Traditional methods of detection may no longer be wholly successful in fully preventing cheating in examinations. New strategies need to be considered and employed to better manage the advancement of technology use for illegitimate purposes. This paper investigates technology used to cheat in examinations, how such cheats are carried out, and how to prevent such methods of cheating. To show the full extent of the progression of cheating over the years, this report also documents some of the traditional methods of (...) cheating. The devices which are used to cheat are investigated to see how they can provide an advantage to those who are taking examinations. (shrink)

edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff Since its appearance in English translation in 1996, Jürgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms has become the focus of a productive dialogue between German and Anglo-American legal and political theorists. The present volume contains ten essays that provide an overview of Habermas's political thought since the original appearance of Between Facts and Norms in 1992 and extend his model of deliberative democracy in novel ways to issues untreated in the earlier work.Habermas's (...) theory of democracy has at least three features that set it apart from competing positions. First, it combines a concern with questions of normative justification with an empirical analysis of the social conditions necessary for the realization of democratic institutions. Second, at the heart of his model is the assertion of an internal relationship between liberalism and democracy. On this account, the rights of the individual that are central to liberalism can be guaranteed only within a constitutional framework that at the same time fosters democratic rights of political participation through the public sphere. Finally, Habermas defends a conception of universal human rights that is not only sensitive to cultural differences but also calls for legal and political institutions that facilitate the cultivation of cultural and religious identities within pluralistic societies.These essays demonstrate the extraordinary power of Habermas's theory of democracy through a further engagement with Rawls's political liberalism and through original contributions to current debates over nationalism, multiculturalism, and the viability of supranational political institutions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 51-80 [Access article in PDF] Kant's Politics of Enlightenment Ciaran Cronin THE ENDURING RESONANCE OF Kant's brief essay "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" (henceforth "WE") can be traced in large part to the connection it makes between two ideas central to the self-understanding of European modernity. The first is the idea of autonomy implicit in its famous (...) definition of enlightenment: "Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his self-incurred minority.Minority is the inability to make use of one's own understanding without direction from another... Sapere aude! Have courage to make use of your own understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment." 1 Kant's rallying cry to independence of thought resonates with the view that individual autonomy is a central component of modern self-identity. The second is the defense of freedom in the public use of reason: "For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the least harmful of anything that could even be called freedom: namely freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters." 2 With this emphatic endorsement of freedom of expression as a precondition of enlightenment, Kant appears to situate the project of enlightenment squarely in the tradition of liberal political thought. [End Page 51]Yet the interpretation of the essay as a defense of a liberal model of freedom of expression proves to be problematic on a closer reading. Even Kant's famous definition of enlightenment is not without its puzzling aspects. He employs the legal term "minority" (Unmündigkeit, often translated as "immaturity"), the condition of a child or dependent who has not reached the legal age of adulthood, to describe the condition of human beings before they have achieved enlightenment; but as some of his contemporaries remarked, the idea of a minority that is "self-incurred" makes no legal sense. That their puzzlement was not just a matter of injudicious terminology is shown by Kant's apparent indecision over whether the failure of individuals to make independent use of their reason is due to lack of courage on their part 3 or whether it is because they have been prevented from doing so by constraining social authorities. 4 Even more perplexing is Kant's idiosyncratic distinction between the private and public uses of reason: "by the public use of one's own reason I understand that use which someone makes of it as a scholar before the entire public of the world of readers. What I call the private use of reason is that which one may make of it in a certain civil post or office with which he is entrusted." 5 What is perplexing in this is not so much the restriction of the public use of reason to scholars addressing a public of readers as the characterization of the use of one's reason in exercising a civil or public office as "private." Moreover, liberal sensibilities cannot fail to be ruffled by the authoritarian cast of some of Kant's remarks. Most troubling is the observation that only a ruler who "hasa well-disciplined and numerous army ready to guarantee public peace" can tolerate complete freedom of public expression and that a lesser degree of civil freedom (bürgerliche Freiheit) is conducive to the fullest expansion of "a people's freedom of spirit" (or intellectual freedom, Freiheit des Geistes). 6 This would seem to lend ammunition to those who argue that Kant ultimately embraces a conservative politicalposition in contradiction to the radical implications of his own critical philosophy. 7 [End Page 52]But an examination of the historical context of the essay reveals that it is neither a clear expression of a liberal nor of a conservative position as these are conventionally understood, or so I will argue. The perplexing features of the essay become intelligible when it is seen as part of a larger project of reconciling the ideal requirements of a republican constitution with the political reality of Prussian absolutism in response to contemporary debates concerning... (shrink)

