BackgroundIt has been argued that ethics review committees—e.g., Research Ethics Committees, Institutional Review Boards, etc.— have weaknesses in reviewing big data and artificial intelligence research. For instance, they may, due to the novelty of the area, lack the relevant expertise for judging collective risks and benefits of such research, or they may exempt it from review in instances involving de-identified data.Main bodyFocusing on the example of medical research databases we highlight here ethical issues around de-identified data sharing which motivate the (...) need for review where oversight by ethics committees is weak. Though some argue for ethics committee reform to overcome these weaknesses, it is unclear whether or when that will happen. Hence, we argue that ethical review can be done by data access committees, since they have de facto purview of big data and artificial intelligence projects, relevant technical expertise and governance knowledge, and already take on some functions of ethical review. That said, like ethics committees, they may have functional weaknesses in their review capabilities. To strengthen that function, data access committees must think clearly about the kinds of ethical expertise, both professional and lay, that they draw upon to support their work.ConclusionData access committees can undertake ethical review of medical research databases provided they enhance that review function through professional and lay ethical expertise. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 37-39.

In response to a competitive environment, hospital administrators are pressuring physicians to discharge Medicare patients “sicker and quicker” and to transfer indigent patients from their emergency rooms. This paper compares health administrators' ethics to public expectations regarding financially motivated hospital transfers and discharges. Health administrators use balancing strategies: code morality, survivalism, mission dependency, and tithing. Public expectations, exemplified in P.L. 99–272, P.L. 99–509, and recent case law, are based on norms of potential for patient harm and patient occupancy. These norms (...) are morally preferable to those of health administrators; they reinforce the value of identified lives and the reliability of the health care system. (shrink)

We used attractiveness judgements as a proxy to visualize the ideal female and male body for male and female participants and investigated how individual differences in the internalization of cultural ideals influence these representations. In the first of two studies, male and female participants judged the attractiveness of 242 male and female computer-generated bodies which varied independently in muscle and adipose. This allowed us to map changes in attractiveness across the complete body composition space, revealing single peaks for the attractiveness (...) of both men and women. In the second study, we asked our participants to choose the most attractive male and female bodies in a method of adjustment task in which they could independently vary muscle and adipose to create the most attractive body. We asked whether individual differences in internalization of cultural ideals, drive for muscularity, eating disorder symptomatology and depressive symptoms could systematically shift the location of peak attractiveness in body composition space. We found a clear preference by both genders for a male body with high muscle and low adipose, and a toned, low adipose female body. The degree of internalization of cultural ideals predicted large individual differences in the composition of the most attractive bodies. (shrink)

As the public profile of bioethics rises, and as litigation about issues ranging from assisted reproduction to gene therapy multiplies, the presence of bioethics experts in a litigation context has become more common. Dozens of appellate opinions refer to bioethics testimony in the lower courts. Today's technical advisory services for attorneys advertise bioethics experts along with experts in scientific fields. A single bioethicist has served as an expert in more than fifty cases. In all likelihood, opportunities for bioethicists to fill (...) the role of testifying expert will grow as medicine and biotechnology become more complex. Bioethics experts have also been involved in several other kinds of litigation-related activities, including investigation, consultation with attorneys, preparing reports that express expert opinions, and explaining and defending these opinions by deposition.Despite the growth of these activities by bioethicists, they have never been free of controversy, have recently been received with little enthusiasm by the judiciary, and could become highly problematic in the future. (shrink)

Decisions are made under uncertainty when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and one is uncertain to which the act will lead. Decisions are made under indeterminacy when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and it is indeterminate to which the act will lead. This paper develops a theory of (synchronic and diachronic) decision-making under indeterminacy that portrays the rational response to such situations as inconstant. Rational agents have to capriciously and randomly choose how to resolve (...) the indeterminacy relevant to a given choice-situation, but such capricious choices once made constrain how they will choose in the future. The account is illustrated by the case of self-interested action in situations where it is indeterminate whether you yourself will survive to benefit or suffer the consequences. The conclusion emphasizes some distinctive anti-hedging predictions of the account. (shrink)

In The Abuse of Casuistry Jonsen and Toulmin describe one view of moral reasoning as follows:Those who take a rhetorical view of moral reasoning… do not assume that moral reasoning relies for its force on single chains of unbreakable deductions which link present cases back to some common starting point. Rather, this strength comes from accumulating many parallel, complementary considerations, which have to do with the current circumstances of the human individuals and communities involved and lend strength to our conclusions, (...) not like links to a chain but like strands to a rope or roots to a tree.Whether or not all moral reasoning resembles “strands to a rope,” bioethics testimony certainly does. Bioethics testimony is eclectic, a composite of many loosely woven strands. Rarely, if ever, is bioethics testimony “a chain of unbreakable deductions.” Rarely is it “pure” ethics, much less pure normative ethics. (shrink)

