Digital communications technology isreconfiguring democratic governance. Federalagencies increasingly rely on Internet-basedapplications to improve citizen-governmentinteraction. Early efforts in the area ofdigital government have created newparticipatory opportunities as well asformidable governance challenges. Federalagencies are working within and across theirboundaries to find an e-rulemaking format thatis cost-effective, legally appropriate,user-friendly, and well suited to diverse modesof rulemaking activities. One of the overridingissues emerging from this process is thedefinition of meaningful public participationin rulemaking. An examination of an early caseinvolving the USDA's National Organic Programproposed rule (...) summarizes comments related togenetic engineering, biosolids, irradiation,and the role of the National Organic StandardsBoard. The USDA's experience suggests a numberof complex challenges that must be met toeffectively integrate Web-based communicationsinto the federal rulemaking process. (shrink)

We hypothesize that recent uses of the Internet as a public-participation mechanism in the United States fail to overcome the adversarial culture that characterizes the American regulatory process. Although the Internet has the potential to facilitate deliberative processes that could result in more widespread public involvement, greater transparency in government processes, and a more satisfied citizenry, we argue that efforts to implement Internet-based public participation have overlaid existing problematic government processes without fully harnessing the transformative power of information technologies. Public (...) comments submitted in two United States Department of Agriculture rulemaking processes—the National Organic Program’s organic standard and the Forest Service’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule—compose our data. We conclude that the Internet provides an arena for playing out three types of conflicts that have long plagued environmental decision-making processes: conflicts over trust of federal agencies, the use of science, and the role of public values. (shrink)