Health research increasingly relies on organized collections of health data and biological samples. There are many types of sample and data collections that are used for health research, though these are collected for many purposes, not all of which are health-related. These collections exist under different jurisdictional and regulatory arrangements and include: 1) Population biobanks, cohort studies, and genome databases 2) Clinical and public health data 3) Direct-to-consumer genetic testing 4) Social media 5) Fitness trackers, health apps, and biometric data (...) sensors Population biobanks, cohort studies, and genome databases Clinical and public health data Direct-to-consumer genetic testing Social media Fitness trackers, health apps, and biometric data sensors Ethical, legal, and social challenges of such collections are well recognized, but there has been limited attention to the broader societal implications of the existence of these collections. Although health research conducted using these collections is broadly recognized as beneficent, secondary uses of these data and samples may be controversial. We examine both documented and hypothetical scenarios of secondary uses of health data and samples. In particular, we focus on the use of health data for purposes of: Forensic investigations Civil lawsuits Identification of victims of mass casualty events Denial of entry for border security and immigration Making health resource rationing decisions Facilitating human rights abuses in autocratic regimes Forensic investigations Civil lawsuits Identification of victims of mass casualty events Denial of entry for border security and immigration Making health resource rationing decisions Facilitating human rights abuses in autocratic regimes Current safeguards relating to the use of health data and samples include research ethics oversight and privacy laws. These safeguards have a strong focus on informed consent and anonymization, which are aimed at the protection of the individual research subject. They are not intended to address broader societal implications of health data and sample collections. As such, existing arrangements are insufficient to protect against subversion of health databases for non-sanctioned secondary uses, or to provide guidance for reasonable but controversial secondary uses. We are concerned that existing debate in the scholarly literature and beyond has not sufficiently recognized the secondary data uses we outline in this paper. Our main purpose, therefore, is to raise awareness of the potential for unforeseen and unintended consequences, in particular negative consequences, of the increased availability and development of health data collections for research, by providing a comprehensive review of documented and hypothetical non-health research uses of such data. (shrink)

This collection of four essays and an interview contains Habermas's most recent contributions to ethical theory. It expands and clarifies the work on discourse ethics presented in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Here, largely in response to criticisms from contemporary neo-Aristotelians, Habermas underscores the claim of discourse ethics to a preeminent position in contemporary moral philosophy with incisive analyses and refinements of the central concepts of his theory that include important developments in his treatment of practical reason and of the (...) problems of application and motivation.The first essay offers a comprehensive analysis of practical rationality, which establishes a clear demarcation between pragmatic, ethical, and moral questions and a corresponding differentiation between forms of volition and spheres of practical discourse. The centerpiece of the book is a multifaceted defense of the central claims of discourse ethics incorporating masterly critiques of the major competing positions, including those of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Karl-Otto Apel, and Albrecht WellmerThe middle essays defend the basic intention of universalist moral theory in the face of the claims of the neo-Aristotelian ethics of the good and Horkheimer's skepticism toward reason that led him to embrace a religiously inspired ethic of compassion. An interview with Habermas covering such topics as the genesis of discourse ethics, the precise import of some of its more controversial elements, and its interconnections with the theory of communicative actions concludes this important collection.Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

