacities to generate and to reason with suppositions (or imagined possibilities). Second, it argues that the evolutionary function of childhood pretence is to practice and enhance adult forms of creativity. The paper goes on to show how these proposals can provide a smooth and evolutionarily-plausible explanation (...) of the gap between the first appearance of our species in Southern Africa some 100,000 years ago, and the ‘creative explosion’ of cultural, technological and artistic change which took place within dispersed human populations some 60,000 years later. The intention of the paper is to sketch a proposal which might serve as a guide for future interdisciplinary research. 1 Introduction 2 Creativity and Pretence 3 Language and Creativity 4 Language and Cultural Accretions 5 Language, Play and Model-Building 6 Creativity, Protean Cognition and Sexual Selection 7 The Evolution of Pretence 8 The Emergence of Supposing 9 Pretence and Motivation 10 Two Objections 11 Conclusion. (shrink)

Can an AGI create a more intelligent AGI? Under idealized assumptions, for a certain theoretical type of intelligence, our answer is: “Not without outside help”. This is a paper on the mathematical structure of AGI populations when parent AGIs create child AGIs. We argue that such populations satisfy a certain biological law. Motivated by observations of sexual reproduction in seemingly-asexual species, the Knight-Darwin Law states that it is impossible for one organism to asexually produce another, which asexually produces another, and (...) so on forever: that any sequence of organisms (each one a child of the previous) must contain occasional multi-parent organisms, or must terminate. By proving that a certain measure (arguably an intelligence measure) decreases when an idealized parent AGI single-handedly creates a child AGI, we argue that a similar Law holds for AGIs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Organizational Ethics and Health Care: Expanding Bioethics to the Institutional Arena **Laura Jane Bishop (bio), M. Nichelle Cherry (bio), and Martina Darragh* (bio)In 1995, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) expanded its patient rights standards to include requirements for assuring that hospital business practices would be ethical. Renamed “Patient Rights and Organization Ethics,” these standards are based on the realization that a hospital’s obligation to its (...) patients is derived from two relationships: the patient-provider relationship governed by “clinical ethics,” and the customer-supplier relationship governed by “business ethics.” “[This] boundary between ‘clinical’ ethics and ‘business’ ethics is not clear and in many cases is nonexistent. While marketing and admission practices are seen as issues related to ‘business’ ethics, they can lead to unneeded admissions or demand for unneeded services, both of which can unnecessarily expose the patient to the risk of side effects or complications. Likewise, underutilization of needed services is likely to lead to less than optimal health outcomes” (I. Schyve 1996, p. 17). “These new standards arose out of well-publicized concerns about abuses in which patients were admitted to hospitals unnecessarily and were discharged or transferred only after their insurance expired” (I. Schyve 1996, pp. 15–16).These abuses also sparked eloquent protests against threats to patient well-being and to the nature of the patient-provider relationship in the bioethics literature. The fiduciary responsibility of the provider to inform and to protect the patient was fragmented by insurer business practices such as gag clauses and economic credentialing of providers (VII. Scope Note 31, 1996). The background role that the institution plays, though poorly articulated historically, has been brought sharply into focus by the explosive growth of the managed practice of medicine. The context of medical ethics is no longer limited to the resolution of individual cases, but instead encompasses the adoption of institutional structures to protect and promote patient welfare (IV. Emanuel 1995, p. 335). In this new configuration, the institution and the providers are co-fiduciaries for populations [End Page 189] of patients, and the medicine that is practiced is “appropriately economically disciplined.” The expression “My patient always comes first” is no longer “... intellectually serious or morally responsible.” But, “... to be sure, both conceptually and in practice, being an economically disciplined fiduciary professional or institution is ethically unstable.... The task is to identify the boundaries outside of which institutional policy and behavior will not count as an ethically defensible form of being... [a] fiduciary.” (IV. McCullough 1997, pp. 143–44). This process of delimiting and enforcing boundaries requires the development of “... a language for talking about the ethical values of the organization. If such a language does not exist, discussions about ethics become cumbersome and unlikely to occur” (IV. Cleveland Clinic Foundation 1998, p. 2).As with bioethics generally, the literature addressing organizational ethics is multidisciplinary. JCAHO’s compliance guide for its revised standards, Ethical Issues and Patient Rights, draws on a wealth of ideas from both clinical ethics and business