Can new technology enhance purpose-driven, democratic dialogue in groups, governments, and societies? Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, technology designers, and practitioners. Since some of the most exciting innovations have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, work in this growing field has often failed to reflect the full (...) set of perspectives on online deliberation. This volume is aimed at those working at the crossroads of information/communication technology and social science, and documents early findings in, and perspectives on, this new field by many of its pioneers. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Introduction: The Blossoming Field of Online Deliberation (Todd Davies, pp. 1-19) -/- Part I - Prospects for Online Civic Engagement -/- Chapter 1: Virtual Public Consultation: Prospects for Internet Deliberative Democracy (James S. Fishkin, pp. 23-35) -/- Chapter 2: Citizens Deliberating Online: Theory and Some Evidence (Vincent Price, pp. 37-58) -/- Chapter 3: Can Online Deliberation Improve Politics? Scientific Foundations for Success (Arthur Lupia, pp. 59-69) -/- Chapter 4: Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) (Robert Cavalier with Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, pp. 71-79) -/- Part II - Online Dialogue in the Wild -/- Chapter 5: Friends, Foes, and Fringe: Norms and Structure in Political Discussion Networks (John Kelly, Danyel Fisher, and Marc Smith, pp. 83-93) -/- Chapter 6: Searching the Net for Differences of Opinion (Warren Sack, John Kelly, and Michael Dale, pp. 95-104) -/- Chapter 7: Happy Accidents: Deliberation and Online Exposure to Opposing Views (Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin, pp. 105-122) -/- Chapter 8: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web (Sameer Ahuja, Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, and Andrea Kavanaugh, pp. 123-129) -/- Part III - Online Public Consultation -/- Chapter 9: Deliberation in E-Rulemaking? The Problem of Mass Participation (David Schlosberg, Steve Zavestoski, and Stuart Shulman, pp. 133-148) -/- Chapter 10: Turning GOLD into EPG: Lessons from Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism for Electronic Rulemaking and Other Ventures in Cyberdemocracy (Peter M. Shane, pp. 149-162) -/- Chapter 11: Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow: Simulation Games and Citizen Participation (Hélène Michel and Dominique Kreziak, pp. 163-166) -/- Chapter 12: Using Web-Based Group Support Systems to Enhance Procedural Fairness in Administrative Decision Making in South Africa (Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka, pp. 167-169) -/- Chapter 13: Citizen Participation Is Critical: An Example from Sweden (Tomas Ohlin, pp. 171-173) -/- Part IV - Online Deliberation in Organizations -/- Chapter 14: Online Deliberation in the Government of Canada: Organizing the Back Office (Elisabeth Richard, pp. 177-191) -/- Chapter 15: Political Action and Organization Building: An Internet-Based Engagement Model (Mark Cooper, pp. 193-202) -/- Chapter 16: Wiki Collaboration Within Political Parties: Benefits and Challenges (Kate Raynes-Goldie and David Fono, pp. 203-205) -/- Chapter 17: Debian’s Democracy (Gunnar Ristroph, pp. 207-211) -/- Chapter 18: Software Support for Face-to-Face Parliamentary Procedure (Dana Dahlstrom and Bayle Shanks, pp. 213-220) -/- Part V - Online Facilitation -/- Chapter 19: Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment (June Woong Rhee and Eun-mee Kim, pp. 223-232) -/- Chapter 20: The Role of the Moderator: Problems and Possibilities for Government-Run Online Discussion Forums (Scott Wright, pp. 233-242) -/- Chapter 21: Silencing the Clatter: Removing Anonymity from a Corporate Online Community (Gilly Leshed, pp. 243-251) -/- Chapter 22: Facilitation and Inclusive Deliberation (Matthias Trénel, pp. 253-257) -/- Chapter 23: Rethinking the ‘Informed’ Participant: Precautions and Recommendations for the Design of Online Deliberation (Kevin S. Ramsey and Matthew W. Wilson, pp. 259-267) -/- Chapter 24: PerlNomic: Rule Making and Enforcement in Digital Shared Spaces (Mark E. Phair and Adam Bliss, pp. 269-271) -/- Part VI - Design of Deliberation Tools -/- Chapter 25: An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (Todd Davies, Brendan O’Connor, Alex Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat, Andrew Parker, Benjamin Newman, and Aaron Tam, pp. 275-292) -/- Chapter 26: Online Civic Deliberation with E-Liberate (Douglas Schuler, pp. 293-302) -/- Chapter 27: Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software (Bayle Shanks and Dana Dahlstrom, pp. 303-307) -/- Chapter 28: Decision Structure: A New Approach to Three Problems in Deliberation (Raymond J. Pingree, pp. 309-316) -/- Chapter 29: Design Requirements of Argument Mapping Software for Teaching Deliberation (Matthew W. Easterday, Jordan S. Kanarek, and Maralee Harrell, pp. 317-323) -/- Chapter 30: Email-Embedded Voting with eVote/Clerk (Marilyn Davis, pp. 325-327) -/- Epilogue: Understanding Diversity in the Field of Online Deliberation (Seeta Peña Gangadharan, pp. 329-358). -/- For individual chapter downloads, go to odbook.stanford.edu. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: -- Chapter 1. A Short View of Ignorance -- Chapter 2. Finding Out -- Chapter 3. Limits, Uncertainty, Impossibility, and Other Minor Problems -- Chapter 4. Unpredicting -- Chapter 5. The Quality of Ignorance -- Chapter 6. Ignorance in Action: Case Histories -- Chapter 7. Ignorance beyond the Lab.

Stuart Hampshire's essay on human freedom offers an important analysis of concepts surrounding the central idea of intentional action. The author contrasts the powers of animals and of inanimate things; examines the relation between power and action; and distinguishes between two kinds of self-knowledge. Explaining human freedom by means of this distinction, he focuses his attention on self-knowledge gained by introspection. He writes: "...an individual who acquires more systematic knowledge of the causes of states of mind, emotion, and desires, (...) insofar as these are not the outcome of his decision, thereby becomes more free than he previously was to control and direct his own life:...there will in general be a closer correlation between that which he sets himself to do and that which he actually achieves in his life." In a postscript on determinism and psychological explanation, the author provides a detailed account of some of the ways in which explanation of states of mind differs from explanation of physical states. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Over the past decade, public discussion has focused on the ethics of issuing Do‐Not‐Resuscitate Orders, and the failure of many hospitals to acknowledge their actions openly. Recent efforts on the part of some hospitals to establish formal DNR guidelines that are prudent, fair, and humane, are a helpful beginning, though they cannot account for all the vagaries of illness and human communication. But concerns about DNR should not divert us from looking closely and rigorously at other, more common treatment/nontreatment decisions (...) in the critical care setting. (shrink)

