This book explores the constraints which justice imposes on immigration policy. Like liberal nationalists, Ryan Pevnick argues that citizens have special claims to the institutions of their states. However, the source of these special claims is located in the citizenry's ownership of state institutions rather than in a shared national identity. Citizens contribute to the construction and maintenance of institutions, and as a result they have special claims to these institutions and a limited right to exclude outsiders. Pevnick shows (...) that the resulting view justifies a set of policies - including support for certain types of guest worker programs - which is distinct from those supported by either liberal nationalists or advocates of open borders. His book provides a framework for considering a number of connected topics including issues related to self-determination, the scope of distributive justice and the significance of shared national identity. (shrink)

There are two intriguing paradoxes in molecular biology-the inconsistent relationship between organismal complexity and (1) cellular DNA content and (2) the number of protein-coding genes-referred to as the C-value and G-value paradoxes, respectively. The C-value paradox may be largely explained by varying ploidy. The G-value paradox is more problematic, as the extent of protein coding sequence remains relatively static over a wide range of developmental complexity. We show by analysis of sequenced genomes that the relative amount of non-protein-coding sequence increases (...) consistently with complexity. We also show that the distribution of introns in complex organisms is non-random. Genes composed of large amounts of intronic sequence are significantly overrepresented amongst genes that are highly expressed in the nervous system, and amongst genes downregulated in embryonic stem cells and cancers. We suggest that the informational paradox in complex organisms may be explained by the expansion of cis-acting regulatory elements and genes specifying trans-acting non-protein-coding RNAs. (shrink)

Which traits are beautiful? And is their beauty perceptual? It is argued that moral virtues are partly beautiful to the extent that they tend to give rise to a certain emotion—ecstasy—and that compassion tends to be more beautiful than fair-mindedness because it tends to give rise to this emotion to a greater extent. It is then argued, on the basis that emotions are best thought of as a special, evaluative, kind of perception, that this argument suggests that moral virtues are (...) partly beautiful to the extent that they tend to give rise to a certain kind of evaluative perceptual experience. (shrink)

Abstract Semi-autonomous robotic weapons are already carving out a role for themselves in modern warfare. Recently, Ronald Arkin has argued that autonomous lethal robotic systems could be more ethical than humans on the battlefield, and that this marks a significant reason in favour of their development and use. Here I offer a critical response to the position advanced by Arkin. Although I am sympathetic to the spirit of the motivation behind Arkin's project and agree that if we decide to develop (...) and use these machines they ought to be programmed to behave ethically, there are several major problems with his view as it stands. At present, it is not clear whether such machines would be capable of behaving more ethically than humans. More importantly, to the extent that humans would remain in the context of war, human moral transgressions will continue, especially in the face of complicated ethical challenges accompanying automated warfare. Moreover, even if machines could be more ethical than humans in certain ways and in certain situations, this says nothing about whether warfare that contains these machines would itself be overall more ethical than warfare that does not include them as participants, or whether the inclusion of lethal robots is the best way to guard against human moral transgressions in war. (shrink)

Currently, the central questions in the philosophical debate surrounding the ethics of automated warfare are (1) Is the development and use of autonomous lethal robotic systems for military purposes consistent with (existing) international laws of war and received just war theory?; and (2) does the creation and use of such machines improve the moral caliber of modern warfare? However, both of these approaches have significant problems, and thus we need to start exploring alternative approaches. In this paper, I ask whether (...) autonomous robots ought to be programmed to be pacifists. The answer arrived at is “Yes”, if we decide to create autonomous robots, they ought to be pacifists. This is to say that robots ought not to be programmed to willingly and intentionally kill human beings, or, by extension, participate in or promote warfare, as something that predictably involves the killing of humans. Insofar as we are the ones that will be determining the content of the robot’s value system, then we ought to program robots to be pacifists, rather than ‘warists’. This is (in part) because we ought to be pacifists, and creating and programming machines to be “autonomous lethal robotic systems” directly violates this normative demand on us. There are no mitigating reasons to program lethal autonomous machines to contribute to or participate in warfare. Even if the use of autonomous lethal robotic systems could be consistent with received just war theory and the international laws of war, and even if their involvement could make warfare less inhumane in certain ways, these reasons do not compensate for the ubiquitous harms characteristic of modern warfare. In this paper, I provide four main reasons why autonomous robots ought to be pacifists, most of which do not depend on the truth of pacifism. The strong claim being argued for here is that automated warfare ought not to be pursued. The weaker claim being argued for here is that automated warfare ought not to be pursued, unless it is the most pacifist option available at the time, and other alternatives have been reasonably explored, and we are simultaneously promoting a (long term) pacifist agenda in (many) other ways. Thus, the more ambitious goal of this paper is to convince readers that automated warfare is something that we ought not to promote or pursue, while the more modest—and I suspect, more palatable—goal is to spark sustained critical discussion about the assumptions underlying the drive towards automated warfare, and to generate legitimate consideration of its pacifist alternatives,in theory, policy, and practice. (shrink)