ethics. This is often an awkward alliance. “Because the study of organizational ethics is in its infancy compared to other areas of healthcare ethics, discussions about it often seem like hot air with no palpable payoff” (I. Boyle 1998, p. 2). The fact that “... there is an ancient history that reflects widespread doubt about the moral probity of business” (II. Frederick 1995, p. 209) does not help. To begin, “Aristotle had rude things to say about business” (II. Jackson 1998, p. 401). A brief review of introductions to several of the business ethics textbooks cited in this bibliography reveals that a rebuttal of “business ethics as an oxymoron” is the standard opening paragraph. This stigma is unfounded, and “increased stability” has characterized the state of business ethics literature during the 1990s (II. Beauchamp and Bowie 1997, p. ix). Significant attention has been given to elaborating two often overlapping theories—stakeholder and social contractarian.Originating in the 1960s as a pun on “stockholder,” proponents of stakeholder theory claim that a corporation’s fiduciary responsibility extends beyond increasing its profitability to protecting the rights of individuals or groups affected by its actions. Popular as a strategic planning tool in the... (shrink)

Over the last 40 years or so, there has been an explosion of cultural evolution research in anthropology and archaeology. In each discipline, cultural evolutionists investigate how interactions between individuals translate into group level patterns, with the aim of explaining the diachronic dynamics and diversity of cultural traits. However, while much attention has been given to deterministic processes, we contend that current evolutionary accounts of cultural change are limited because they do not adopt a systematic stochastic approach. First, we (...) show that, in contrast with the intense debates in ecology and population genetics, the importance of stochasticity in evolutionary processes has generated little discussion in the sciences of cultural evolution to date. Second, we speculate on the reasons, both ideological and methodological, why that should be so. Third, we highlight the inadequacy of genetically-inspired stochastic models in the context of cultural evolution modelling, and ask which fundamental stochastic processes might be more relevant to take up. We conclude that the field of cultural evolution would benefit from a stochastic revolution. For that to occur, stochastic models ought to be developed specifically for cultural data and not through a copy-pasting of neutral models from population genetics or ecology. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. The revolution we require would put problems of living at the heart of the academic enterprise, the pursuit of knowledge emerging out of, and feeding back into, the fundamental intellectual activity of proposing and critically assessing possible actions, policies, political programmes, from the standpoint of their capacity to help solve problems of living. This revolution would affect almost every branch and aspect of academic inquiry. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the AIDS epidemic (AIDS being spread by modern travel). All these global problems, involving preventable deaths of millions, have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act without acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather to help humanity acquire the capacity to resolve conflicts and problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways. The revolution we need would affect every branch and aspect of academic inquiry. The basic intellectual task of academia would be to articulate our problems of living (personal, social and global) and propose and critically assess possible solutions, possible actions. This would be the task of social inquiry and the humanities. Tackling problems of knowledge would be secondary. Social inquiry would be at the heart of the academic enterprise, intellectually more fundamental than natural science. On a rather more long-term basis, social inquiry would be concerned to help humanity build cooperatively rational methods of problem-solving into the fabric of social and political life, so that we may gradually acquire the capacity to resolve our conflicts and problems of living in more cooperatively rational ways. Natural science would change to include three domains of discussion: evidence, theory, and aims – the latter including discussion of metaphysics, values and politics. Academia would actively seek to educate the public by means of discussion and debate. These changes all come from demanding that academia cure its current damaging structural irrationality, so that reason – the authentic article – may be devoted to promoting human welfare. (shrink)