The transplantation and procurement of human organs has become almost routine in American society. Yet, organ transplantation raises difficult ethical and psychosocial issues in the context of “controlled” death, including the blurring of boundaries between life and death, self and other, healing and harming, and killing and letting die. These issues are explored in the context of the actual experiences of organ donors and recipients, brain death, the introduction of non‐heartbeating donor protocols, and the increasing reliance on living donors. The (...) author draws on a thematic analysis of the way that organ transplantation is presented in the media, films, and science fiction and on his clinical experience as a psychiatrist working with transplant patients, their families, and the nurses and physicians who care for them. (shrink)

This paper provides a reading of Heidegger's work on the question of animality. Like the majority of discussions of this topic it utilises the 1929–30 course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, but the analysis seeks to go beyond this course alone in order to look at the figure or figures of animals in Heidegger's work more generally. This broader analysis shows that animals are always figured as lacking: as poor in world, without history, without hands, without dwelling, without space. The (...) article shows how all these claims are grounded upon the most fundamental distinction: that the human is the zoon logon ekhon. In Heidegger's analysis this is not the animal rationale of metaphysical thought, but the living being that has and is held by logos, speech. Looking at how the logos became ratio, the paper notes how the way that animals do not calculate is the sole positive accreditation of animals in Heidegger's work. (shrink)

The author discusses the application of logic to the diverse scientific methods of the several natural and social sciences and to the humanities.

This paper defends some aspects of the intentionalist and internationalist worldviews of (an expanded) mainstream development studies against certain moral claims emanating from the New Right and a diverse post-Left. I contend that citizens and states in the advanced industrial world have a responsibility to attend to the claims of distant strangers. Although it is difficult to specify in determinate ways how this responsibility should be discharged—save for attending to basic human needs and rights—the responsibility itself derives from the interlinking (...) and asymmetrical exchanges that bind distant strangers together in an interdependent world economy. I draw on Rawls and Roemer to specify the nature of this responsibility. I also draw on Benhabib to make a modified Rawlsian theory of justice less abstract while continuing to insist on the possibility and necessity of conversations between radically different social actors. The final part of the paper attends to questions of plausibility. I suggest that New Right and (more so) post-Left critiques of an expanded mainstream in development studies and policy are ethically deficient to the extent that they commend alternative development strategies without giving proper consideration to their costs and disbenefits. Development ethics, I conclude, is not just about questions of transnational justice and positionality; it is also about the construction of plausible alternative worlds and practical development policies. (shrink)

I aim to show that (i) there are good ways to argue about what has intrinsic value; and (ii) good ethical arguments needn't make ethical assumptions. I support (i) and(ii) by rebutting direct attacks, by discussing nine plausible ways to argue about intrinsic value, and by arguing for pains intrinsic badness without making ethical assumptions. If (i) and (ii) are correct, then ethical theory has more resources than many philosophers have thought: empirical evidence, and evidence bearing on intrinsic value. With (...) more resources, we can hope to base all of our moral beliefs on evidence rather than on, say, emotion or mere intuition. (shrink)

Accounts of video game play developed from an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective remain relatively scarce. This study collects together an emerging, if scattered, body of research which focuses on the material, practical “work” of video game players. The study offers an example-driven explication of an EMCA perspective on video game play phenomena. The materials are arranged as a “tactical zoom.” We start very much “outside” the game, beginning with a wide view of how massive-multiplayer online games are played within (...) dedicated gaming spaces; here, we find multiple players, machines, and many different sorts of activities going on. Still remaining somewhat distanced from the play of the game itself, we then take a closer look at the players themselves by examining a notionally simpler setting involving pairs taking part in a football game at a games console. As we draw closer to the technical details of play, we narrow our focus further still to examine a player and spectator situated “at the screen” but jointly analyzing play as the player competes in an online first-person shooter. Finally, we go “inside” the game entirely and look at the conduct of avatars on-screen via screen recordings of a massively multiplayer online game. Having worked through specific examples, we provide an elaboration of a selection of core topics of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis that is used to situate some of the unstated orientations in the presentation of data fragments. In this way, recurrent issues raised in the fragments are shown as coherent, interconnected phenomena. In closing, we suggest caution regarding the way game play phenomena have been analyzed in this study, while remarking on challenges present for the development of further EMCA-oriented research on video game play. (shrink)

