Several previous studies have reported atypicality in resting-state functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder, yet the relatively small effect sizes prevent us from using these characteristics for diagnostic purposes. Here, canonical correlation analysis and hierarchical clustering were used to partition the high-functioning ASD group into subgroups. A support vector machine model was trained through the 10-fold strategy to predict Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule scores within the ASD discovery group, which was further validated in an independent sample. The neuroimage-based partition derived (...) two subgroups representing severe versus mild autistic patients. We identified FCs that show graded changes in strength from ASD-severe, through ASD-mild, to controls, while the same pattern cannot be observed in partitions based on ADOS score. We also identified FCs that are specific for ASD-mild, similar to a partition based on ADOS score. The current study provided multiple pieces of evidence with replication to show that resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging FCs could serve as neural biomarkers in partitioning high-functioning autistic individuals based on their symptom severity and showing advantages over traditional partition based on ADOS score. Our results also indicate a compensatory role for a frontocortical network in patients with mild ASD, indicating potential targets for future clinical treatments. (shrink)

How do our brains make choices? How do factors such as Alzheimer's or depression impair decision-making? Presenting the latest research on 'hot' and 'cold' decision-making, Barbara Sahakian and Jamie Nicole LaBuzetta look at the therapeutic smart drugs now available, and raise concerns about their unregulated use to enhance mental performance.

A landmark in the scientific literature, the Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics presents a pioneering review of a topic central to the biosciences. It breaks new ground in bringing together leading neuroscientists, philosophers, and lawyers to tackle some of the most significant ethical issues that face us now and will continue to do so.

The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. The article starts by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. It is argued that the growth imperative of capitalist economies, as well as other particular characteristics detailed below, are the main drivers of the ecological crisis and exacerbated trends already underway. Further, the planetary boundaries framework can support interpretations that do not solely emphasize technocratic operational approaches and costs, (...) but also assume that these alone can be the solution. (shrink)

The notion of societal boundaries aims to enhance the debate on planetary boundaries. The focus is on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controversial process – based on normative judgments, ethical concerns, and socio-political struggles – it has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation.

The new field of neuroethics has recently emerged following unprecedented developments in the neurosciences. Neuroimaging and cognitive enhancement in particular are demanding ethical debate. For example, neuroscientists are able to measure, with increasing accuracy, intimate personal biases and thoughts as they occur in the brain. Smart drugs are now available that can effectively and safely enhance mental functioning in both healthy and clinical populations. This article describes the scientific principles behind these technologies, and urges the development of ethical principles based (...) on a clear understanding of them. Europe should take the United States’ lead in devoting resources specifically intended to examine neuroethical concerns within European healthcare and legal frameworks. (shrink)

Cognitive‐enhancing drugs are prescribed to patients with psychiatric disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Alzheimer's disease, to treat cognitive deficits. This chapter discusses the use of pharmacological agents to improve the cognition of both those with cognitive impairments and of the general population, as well as some of the benefits, risks, and ethical issues associated with the use of cognitive‐enhancing drugs. The chapter also talks about a survey run by the journal Nature, which was prompted by a (...) commentary by the authors of this chapter, that asked readers for their views on the issues surrounding cognitive enhancement. It can be seen that the ethical issues surrounding the use of cognitive‐enhancing drugs are complex and require discussion among different groups. With the development of new drugs and methods of enhancing cognition, such as brain stimulation, the need for further research and discussion is likely to become more pressing. (shrink)

A novel Protocol Ethics Tool Kit (‘Ethics Tool Kit’) has been developed by a multi-stakeholder group of the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women9s Hospital and Harvard. The purpose of the Ethics Tool Kit is to facilitate effective recognition, consideration and deliberation of critical ethical issues in clinical trial protocols. The Ethics Tool Kit may be used by investigators and sponsors to develop a dedicated Ethics Section within a protocol to improve the consistency and transparency between clinical trial (...) protocols and research ethics committee reviews. It may also streamline ethics review and may facilitate and expedite the review process by anticipating the concerns of ethics committee reviewers. Specific attention was given to issues arising in multinational settings. With the use of this Tool Kit, researchers have the opportunity to address critical research ethics issues proactively, potentially speeding the time and easing the process to final protocol approval. (shrink)

The essays from prominent public intellectuals collected in this volume reflect an array of perspectives on the spectrum of conflict, competition, and cooperation, as well as a wealth of expertise on how games manifest in the world, how they operate, and how social animals behave inside them. They include previously unpublished material by former Cabinet minister Sayeeda Warsi, the philosopher A. C. Grayling, legal scholar Nicola Padfield, cycling coach David Brailsford, former military intelligence officer Frank Ledwidge, neuro-psychologist Barbara J. (...) Sahakian, zoological ecologist Nicholas B. Davies, and the final work of the late Nobel laureate Thomas C. Schelling. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history, nature, and dynamics of games. (shrink)

In times of global economic and political crises, the notion of solidarity is gaining new currency. This book argues that a solidarity-based perspective can help us to find new ways to address pressing problems. Exemplified by three case studies from the field of biomedicine: databases for health and disease research, personalised healthcare, and organ donation, it explores how solidarity can make a difference in how we frame problems, and in the policy solutions that we can offer.