What is inequality? In the late 1990s there was an explosion of interest in the subject that yielded a substantial body of formal tools and results for income-distribution analysis. Nearly all of this is founded on a small set of core assumptions - such as the Principle of Transfers, scale independence, the population principle∑ - that are used to give meaning to specific concepts of inequality measurement, inequality ranking and, indeed, to inequality itself. But does the standard axiomatic (...) structure coincide with public perceptions of inequality? Or is the economist's concept of inequality a thing apart, perpetuated through serial brainwashing in the way the subject is studied and taught? In this 1999 book, Amiel and Cowell examine the evidence from a large international questionnaire experiment using student respondents. Along with basic 'cake-sharing' issues, related questions involving social-welfare rankings, the relationship between inequality and overall income growth and the meaning of poverty comparisons are considered. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act without acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This is an argument I have propounded during the last three decades in six books, over thirty papers, and countless lectures delivered in universities and conferences all over the UK, Europe and north America. Despite all this effort, the argument has, by and large, been ignored. What is really surprising is that philosophers have paid no attention, despite the fact that that this body of work claims to solve the profoundly important philosophical problem: What kind of inquiry best helps us make progress towards as good a world as possible? There are, nevertheless, indications that some scientists and university administrators are beginning to become aware of the urgent need for science, and universities, to change. This is prompted, partly by growing awareness of the seriousness of environmental problems, especially global warming, and partly by a concern to improve the relationship between science and the public. So far, however, these changes have been small-scale, scattered and piecemeal. What we require is for academics and non-academics alike to wake up to the urgent need for change so that we may come to possess what we so strikingly and disastrously lack at present: a kind of inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. The revolution we require would put problems of living at the heart of the academic enterprise, the pursuit of knowledge emerging out of, and feeding back into, the fundamental intellectual activity of proposing and critically assessing possible actions, policies, political programmes, from the standpoint of their capacity to help solve problems of living. This revolution would affect almost every branch and aspect of academic inquiry. (shrink)

The historiography of race is usually framed by two discontinuities: the invention of race by European naturalists and anthropologists, marked by Carl Linnaeus’s Systema naturae and the demise of racial typologies after World War II in favor of population-based studies of human diversity. This framing serves a similar function as the quotation marks that almost invariably surround the term. “Race” is placed outside of rational discourse as a residue of outdated essentialist and hierarchical thinking. I will throw doubt on (...) this underlying assumption, not in order to re-legitimate race but in order to understand better why race has been, and continues to be, such a politically powerful and explosive concept. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to act wisely. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, (...) global warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the Aids epidemic (Aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to actwisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom—wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. The revolution we require would put problems of living at the heart of the academic enterprise, the pursuit of knowledge emerging out of, and feeding back into, the fundamental intellectual activity of proposing and critically assessing possible actions, policies, political programs, from the standpoint of their capacity to help solve problems of living. This revolution would affect almost every branch and aspect of academic inquiry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Environmental Goodness and the Challenge of American CultureSandra Jane Fairbanks (bio)Until recently, Western virtue ethics has never recognized nature-focused virtues. This is not surprising, since western philosophies and religions have promoted the ideas that humans are superior to nature and that there are no moral principles regulating our relationship to nature. Environmentalists call for a radical change in our attitude towards nature if we are to meet the challenge (...) posed by today’s environmental problems. Thus, recognition of new virtues governing human attitudes and behavior towards nature is highly desirable, both by way of addressing an egregious lacuna in western thought, and as a necessary condition for anything like a viable planet. Unfortunately, a capitalist, consumer culture such as that of the United States presents a variety of serious obstacles to the successful inculcation of any new environmental virtues. Hence, inculcation of environmental virtues should not be the sole focus of environmental education. Such education should also appeal to human self-interest, at least until such time as the very idea of environmental virtue will not seem contrarian relative to prevailing views of the good life.IntroductionWhile there is room for disagreement over details and cases, it is safe to say that traditional Western philosophies and religions have