It is often said that the ontological argument fails because it wrongly treats existence as a first-level property or predicate. This has proved a controversial claim, and efforts to evaluate it are complicated by the fact that the words ‘existence is not a property/predicate’ have been used by philosophers to make at least three different negative claims: (a) one about a first-level phenomenon possessed by objects like horses, stones, you and me; (b) another about the logical form of assertions of (...) existence; and (c) still another about a second-level phenomenon possessed by concepts when they are instantiated. I argue that only the last of these claims, originally voiced by Kant, is both plausible and relevant to the ontological argument. And I try to show that the relevance of the Kantian version comes from its providing the underlying justification for a different, and far less controversial, criticism of the ontological argument. (shrink)

How do thought and language manage to be 'about' aspects of the world? J. Robert G. Williams investigates how representation arises out of a fundamentally non-representational world, showing the explanatory relations between the representational properties of language, of thought, and of perception and intention.

Kant gave a two-fold answer to the question, ‘Is existence a predicate?’. His view that existence is not a first-level predicate, i.e., a predicate of objects like horses, stones, and you and me, is widely known. What is not so well-known, however, is his claim that existence is a second-level predicate, a predicate of concepts or of a collection of predicates. In this paper I hope to show why his arguments for both claims are unsuccessful.

By whatever and by however many predicates we may think a thing – even if we completely determine it – we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that this thing is. Otherwise, it would not be exactly the same thing that exists, but something more than we had thought in the concept; and we could not, therefore, say that the exact object of my concept exists.

John Hawthorne in a recent paper takes issue with Lewisian accounts of counterfactuals, when relevant laws of nature are chancy. I respond to his arguments on behalf of the Lewisian, and conclude that while some can be rebutted, the case against the original Lewisian account is strong. I develop a neo-Lewisian account of what makes for closeness of worlds. I argue that my revised version avoids Hawthorne's challenges. I argue that this is closer to the spirit of Lewis's first (non-chancy) (...) proposal than is Lewis's own suggested modification. (shrink)

This article investigates the claim that some truths are fundamentally or really true — and that other truths are not. Such a distinction can help us reconcile radically minimal metaphysical views with the verities of common sense. I develop an understanding of the distinction whereby Fundamentality is not itself a metaphysical distinction, but rather a device that must be presupposed to express metaphysical distinctions. Drawing on recent work by Rayo on anti-Quinean theories of ontological commitments, I formulate a rigourous theory (...) of the notion. In the final sections, I show how this package dovetails with ' interpretationist' theories of meaning to give sober content to thought that some things — perhaps sets, or gerrymandered mereological sums — can be 'postulated into existence'. (shrink)

This essay situates “singularity” at the heart of the power dynamics operative in contemporary pedagogy and the system supporting it. More than merely academic learning, indeed, “school” here denotes not only the range of disciplinary authorities at work within the classroom and the educational system at large but also discursive obedience to knowledge. Supported by close readings of Arendt and Derrida, this paper thus argues that nothing less than the formation of identity is at stake in “school.” What are the (...) boundaries, limits, and conditions of possibility for a student’s invention of his or her own singularity within an institution and curriculum that, at the same time, demands obedience to authority? This paradoxical formation of identity within the constrictive demands of authority constitutes the primary task of thinking the “invention of singularity” at the heart of schooling in conjunction with democracy, language, vocation, and ideology. (shrink)

Five studies examined the extent to which autobiographical memory retrieval is hierarchical, whether a hierarchical search depends on central executive resources, and whether retrieving memories that are “higher” in the hierarchy impairs problem‐solving ability. The first study found that random generation (assessed using a button‐pressing task) was sensitive to changes in memory load (digit span). The second study showed that when participants fail to retrieve a target event, they respond with a memory that is higher up the hierarchy. The third (...) study showed that memory is more generic only when participants use low imageable cues under cognitive load. The final two experiments showed that experimental manipulation of memory specificity affects problem solving (MEPS performance). The data are consistent with Conway and Pleydell‐Pearce's hierarchical retrieval model of autobiographical memory, and suggest that overgeneral memory in nonclinical participants is associated with reduced executive capacity only when retrieval is “top‐down” (generative). (shrink)

This paper examines two puzzles of indeterminacy. The first puzzle concerns the hypothesis that there is a unified phenomenon of indeterminacy. How are we to reconcile this with the apparent diversity of reactions that indeterminacy prompts? The second puzzle focuses narrowly on borderline cases of vague predicates. How are we to account for the lack of theoretical consensus about what the proper reaction to borderline cases is? I suggest (building on work by Maudlin) that the characteristic feature of indeterminacy is (...) alethic normative silence, and use this to explain both plurality and lack of consensus. (shrink)

(2011). Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism: Vol. 12, Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma, pp. 1-18. doi: 10.1080/14639947.2011.564811.