Quantum interference, manifest in the two slit experiment, lies at the heart of several quantum computational speed-ups and provides a striking example of a quantum phenomenon with no classical counterpart. An intriguing feature of quantum interference arises in a variant of the standard two slit experiment, in which there are three, rather than two, slits. The interference pattern in this set-up can be written in terms of the two and one slit patterns obtained by blocking one, or more, of the (...) slits. This is in stark contrast with the standard two slit experiment, where the interference pattern cannot be written as a sum of the one slit patterns. This was first noted by Rafael Sorkin, who raised the question of why quantum theory only exhibits irreducible interference in the two slit experiment. One approach to this problem is to compare the predictions of quantum theory to those of operationally-defined ‘foil’ theories, in the hope of determining whether theories that do exhibit higher-order interference suffer from pathological—or at least undesirable—features. In this paper two proposed extensions of quantum theory are considered: the theory of Density Cubes proposed by Dakić, Paterek and Brukner, which has been shown to exhibit irreducible interference in the three slit set-up, and the Quartic Quantum Theory of Życzkowski. The theory of Density Cubes will be shown to provide an advantage over quantum theory in a certain computational task and to posses a well-defined mechanism which leads to the emergence of quantum theory—analogous to the emergence of classical physics from quantum theory via decoherence. Despite this, the axioms used to define Density Cubes will be shown to be insufficient to uniquely characterise the theory. In comparison, Quartic Quantum Theory is a well-defined theory and we demonstrate that it exhibits irreducible interference to all orders. This feature of Życzkowski’s theory is argued not to be a genuine phenomenon, but to arise from an ambiguity in the current definition of higher-order interference in operationally-defined theories. Thus, to begin to understand why quantum theory is limited to a certain kind of interference, a new definition of higher-order interference is needed that is applicable to, and makes good operational sense in, arbitrary operationally-defined theories. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists both investigate the self, but often in isolation from one another. this book brings together studies by philosophers and psychologists in an exploration of the self and its function. It will be of interest to all those involved in philosophy, psychology and sociology.

Several fields contributing to psychiatric advances, such as psychology, biology, and the humanities, have not yet met to produce a cohesive and integrated picture of human function and dysfunction, strength and vulnerability, etc., despite advances in their own areas. The failure may have its roots in a disagreement on what we mean by the human person and his or her relationship with the world, for which the incommensurate language of these disciplines may be partly to blame. Turns taken by western (...) philosophy over the past 400 years may help to explain this. Language is such an important tool for psychiatrists, that examination of it may afford an insight into the reasons for divisions in the field. This paper aims to examine and compare psychologies (and hence psychiatries) derived from modern western philosophy, with similar concepts in other cultures, through the study of developments in terminology, in terms of the simplest facts about what it means to be human. Terminology used in mental health in western cultures is examined, with particular consideration of the term “self” as it has come to be used in a technical sense. Analogous terms from non-English speaking European languages, and some non-western cultures are studied. Western philosophy and psychology have evolved a meaning for the term “self” which is quite different from equivalent terms in non-western cultures. It is a moot point whether or not the development in western psychiatry of what are now technical terms to describe normal human experience has become needlessly obscure and ambiguous. It is not evident that this “new” language represents a genuine advance in understanding; it distances mental health professionals from those who are not familiar with it; and it makes transcultural dialogue difficult. (shrink)

La publication de la première traduction française de The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897) de Samuel Butler, en 2009, suscite un nouvel examen du livre et de sa thèse volontairement provocatrice : l’Odyssée aurait été écrite par une jeune femme. Les préfaces aux éditions anglaises de 1967 et 2004 soulignent la justesse des interprétations de Samuel Butler relatives au style et au ton du poème, ainsi que sa manière de revendiquer son propre positionnement critique – ceci bien avant que la (...) démarche soit théorisée par les études académiques modernes. En ce qui concerne la place fondamentale accordée aux personnages féminins et à leurs points de vue dans l’épopée, l’article propose ici une alternative à la thèse insolite de Butler, rejetée par presque tous les spécialistes, en faisant état des recherches actuelles qui s’intéressent à la réception du poème, à la mixité de l’auditoire et à l’existence de traditions poétiques orales spécifiquement féminines. (shrink)