abstract In his ‘Suicide Intervention and Non‐Ideal Kantian Theory’ (2002), Michael J. Cholbi argues that nihilism and hopelessness are often motivating factors behind suicide, contrary to Immanuel Kant's prescribed motive of self‐love. In light of this, Cholbi argues that certain paternalistic modes of intervention may not only be effective in preventing suicide, but are ultimately consistent with Kantian morality. This paper addresses certain perceived shortcomings in Cholbi's account of Kantian suicide intervention. Once the psychological complexities of the suicidal person are (...) brought to bear, the suicidal person is found in many cases to be irrational at the time of her death. Because of this, rationalistic intervention strategies may prove ineffective, despite their being consistent with Kantian morality, and despite instances of suicide being non‐ideal circumstances. Cholbi assumes throughout his article that suicidal human beings remain Kantian moral agents. However, because rationality represents a crucial criterion for Kantian moral agency, and because certain human beings who commit suicide are not rational, such human beings are not Kantian moral agents. Because Cholbi's intervention strategies are not applicable to (or effective towards) irrational suicidal people, his account is found incomplete. (shrink)

The Hastings Center's chief advancement officer describes values and intellectual interests that undergird his work. “My job is itself collaborative in spirit,” Sauder writes. “My primary responsibility is to identify and build connections with a wide variety of people who value ethical decision‐making at the crossroads of health, science, and technology.”.

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 3 Seiten: 427-453.

Recent advances in the cognitive psychology of inference have been of great interest to philosophers of science. The present paper reviews one such area, namely studies based upon Wason's 4-card selection task. It is argued that interpretation of the results of the experiments is complex, because a variety of inference strategies may be used by subjects to select evidence needed to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis. Empirical evidence suggests that which strategy is used depends in part on the semantic, syntactic, (...) and pragmatic context of the inference problem at hand. Since the factors of importance are also present in real-world science, and similarly complicate its interpretation, the selection task, though it does not present a quick fix, represents a kind of microcosm of great utility for the understanding of science. Several studies which have examined selection strategies in more complex problem-solving environments are also reviewed, in an attempt to determine the limits of generalizability of the simpler selection tasks. Certain interpretational misuses of laboratory research are described, and a claim made that the issue of whether or not scientists are rational should be approached by philosophers and psychologists with appropriate respect for the complexities of the issue. (shrink)

In On Liberty, Mill introduced the concept of . I will provide an account of what Mill saw to be the basic problem he was addressing – the extensive pressure to fit in with the crowd, and how this bred mediocrity. I connect this to worries about public reason models of justification. I argue that a generalized version of Mill's argument offers us a better path to political justification stemming from experimentation. Rather than grounding political justification on shared political reasons, (...) we justify our political culture on our ability to reject consensus views and try alternatives. (shrink)

Although the philosophical literature on the ethics of human prenatal genetic alteration purports to inform us about how to act, it rarely explicitly recognizes the perspective of those who will be making the PGA decision in practice. Here I approach the ethics of PGA from a distinctly virtue-based perspective, taking seriously what it means to be a good parent making this decision for one’s child. From this perspective, I generate a sound verdict on the moral standing of human PGA : (...) given the current state of the art, good parents have compelling reason not to consent to PGA for their child, especially as part of the first wave of PGA research participants and especially for non-medically oriented purposes. This is because doing otherwise is inconsistent with a plausible and defensible understanding of virtuous parenting and parental virtues, founded on a genuine concern for promoting the overall flourishing of the eventual child. In essence, given the current and foreseeable state of the art, parents who allow prenatal genetic alteration of their children are less-than-virtuous parents to those children, even in cases where they have a right to do so and even if PGA turns out to be beneficial to the eventual child. (shrink)