With a mass digitisation programme underway and the addition of non-print legal deposit and web archive collections, the National Library of Scotland is now both producing and collecting data at an unprecedented rate, with over 5PB of storage in the Library’s data centres. As well as the opportunities to support large scale analysis of the collections, this also presents new challenges around data management, storage, rights, formats, skills and access. Furthermore, by assuming the role of both creators and collectors, libraries (...) face broader questions about the concepts of ‘collections' and ‘heritage', and the ethical implications of collecting practices. While the ‘collections as data’ movement has encouraged cultural heritage organisations to present collections in machine-readable formats, new services, processes and tools also need to be established to enable these emerging forms of research, and new modes of working need to be established to take into account an increasing need for transparency around the creation and presentation of digital collections. This commentary explores the National Library of Scotland's new digital scholarship service, the implications of this new activity and the obstacles that libraries encounter when navigating a world of Big Data. (shrink)

In 2008, researchers reported that Timothy Brown , a man with HIV infection and leukemia, received a stem-cell transplant that removed HIV from his body as far as can be detected. In 2013, an infant born with HIV infection received anti-retroviral treatment shortly after birth, but was then lost to the health care system for the next six months. When tested for HIV upon return, the child had no detectable viral load despite cessation of treatment. These remarkable clinical developments have (...) helped reinvigorate the field of ‘HIV cure’ research. (shrink)

Working within the tradition of continental philosophy, this article argues in favour of a phenomenological understanding of language as a crucial component of bioethical inquiry. The authors challenge the ‘commonsense’ view of language, in which thinking appears as prior to speaking, and speech the straightforward vehicle of pre-existing thoughts. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's (1908–1961) phenomenology of language, the authors claim that thinking takes place in and through the spoken word, in and through embodied language. This view resituates bioethics as a (...) matter of bodies that speak. It also refigures the meaning of ethical self-reflexion, and in so doing offers an alternative view on reflexivity and critique. Referring to the Kantian critical tradition and its reception by Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, we advance a position we call ‘critical ethical reflexivity’. We contend that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of language offers valuable insight into ethical reflexivity and subject formation. Moreover, his understanding of language may foster new qualitative empirical research in bioethics, lead to more nuanced methods for interpreting personal narratives, and promote critical self-reflexion as necessary for bioethical inquiry. (shrink)

This text presents a comprehensive survey of the intellectual developments that have brought about a shift in cultural perspectives of postmodernism. It is divided into three sections: essays; biographical entries; and a glossary of terms.

Of the nature and origin of the mind, by B. de Spinoza.--Spinoza and the theory of organism, by H. Jonas.--Man a machine, and The natural history of the soul, by J. O. de la Mettrie.--On the first ground of the distinction of regions in space, and What is orientation in thinking? by I. Kant.--Soul and body, by J. Dewey.--The philosophical concept of a human body, by D. C. Long.--Are persons bodies? By B. A. O. Williams.--Lived body, environment, and ego, by (...) M. Scheler.--Metaphysical journal, and A metaphysical diary, by G. Marcel.--The body, by J.-P. Sartre.--The spatiality of the lived body and motility, by M. Merleau-Ponty.--Anthropodology: man a-foot, by R. M. Griffith.--Man and his body, by H. Plügge.--The nobility of sight: a study in the phenomenology of the senses, by H. Jonas.--Born to see, bound to behold: reflections on the function of upright posture in the esthetic attitude, by E. W. Straus.--Selected reading (p. [363]-367). (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology, the self-proclaimed scientific theory of human nature, owes much of its controversial notoriety to reports in public media. In part this is because of its bold claims that human psychological characteristics are adaptations to the Pleistocene environment in which they evolved and these inherited characteristics we exhibit now constitute our human nature. Proponents maintain that evolutionary psychology is a scientific account of human nature that explains what this much abused concept means. Critics counter that some evolutionary psychological hypotheses (...) threaten to undermine other intuitive concepts of human nature and well-being, specifically, by emphasizing purported scientific evidence of natural inequalities based on sex, gender, or race. They argue that this “gene machine” view entails consequences endorsing or at least seeming to give scientific aid and comfort to politically conservative, “right-wing” social agendas. Proponents deny that the theory has such unwelcome implications. Such objections, they reply, stem from “left-wing” egalitarian ideologies that presuppose the cogency of the disputed tabula rasa concept of mind intrinsic to the standard social science model of behavior explanations. Philip Kitcher’s initial scathing analysis of sociobiology, now called evolutionary psychology, as the science of human nature went basically unchallenged. Bioethicist Janet Radcliffe Richards has given a detailed critique of Kitcher’s arguments; she finds them to be “leftward-leaning,” and wanting. Here I examine her arguments and find them wanting though not “rightward-leaning.”. (shrink)

This book is designed to trace the critical history of the postmodern paradigm.