Quite honestly, it is not easy to see what all the fuss is about. Sir Julian Huxley was clearly impressed. “A landmark in modern thought which we cannot afford to pass by” wrote John Stewart Collis in the Sunday Times, and the following week Arnold Toynbee in the Observer wrote: “This is a great book. If it is eclipsed by anything, it is by the spirit of the author, which shines through it”. The French reaction to the original text was (...) at least equally enthusiastic. André Rousseaux in Figaro Littéraire says: “Not since the 12th. Century has there been such a satisfying exposition of the perfect understanding between the material world and that of Christ Incarnate”. One wonders how much of the enthusiasm is due to the fact that Father Teilhard was not allowed to publish his philosophical thought in his own lifetime. The facts of his life are well known. Born in 1881, he joined the Jesuits in 1899 and was ordained. in 1912. Prehistory, geology, palaeontology, anthropology, were his chief intellectual interests, and he took his doctorate in the Sorbonne in 1922. He became professor of geology in the Institut Catholique in Paris and in 1923 went with Pére Licent S.J. to China on a palaeontological mission. The detail is given by Sir Julian in the introduction, in the course of which he pays Père Teilhard many felicitous tributes, notably that he was “a dedicated Christian priest.” On his return to France, Sir Julian tells us, “some of the ideas which he had expressed in his lectures about original sin and its relation to evolution, were regarded as unorthodox by his religious superiors, and he was forbidden to continue teaching.” He spent the next twenty years mostly in China with occasional scientific visits to India, Burma, Java, Abyssinia and the United States. The work under review was all but finished in Peking in 1938-1940. (shrink)

Divided into four sections, this book addresses the key themes: What has been the impact of educational change?

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oxford, 2012 under title Moral theological method in the theological ethics of Martin Luther and Arthur Rich, with particular reference to their economic ethics.

ABSTRACT This paper reveals David Hilbert’s position in the philosophy of mathematics, circa 1900, to be a form of non-eliminative structuralism, predating his formalism. I argue that Hilbert withstands the pressing objections put to him by Frege in the course of the Frege-Hilbert controversy in virtue of this early structuralist approach. To demonstrate that this historical position deserves contemporary attention I show that Hilbertian structuralism avoids a recent wave of objections against non-eliminative structuralists to the effect that they cannot distinguish (...) between structurally identical but importantly distinct mathematical objects, such as the complex roots of $-1$. (shrink)

BackgroundBiobanks are considered to be key infrastructures for research development and have generated a lot of debate about their ethical, legal and social implications. While the focus has been on human genomic research, rapid advances in human microbiome research further complicate the debate.DiscussionWe draw on two cystic fibrosis biobanks in Toronto, Canada, to illustrate our points. The biobanks have been established to facilitate sample and data sharing for research into the link between disease progression and microbial dynamics in the lungs (...) of pediatric and adult patients. We begin by providing an overview of some of the ELSI associated with human microbiome research, particularly on the implications for the broader society. We then discuss ethical considerations regarding the identifiability of samples biobanked for human microbiome research, and examine the issue of return of results and incidental findings. We argue that, for the purposes of research ethics oversight, human microbiome research samples should be treated with the same privacy considerations as human tissues samples. We also suggest that returning individual microbiome-related findings could provide a powerful clinical tool for care management, but highlight the need for a more grounded understanding of contextual factors that may be unique to human microbiome research.ConclusionsWe revisit the ELSI of biobanking and consider the impact that human microbiome research might have. Our discussion focuses on identifiability of human microbiome research samples, and return of research results and incidental findings for clinical management. (shrink)

Drawing from a rich mix of survey data, interviews, and access to internal meetings, Brian Doherty and Timothy Doyle show how FoEI has developed a distinctive environmentalism, which allows for the differences in context between regions and across the North-South divide.