Four-dimensionalism and eternalism are theories on time, change, and persistence. Christian philosophers and theologians have adopted four-dimensional eternalism for various reasons. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that four-dimensional eternalism conflicts with Christian thought. Section I will lay out two varieties of four-dimensionalism—perdurantism and stage theory—along with the typically associated ontologies of time of eternalism and growing block. I shall contrast this with presentism and endurantism. Section II will look at some of the purported theological benefits of adopting (...) four-dimensionalism and eternalism. Section III will examine arguments against four-dimensional eternalism from the problem of evil. Section IV will argue that four-dimensional eternalism causes problems for Christian eschatology. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to offer a critical examination of Immanuel Kant's ethic of suicide. Kant's suicidology marks an influential view regarding the moral stature of suicide, yet one that remains incomplete in important respects. Because Kant's moral views are rationalistic, they restrict moral consideration to rational entities. Many people who commit suicide are not rational at the time of its commission, for they suffer from severe mental illness. Because of this, Kant's suicidology devastatingly excludes certain human demographics (...) from moral consideration, current Canadian statistics indicating that such people mark one of the highest populations at risk of committing suicide in the first place. This work contains a presentation, analysis, and critique of Kant's ethic of suicide, leading to an attempt to state criteria for an adequate suicidology.Dept. of Philosophy. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006.T66. Source: Masterss International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0101. Thesis --University of Windsor, 2006. (shrink)

Two Concepts of the Soul in Plato's Phaedo is a fresh study of Plato's psychology with particular focus on his arguments for the immortality of the soul. Through detailed textual study, this new work examines the structure of the dialogue making explicit the nature of the argumentation within the text and its relation to Plato's other accounts of immortality.

The scientific activity of Michael Faraday is examined by focusing on the procedural aspects of his activity. Procedurality is shown to be a fundamental characteristic of his work at a variety of levels: metacognitive, heuristic, schematic, and theoretical. The evolution of his ideas about the goals of science is shown to reflect fundamental roots in a procedural epistemology, closely tied to his concept of field. The implications of this analysis for the philosophy of science are briefly considered.

Inflammatory responses are essential for the clearance of pathogens and the repair of injured tissues; however, if these responses are not properly controlled chronic inflammation can occur. Chronic inflammation is now recognized as a contributing factor to many age‐associated diseases including metabolic disorders, arthritis, neurodegeneration, and cardiovascular disease. Due to the connection between chronic inflammation and these diseases, it is essential to understand underlying mechanisms behind this process. In this review, factors that contribute to chronic inflammation are discussed. Further, we (...) emphasize the emerging roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) and other noncoding RNAs (ncRNA) in regulating chronic inflammatory states, making them important future diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets. Copyright Line: © 2015 The Authors BioEssays Published by Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. (shrink)

Persian possesses a number of stative complex predicates with _dâshtan_ ‘to have’ that express certain kinds of mental state. I propose that these _possessive experiencer complex predicates_ be given a formal semantic treatment involving possession of a portion of an abstract quality by an individual, as in the analysis of property concept lexemes due to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (Language 91(3):533–563, 2015 ; Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34:93–106, 2016 ; Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property concepts, (...) Oxford University Press, 2017 ). Augmented with an analysis of prepositional phrases introducing the target of the mental state and an approach to gradability in terms of measure functions (Wellwood in Measuring predicates, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014 ), the analysis explains various properties of possessive experiencer complex predicates, including the behavior of target phrases, the ability of the non-verbal element to be modified by a range of adjectives, the direct participation of the non-verbal element in comparative constructions, and the ability of degree expressions to modify both the non-verbal element and the VP containing the complex predicate. Theoretically, the analysis ties transitive mental state expressions to the grammar and semantics of property concept sentences, which are expressed via possessive morphosyntax cross-linguistically, and connects with syntactic proposals that independently argue for a universal underlyingly possessive morphosyntax for mental state predicates (Noonan in Case and syntactic geometry, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1992 ; Hale and Keyser in Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure, MIT Press, 2002 ). The work here also motivates modifications to Francez and Koontz-Garboden’s original proposal, and opens new questions in the original empirical domain of the analysis of possessive predicating strategies for the expression of property concept sentences. (shrink)

There is a persisting tension that exists between the block universe conception of time in modern physics and philosophy and the conception of time that stems naturally from experience, and entropic asymmetries have been proposed to explain this tension. This article argues that as biochemical processes in the brain depend upon spontaneous entropy increases in the forward-time direction, this should provide an entropic basis for the unidirectionality of psychological processes. As this view does not depend on considerations of abstract information (...) processing or a past hypothesis, it provides advantages over previous entropy-based proposals attempting to explain asymmetries in temporal experience. (shrink)

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism on later Christian and Byzantine rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines better understand the development of Christian and (...) Byzantine rhetoric and philosophy during the third through sixth centuries. (shrink)

Including significant passages from The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War and History of Florence, this illuminating book explores the influence of Machiavelli, who was often reviled as a teacher of evil, on the modern state.