Might it be that world itself, independently of what we know about it or how we represent it, is metaphysically indeterminate? This article tackles in turn a series of questions: In what sorts of cases might we posit metaphysical indeterminacy? What is it for a given case of indefiniteness to be 'metaphysical'? How does the phenomenon relate to 'ontic vagueness', the existence of 'vague objects', 'de re indeterminacy' and the like? How might the logic work? Are there reasons for postulating (...) this distinctive sort of indefiniteness? Conversely, are there reasons for denying that there is indefiniteness of this sort? (shrink)

Senior service colleges provide professional education to prepare military and government civilians for public service at the senior levels of strategy and policy. Inclusive in the program of study...

I formulate a counterfactual version of the notorious ‘Ramsey Test’. Whereas the Ramsey Test for indicative conditionals links credence in indicatives to conditional credences, the counterfactual version links credence in counterfactuals to expected conditional chance. I outline two forms: a Ramsey Identity on which the probability of the conditional should be identical to the corresponding conditional probability/expectation of chance; and a Ramsey Bound on which credence in the conditional should never exceed the latter. Even in the weaker, bound, form, the (...) counterfactual Ramsey Test makes counterfactuals subject to the very argument that Lewis used to argue against the indicative version of the Ramsey Test. I compare the assumptions needed to run each, pointing to assumptions about the time‐evolution of chances that can replace the appeal to Bayesian assumptions about credence update in motivating the assumptions of the argument. I finish by outlining two reactions to the discussion: to indicativize the debate on counterfactuals; or to counterfactualize the debate on indicatives. (shrink)

Inscrutability arguments threaten to reduce interpretationist metasemantic theories to absurdity. Can we find some way to block the arguments? A highly influential proposal in this regard is David Lewis’ ‘ eligibility ’ response: some theories are better than others, not because they fit the data better, but because they are framed in terms of more natural properties. The purposes of this paper are to outline the nature of the eligibility proposal, making the case that it is not ad hoc, but (...) instead flows naturally from three independently motivated elements; and to show that severe limitations afflict the proposal. In conclusion, I pick out the element of the eligibility response that is responsible for the limitations: future work in this area should therefore concentrate on amending this aspect of the overall theory. (shrink)

In our target article, we took the position that tenure conveys many important benefits but that its original justification – fostering academic freedom – is not one of them. Here we respond to various criticisms of our study as well as to proposals to remedy the current state of affairs. Undoubtedly, more research is needed to confirm and extend our findings, but the most reasonable conclusion remains the one we offered – that the original rationale for tenure is poorly served (...) by the current system as practiced at top-ranked colleges and universities. (Published Online February 8 2007). (shrink)

Jeff Paris proves a generalized Dutch Book theorem. If a belief state is not a generalized probability then one faces ‘sure loss’ books of bets. In Williams I showed that Joyce’s accuracy-domination theorem applies to the same set of generalized probabilities. What is the relationship between these two results? This note shows that both results are easy corollaries of the core result that Paris appeals to in proving his dutch book theorem. We see that every point of accuracy-domination defines (...) a dutch book, but we only have a partial converse. (shrink)

This paper posits that organizational variables are the factors that lead to the moral decline of companies like Enron and Worldcom. The individuals involved created environments within the organizations that precipitated a spiral of unethical decision-making. It is proposed that at the executive level, it is the organizational factors associated with power and decision-making that have the critical influence on moral and ethical behavior. The study has used variables that were deemed to be surrogate measures of the ethical violations (OSHA (...) and EPA violations), the risky shift phenomenon (executive team size), banality of wrong-doing (reputation score for firms) and escalating commitment (tenure with the firm/change in revenue for declining firms). The research found that there were small correlations between ethical violations and the three organizational variables. (shrink)

We introduce the $\Sigma _1$ -definable universal finite sequence and prove that it exhibits the universal extension property amongst the countable models of set theory under end-extension. That is, the sequence is $\Sigma _1$ -definable and provably finite; the sequence is empty in transitive models; and if M is a countable model of set theory in which the sequence is s and t is any finite extension of s in this model, then there is an end-extension of M to a (...) model in which the sequence is t. Our proof method grows out of a new infinitary-logic-free proof of the Barwise extension theorem, by which any countable model of set theory is end-extended to a model of $V=L$ or indeed any theory true in a suitable submodel of the original model. The main theorem settles the modal logic of end-extensional potentialism, showing that the potentialist validities of the models of set theory under end-extensions are exactly the assertions of S4. Finally, we introduce the end-extensional maximality principle, which asserts that every possibly necessary sentence is already true, and show that every countable model extends to a model satisfying it. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)