The broaden‐and‐build theory (CitationFredrickson, 1998, Citation2001) hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires. Two experiments with 104 college students tested these hypotheses. In each, participants viewed a film that elicited (a) amusement, (b) contentment, (c) neutrality, (d) anger, or (e) anxiety. Scope of attention was assessed using a global‐local visual processing task (Experiment 1) and thought‐action repertoires were assessed using a Twenty Statements Test (Experiment 2). Compared to a neutral state, positive emotions broadened the scope (...) of attention in Experiment 1 and thought‐action repertoires in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought‐action repertoires. Implications for promoting emotional well‐being and physical health are discussed. (shrink)

If you never understood why Plato's philosophy of Ideal Forms is called Realism, Ideas of the Great Philosophers makes ideal reading. This compact book provides a veritable brief history of philosophy, offering precise descriptions of the major branches of philosophical thought and exploring the contributions of great thinkers to the various fields of philosophic inquiry. -- Amazon.

This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion (...) of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures to make motion intelligible. With Aristotle we finally see the first outline of the fundamental framework with which we conceptualise motion today. (shrink)

It is widely thought that focusing on highly skilled movements while performing them hinders their execution. Once you have developed the ability to tee off in golf, play an arpeggio on the piano, or perform a pirouette in ballet, attention to what your body is doing is thought to lead to inaccuracies, blunders, and sometimes even utter paralysis. Here I re-examine this view and argue that it lacks support when taken as a general thesis. Although bodily awareness may often interfere (...) with well-developed rote skills, like climbing stairs, I suggest that it is typically not detrimental to the skills of expert athletes, performing artists, and other individuals who endeavor to achieve excellence. Along the way, I present a critical analysis of some philosophical theories and behavioral studies on the relationship between attention and bodily movement, an explanation of why attention may be beneficial at the highest level of performance and an error theory that explains why many have thought the contrary. Though tentative, I present my view as a challenge to the widespread starting assumption in research on highly skilled movement that at the pinnacle of skill attention to one's movement is detrimental. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the various guidelines presented in the literature for instituting an ethics curriculum and to empirically study their effectiveness. Three questions are addressed concerning the trainability of ethics material and the proper integration and implementation of an ethics curriculum. An empirical study then tested the effect of ethics training on moral awareness and reasoning. The sample consisted of two business classes, one exposed to additional ethics curriculum (experimental), and one not exposed (control). For (...) the experimental group, ethics exercises and discussion relevant to each topic were completed. Findings suggested gender differences such that, relative to other groups, women in the experimental group showed significantly improved moral awareness and decision-making processes. An explanation of the underlying cognitive processes is presented to explain the gender effect. (shrink)

In the extensive study, Systems of Ethics and Value Theory, author William S. Sahakian deconstructs these two complex philosophical systems for a scholarly audience.

This paper examines the efforts of contractualists to develop an alternative to aggregation to govern our duty not to harm (duty to rescue) others. I conclude that many of the moral principles articulated in the literature seem to reduce to aggregation by a different name. Those that do not are viable only as long as they are limited to a handful of oddball cases at the margins of social life. If extended to run-of-the-mill conduct that accounts for virtually all unintended (...) (in the sense of undesired) harm to others—noncriminal activities that impose some risk of harm on others—they would rule out all action. Moreover, because such conduct poses an irreducible conflict between freedom of action and freedom from expected harm, it can be regulated only by principles that accept the necessity of making precisely the sorts of interpersonal trade-offs that contractualism is foundationally committed to reject: trade-offs in which the numbers count, such that a risk of serious harm to one person can be justified by small benefits to the many. (shrink)

I am going to argue that it is time to come to terms with the difficulty of understanding what it means to be physical and start thinking about the mind-body problem from a new perspective. Instead of construing it as the problem of finding a place for mentality in a fundamentally physical world, we should think of it as the problem of finding a place for mentality in a fundamentally nonmental world, a world that is at its most fundamental level (...) entirely nonmental. The mind-body problem, I want to argue, is the problem of determining whether mentality can be accounted for in terms of nonmental phenomena. In other words, it is the question, ‘is mentality a fundamental feature of the world’. (shrink)