This article explores Augustine’s response to the Pelagians who claimed that if one truly desired to be sinless, one could be. The standard scholarly view, as articulated by Gerald Bonner, was that Augustine’s thought during the Pelagian controversy did not change over time. However, Augustine’s thoughts on sinlessness changed over a very brief period of time. He initially admits the possibility that, through grace, some may not have sinned ; he later retracts this view, only to assert in De gestis (...) Pelagii that he unsure. Finally, he returns to his original position. (shrink)

This article will exploreJerome's understanding of sinlessness and will argue that he saw himself just as opposed toAugustine as toPelagius. I begin by exposing Jerome's context in thePelagianControversy. I then expose his understanding of sinlessness. Next, I turn to his arguments inEp.133 and the first two books of hisDialogi contraPelagianos. In book three of that text, we notice a change in his arguments which indicates that Jerome is no longer arguing only againstPelagius; he now disagrees withAugustine as well. I then (...) examine a variety of issues besides sinlessness in the third book of theDialogithat reveal thatJerome disagreed withAugustine on multiple topics, showing that his opposition toAugustine's position on sinlessness was not exceptional. Finally I turn to statements byJerome that seem to indicate a positive appreciation for theBishop ofHippo, but which on closer inspection are seen to contain latent criticisms. (shrink)

The proposal that the hippocampus is important for the encoding of episodic information, but not familiarity-based recognition, is incompatible with the available data. An alternative way to think about functional specialization within the medial temporal lobe memory system is suggested, based on neuroanatomy.

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1961, given by Stuart Hampshire, a British philosopher.

We argue that the physics of complex materials and self-organizing processes should be made central to the biology of form. Rather than being encoded in genes, form emerges when cells and certain of their molecules mobilize physical forces, effects, and processes in a multicellular context. What is inherited from one generation to the next are not genetic programs for constructing organisms, but generative mechanisms of morphogenesis and pattern formation and the initial and boundary conditions for reproducing the specific traits of (...) a taxon. There is no inherent antagonism between this “physicalist” perspective and genetics, since physics acts on matter, and gene products are essential material components of living systems whose variability affects the systems’ parameters. We make this notion concrete by summarizing the concept of “dynamical patterning modules” (DPMs; Newman and Bhat, Phys Biol 5:1–14, 2008; Int J Dev Biol 53:693–705, 2009), an explicit physico-genetic framework for the origin and evolution of multicellular form in animals, as well as (when differences in interaction toolkit genes and applicable physical processes are taken into account) in multicellular plants (Hernández-Hernández et al., Int J Dev Biol 56:661–674, 2012). DPMs provide the missing link between development and evolution by revealing how genes acting in concert with physics can generate and transform morphology in a heritable fashion. (shrink)

This article analyses Foucault’s 1972–3 lecture course, La société punitive. While the course can certainly be seen as an initial draft of themes for the 1975 book Surveiller et punir, there are some important differences. The reading here focuses on different modes of punishment; the civil war and the social enemy; the comparison of England and France; and political economy. It closes with some analysis of the emerging clarity in Foucault’s work around power and genealogy. This is a course where (...) Foucault makes use of Marxist language and categories, engages with historical materialism, and offers a complementary and at times corrective focus. (shrink)

Exegesis, with text, of the classical treatise expounding the philosophy of Chaitanya school in Vaishnavism.

Proposed changes to the Common Rule are proffered to save almost 7,000 reviews annually and consequently vast amounts of investigator and IRB-member time. However, the proposed changes have been subject to criticism. While some have lauded the changes as being imperfect, but nevertheless as improvements, others have contended that ‘neither the scientific community nor the public can be confident that improved practices will emerge from the regulatory changes mandated by the NPRM.’ In the present article, I discuss an important aspect (...) that has been overlooked: the question of whether benefits will emerge is demonstrably empirical, yet data upon which to draw conclusions are conspicuous by their absence. This is thrown into sharp relief when we consider the current environment in which health research is increasingly focused on providing evidence of need or benefit, where there is greater emphasis on evidence-based practice, and when we have the nascent field of implementation science. (shrink)