generally [End Page 79] promoted domination and exploitation of the environment. Traditional, predominantly anthropocentric views such as Christianity or Greek philosophy, conjoined with a consumerist model of the good life, have conditioned the attitudes, values, and beliefs of human beings, with disastrous consequences for the environment. As a result, we face a variety of environmental problems—global warming, destruction and depletion of natural resources and wilderness areas, explosive population growth, toxic waste, and so on—that are serious right now, and that may well be catastrophic for future generations. Environmental philosophers, including biocentrists, ecocentrists, and ecofeminists, call for a shift away from anthropocentric theories to theories that emphasize the intrinsic value of nonhuman life, or that of nature in general.All of these environmental philosophies call for a radical change in our attitude towards nature if we are to meet the challenge posed by today’s environmental problems. Since this change in attitude is intended to ground novel and more adequate ways of behaving toward the environment, environmentally-sensitive writers are in the business, implicitly or explicitly, of promoting a new environmental virtue, or a new set of environmental virtues.1 Until recently, Western virtue ethics has never recognized a nature-focused virtue. This is not surprising, since western philosophies and religions have generally promoted the ideas that humans are superior to nature and that there are no moral principles regulating our relationship to nature, except (as, famously, in Kant2) for indirect duties toward humans. The idea that nature, including nonhuman life, natural objects, and ecological wholes has intrinsic value and, hence, moral standing, is a very recent development in Western philosophy.Thus recognition of new virtues governing human attitudes and behavior towards nature is highly desirable, both by way of addressing an egregious lacuna in Western thought, and as (almost certainly) a necessary condition for anything like a viable planet. Unfortunately, as I will argue, a capitalist, consumer culture such as that of the United States—on which I will focus due to its paradigm status—presents a variety of obstacles to the successful inculcation of any new environmental virtues. Thus, inculcation of environmental virtues should not be the sole, and perhaps not even the primary, focus of environmental education, at least in the short term. As I will argue, such education should also appeal, importantly, to human self-interest, at least until such time as the very idea of environmental [End Page 80] virtue will not seem contrarian relative to prevailing views of the good life.The structure of the discussion is as follows: First, I develop a brief sketch of an environmentally good person. I do so by compiling a set of environmental virtues recommended by various prominent biocentrists, ecocentrists and ecofeminists. Second, I address problems posed by American culture for the development of these environmental virtues. Finally, I conclude with practical suggestions for influencing American culture in the direction of environmental awareness and... (shrink)

After a time of scientific discoveries, technological revolutions and cultural upheavals, after a time of elevation of the human genius to the highest peaks, it was time for deep anxiety for his own fragile future and the realization of the rather fragile state of many seemingly settled things. The development of the information space leads to the practice of mass indignation of the population, especially of children and adolescents, misunderstandings on the basis of economic and social achievements give rise (...) to protracted interethnic conflicts. Breakthroughs in the field of medicine often lead to repeated explosive effects in society. In addition, rapid environmental pollution has resulted from the intensive development of human activity. It should be noted that not only nature has become contaminated, but human and soul bodies and bodies become more polluted. (shrink)

For much of the first millennium BC, the number of Greeks increased considerably, both in the Aegean core and in the expanding periphery of the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. This paper is the first attempt to establish a coherent quantitative framework for the study of this process. In the first section, I argue that despite the lack of statistical data, it is possible to identify a plausible range of estimates of average long-term demographic growth rates in mainland Greece from (...) the Early Iron Age to the Classical period. Elaborating on this finding, the second section offers a comprehensive rebuttal of the notion of explosive population growth in parts of the eighth and seventh centuries BC. In the third section, I seek to determine the probable scale and demographic consequences of Greek settlement overseas. A brief preliminary look at the relationship between population growth and the quality of life concludes my survey. The resultant series of interlocking parametric models is meant to contextualize the demographic development of ancient Greece within the wider ambit of pre-modern demography, and to provide a conceptual template for future research in this area. (shrink)