Why does female under- representation emerge during undergraduate education? At the University of Sydney, we surveyed students before and after their first philosophy course. We failed to find any evidence that this course disproportionately discouraged female students from continuing in philosophy relative to male students. Instead, we found evidence of an interaction effect between gender and existing attitudes about philosophy coming into tertiary education that appears at least partially responsible for this poor retention. At the first lecture, disproportionately few female (...) students intended to major. Further, at the first lecture, female students were less interested in philosophy, were less self-confident about philosophy, and were less able to imagine themselves as philosophers. Similarly, female students predicted they would feel more uncomfortable in philosophy classes than male students did. Further study with a control is warranted to determine whether this interaction effect is peculiar to philosophy, or whether it is indicative of a more general gendered trend amongst first year undergraduate students. (shrink)

This paper first explores a number of themes in the psychological system developed by the Austrian-American psychologist, Egon Brunswik, focusing on those that had a formative influence on Social Judgement Theory. We show that while perception was a recurring ground for Brunswik's empirical and theoretical work, his psychology was a psychology of cognition in the broadest sense. Next, two major themes in Social Judgement Theory functionalism and probabilism are described, and the elegant formulation known as Brunswik's Lens Model is introduced. (...) Some methodological and theoretical implications of these themes are presented. The paper concludes with Hammond's Cognitive Continuum Theory (CCT), which is a theory describing modes of cognition and how those modes are influenced by task characteristics. (shrink)

Background Policy decisions about childhood vaccination require consideration of multiple, sometimes conflicting, public health and ethical imperatives. Examples of these decisions are whether vaccination should be mandatory and, if so, whether to allow for non-medical exemptions. In this article we argue that these policy decisions go beyond typical public health mandates and therefore require democratic input.Methods We report on the design, implementation, and results of a deliberative public forum convened over four days in Ontario, Canada, on the topic of childhood (...) vaccination.Results 25 participants completed all four days of deliberation and collectively developed 20 policy recommendations on issues relating to mandatory vaccinations and exemptions, communication about vaccines and vaccination, and AEFI (adverse events following immunization) compensation and reporting. Notable recommendations include unanimous support for mandatory childhood vaccination in Ontario, the need for broad educational communication about vaccination, and the development of a no-fault compensation scheme for AEFIs. There was persistent disagreement among deliberants about the form of exemptions from vaccination (conscience, religious beliefs) that should be permissible, as well as appropriate consequences if parents do not vaccinate their children.Conclusions We conclude that conducting deliberative democratic processes on topics that are polarizing and controversial is viable and should be further developed and implemented to support democratically legitimate and trustworthy policy about childhood vaccination. (shrink)

Professional Responsibility: New Horizons of Praxis addresses the manifold and complex challenges inherent in professional responsibility. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, professions have been accorded a conjoined mandate - political and moral responsibility - to serve the interests of individual's and society. The quality of professional work, how professionals understand and live out their responsibilities in practice, is a matter of pervasive concern since increasingly they have such a prominent presence in most people's lives. Until the late 1960's, (...) professionals' roles and responsibilities were rarely questioned, but such trust has since given way to collective scepticism concerning their commitment and willingness to live up to their moral and societal obligations. Abuse of power and privilege by some professionals has contributed to decline in trust by publics, the concept of 'good work' is increasingly challenged, and politicians and policy-makers have sought to regulate and hold professions to account. It is timely, therefore, to investigate critically conflicting discourses and practices on what counts as professional responsibility, to question how professionals understand and are prepared for a life of professional responsibility, and what acting with integrity and authority looks like in practice. One of the distinctive features of this book is the combination of normative and empirical dimensions that are used to dissect this question. The authors indicate from a diversity of disciplinary perspectives how professional responsibility includes particular thoughts and warranted actions yet remains multifaceted and inarticulate"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), like many nineteenth-century institutions, sought to avoid controversy by excluding the discussion of political and religious topics from its proceedings. Nonpartisanship was a veneer it could hide behind. Yet during the Montreal meeting of 1884—the first time the association ventured beyond the comfortable confines of the British Isles—this “middle way” was tested. While local and visiting Anglophones, many of them BAAS members, viewed the proceedings and character of the association as “decidedly (...) friendly” to religion and as promoting the broad interests of Protestants, Montreal’s episcopacy and French- speaking press rallied against the anti-Catholic BAAS, accusing it of harboring a dangerous Masonic clique. In different material and social spaces, the relationship between science, religion, and the association was conceived in distinct ways. In examining this case, this essay seeks to augment the growing body of scholarship within science studies that recognizes the importance of writing both the history and the geography of encounters between science and religion. (shrink)