In this paper I present an in-class game designed to simulate the dynamics of the state of nature. I first explain the mechanics of the game, and how to administer it in the classroom. Then I address how the game can help introduce students to a number of important topics in political philosophy. In broad terms, the game serves to generate discussion regarding to main questions. (1) How does civil society come about? (2) Is the state of nature and the (...) arrangement which arises from it fair? In so doing I suggest how the game can further student understanding of figures such as Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Marx, and Rawls. (shrink)

Dean Zimmerman has made significant contributions to metaphysics, philosophy of time, and philosophy of religion. In this paper, I set my focus on Zimmerman’s approach to God, time, and creation. Zimmerman has defended a model of God called open theism on which God is essentially temporal. In this paper, I will first articulate open theism. Then I will explore a series of puzzles related to God’s perfect rationality and creation. These can be stated as the following three questions. Why didn’t (...) God create sooner? Why did God create anything at all? Why did God create this universe in particular? (shrink)

Ryan, Tom Perhaps the most neuralgic issue shaping the Catholic Church's relationship to wider contemporary society is abortion. In Australia, the Church's efforts to counter abortion's increasing incidence and after-effects are evident in Bishops' statements, websites such as Walking with Love, and, from lay-inspired movements such as the Rachel's' Vineyard Retreat. Further, research is bringing a greater appreciation of the trauma and long-term effects of the abortion experience. Given that, it is reasonable to assume its influence, in some instances, (...) on marital consent. Investigating this question, then, is a timely exercise. At the same time, it can provide an insight into a ministry that is somewhat specialised, and, of its nature, sensitive and confidential, namely, the marriage annulment process. Finally, from within that context, it raises adjacent questions relating to Moral Theology. (shrink)

Davenport and Rudd’s 2001 publication of Kierkegaard After MacIntyre has been a catalyst for renewed interest in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. An issue that has received special attention is the Kierkegaardian transition from the aesthetic to ethical. In this paper, I examine the most recent and notable contributions to this discussion: the work of John J. Davenport, Anthony Rudd, and John Lippitt. After drawing attention to several explanatory gaps in Davenport and Rudd, I turn to provide my own account of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic-to-ethical (...) transition, aspiring to correct certain missteps that have plagued interpretations up to this point. (shrink)

A major issue facing the health of both minors and young adults in the United States is the often unintentional lack of confidentiality maintained in the provision of sensitive health services. Studies have shown that access to confidential care is crucial for minors seeking preventive care and treatment for sensitive services. Evidence demonstrates that many minors will not seek health care if confidentiality cannot be ensured, which can have significant negative health implications; this finding can be extended to young adults (...) covered under their parents health plans. Young adults, not just minors, also often forgo important sensitive services when they face a breach of confidentiality, which most likely occurs when their parents have access to the adult child's health information.Currently, private insurance companies generally send the policyholder an explanation of benefits whenever a service is provided under a plan. EOBs generally include information identifying the patient, provider, type of care received, total charge for services, amount paid by the insurance company, and any financial obligation of the policyholder. (shrink)

DEFORGE R and SHAW J. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 83–95 Back‐ and fore‐grounding ontology: exploring the linkages between critical realism, pragmatism, and methodologies in health & rehabilitation sciencesAs two doctoral candidates in a health and rehabilitation sciences program, we describe in this paper our respective paradigmatic locations along a quite nonlinear ontological‐epistemological‐axiological‐methodological chain. In a turn‐taking fashion, we unpack the tenets of critical realism and pragmatism, and then trace the linkages from these paradigmatic locations through to the methodological choices that (...) address a community‐based research problem. Beyond serving as an answer to calls for academics in training to demonstrate philosophical‐theoretical‐methodological integrity and coherence in their scholarship, this paper represents critical realism and its fore‐grounding of a deeply stratified ontology in reflexive relation to pragmatism and its back‐grounding of ontology. We conclude by considering the merits and challenges of conducting research from within singular versus proliferate paradigmatic perspectives. (shrink)

Using a number of his recent site-specific installations, conceptual artist and theorist Victor Burgin discusses the status and future of the camera from photography to moving image to computer-generated virtual works that combine both still and moving images. In the process he modifies Bazin’s question ‘What is cinema?’ to ask ‘What is a camera?’ These works extend and develop Burgin’s long-standing interest in the relationship of aesthetics and politics as rendered through visualization technologies, especially as it pertains to space. Burgin’s (...) discussion constructs a genealogy of seeing, visualizing and image-making as technologically-determined and crafted. The ideology of vision and the ideological artefacts produced by and through visual technologies from perspectival painting to analog photography to computer imaging constitute, in Burgin’s argument, ‘the ideological chora of our spectacular global village’. (shrink)