Although corporate decision makers may justify charitable contributions on strategic grounds, extremely large corporate philanthropic contributions may beperceived by shareholders as unnecessary. If stockholders attempt to limit corporate philanthropy, then governance mechanisms should put a cap on giving amounts. Using a matched-paired sample to control for industry and company size, theauthors compared big givers and small givers. The authors find that blockholders and institutional owners limit corporate philanthropy. This suggests that high levels of corporate philanthropy may be perceived as excessive (...) by influentialstockholders, and some governance mechanisms act to curtail it. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate central temporal and spatial notions in the second part of Plato’s Parmenides and argue that also these notions, and not only the metaphysical ones usually discussed in the literature, can be understood as a response to positions and problems put on the table by Parmenides and Zeno. Of the spatial notions examined in the dialogue, I look at the problems raised for possessing location and shape, while with respect to temporal notions, I focus on the (...) discussion of ‘being in time’ and exaiphnês (the latter notion will be shown to be also an important influence for Aristotle’s Physics). In displaying a paradoxical character and taking up crucial notions from Parmenides, the second part of the Parmenides seems to display some resemblance to Zeno’s paradoxes. I will show, however, that in contrast to Zeno, the second part of Plato’s Parmenides also demonstrates Parmenides’ One to be problematic on its own terms. Furthermore, the dialogue presents not only important problems that these spatial and temporal notions seem to lead us into, but also establishes some positive features necessary to think of time and space. In this way, Plato’s Parmenides can be seen as contributing to the development of temporal and spatial conceptualisations in ancient Greek thought. (shrink)

In this article I draw on personal experience to explore the kinds of relationships that can develop between human and nonhuman animals. The first part of the article describes my encounters with wild baboons, whom I studied in East Africa over the course of many years. The baboons treated me as a social being, and to gain their trust I had to learn the troop's social conventions and behave in accordance with them. This process gave me a feeling for what (...) it means to be a baboon. Over time, I developed a sense of belonging to their community, and my subjective identity seemed to merge with theirs. This experience expanded my sense of the possible in interspecies relations. The second part of the article describes a mutual exploration of such possibilities in my relationship with my dog, Safi. I describe how Safi and I co-create systems of communication and emotional expression that permit deep 'intersubjectivity', despite our very different biological natures. In my relationships with baboons, dogs, and other animals, I have encountered the presence in another of something resembling a human 'self'. I emphasize the importance of recognizing and honoring this presence in other animals as well as in humans. (shrink)

Socialism and Feminism in the 19th century.

Kant's concept of autonomy and the Kantian notion of autonomy are often conflated in bioethics. However, the contemporary Kantian notion has very little at all to do with Kant's original. In order to further bioethics discourse on autonomy, I critically distinguish the contemporary Kantian notion from Kant's original concept of moral autonomy. I then evaluate the practical relevance of both concepts of autonomy for use in bioethics. I argue that it is not appropriate to appeal to either concept toward assessing (...) which patients we ought to respect as autonomous. Finally, I sketch criteria for what I take to be a more promising concept of autonomy for patients. (shrink)

This article provides a concise overview of the history of scholarship on solidarity in Europe and North America. While recent decades have seen an increase in conceptual and scholarly interest in solidarity in North America and other parts of the Anglo-Saxon world, the concept is much more strongly anchored in Europe. Continental European politics in particular have given rise to two of the most influential traditions of solidarity, namely, socialism and Christian ethics. Solidarity has also guided important public instruments and (...) institutions in Europe. Despite the much stronger affinity of continental European societies to solidaristic thinking, we argue that solidarity has much to offer for addressing societal challenges on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. After proposing a working definition of solidarity that highlights its utility for guiding policy and practice, we give an example of how a solidarity-based perspective can shape instruments for the governance of data use. (shrink)

Might the world be structured, as Leibniz thought, so that every part of matter is divided ad infinitum? The Physicist David Bohm accepted infinitely decomposable matter, and even Steven Weinberg, a staunch supporter of the idea that science is converging on a final theory, admits the possibility of an endless chain of ever more fundamental theories. However, if there is no fundamental level, physicalism, thought of as the view that everything is determined by fundamental phenomena and that all fundamental phenomena (...) are physical, turns out false, for in such a world, there are no fundamental phenomena, and so fundamental phenomena determine nothing. While some take physicalism necessarily to posit a fundamental level, here I present a thesis of physicalism that allows for its truth even in an infinitely decomposable world. (shrink)

An analysis of the seventeenth-century thinker's epistemology, metaphysics, ethical theories, and religious thought that promotes understanding of the basic concepts of his philosophy of education.