Public participation is increasingly an aspect of policy development in many areas, and the governance of biomedical research is no exception. There are good reasons for this: biomedical research relies on public funding; it relies on biological samples and information from large numbers of patients and healthy individuals; and the outcomes of biomedical research are dramatically and irrevocably changing our society. There is thus arguably a democratic imperative for including public values in strategic decisions about the governance of biomedical research. (...) However, it is not immediately clear how this might best be achieved. While different approaches have been proposed and trialled, we focus here on the use of public deliberation as a mechanism to develop input for policy on biomedical research. We begin by explaining the rationale for conducting public deliberation in biomedical research. We focus, in particular, on the ELS (ethical, legal, social) aspects of human tissue biobanking. The last few years have seen the development of methods for conducting public deliberation on these issues in several jurisdictions, for the purpose of incorporating lay public voices in biobanking policy. We explain the theoretical foundation underlying the notion of deliberation, and outline the main lessons and capacities that have been developed in the area of conducting public deliberation on biobanks. We next provide an analysis of the theoretical and practical challenges that we feel still need to be addressed for the use of public deliberation to guide ethical norms and governance of biomedical research. We examine the issues of: (i) linking the outcomes of deliberation to tangible action; (ii) the mandate under which a deliberation is conducted; (iii) the relative weight that should be accorded to a public deliberative forum vs other relevant voices; (iv) evaluating the quality of deliberation; and (5) the problem of scalability of minipublics. (shrink)

Structuralism about mathematical objects and structuralist accounts of physical computation both face indeterminacy objections. For the former, the problem arises for cases such as the complex roots i and \, for which a automorphism can be defined, thus establishing the structural identity of these importantly distinct mathematical objects. In the case of the latter, the problem arises for logical duals such as AND and OR, which have invertible structural profiles :369–400, 2001). This makes their physical implementations indeterminate, in the sense (...) that their structural profiles alone cannot establish whether a given physical component is an AND-gate or an OR-gate. Doherty has recently shown both problems to be analogous, and has argued that computational structuralism is threatened with the absurd conclusion that computational digits might be indiscernible, such that, if structural properties are all that we have to go on, the binary digit 0 must be treated as identical to the binary digit 1. However, we think that a solution to the indiscernibility problem for mathematical structuralists, drawing on the work of David Hilbert, can be adapted for the analogous problem in the computational case, thereby rescuing the structuralist approach to physical computation. (shrink)

In notes to Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie lectures, written around the time of Haiti's 1825 ‘ransom’—the 150 million francs demanded by France to indemnify former slave and plantation owners—we find an uncanny remark. Hegel appears to report on a different ransom, a compensated abolition of slavery in North America that never happened, anticipating an application of the Fifth Amendment's takings clause that US legal scholarship routinely fails to mention. In view of Alan Brudner's enlistment of Hegel as the philosopher ‘uniquely’ able to (...) understand the Fifth Amendment's requirement for compensation for expropriations—a ‘constitutional essential for liberalism’—this paper explores the meaning of these passages in the historical context of the legal abolitions of Hegel's time: feudalism and slavery. The slaveholder indemnities were clearly the unjust ‘dividends’ of the colour line, but their legal foundations and developments in US thought of the nineteenth century also usefully illustrate takings law's foreclosure of political and social transformation through the securitization of value. Reading these histories and Hegel's comments alongside the critical interventions of the black radical tradition, I suggest that Hegel's curious remarks on compensated takings suggest not only a critical divergence from Brudner's understanding of ‘dialogic community’, but a crucial limitation in his field of analysis which pivoted on the denigration of black sovereignty. This paper thus suggests an understanding of US takings law through the shifting understandings of the term ‘ransom’—which for abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass signified not a resolution of slavery, but rather the threat of its perpetuation—and Douglass's elaboration of the pathology of the colour line. (shrink)