The Academy of Management formally adopted a Code of Ethical Conduct in 1990. During the subsequent 15 years, almost nothing had been published about it and its value as a formal document meant to guide professional practice. Rather surprisingly then, in December 2005 an entirely new Code of Ethics was introduced by the Academy’s Board, to take effect in February 2006. Why was a new code promulgated? More broadly, what do the contents of these codes, the processes of their promulgation, (...) and their expressed purposes, suggest about the value of such codes for similarly situated professional associations, in general? This article seeks to identify key strengths and weaknesses of the original code, begin an assessment of the potential value of the new code, and so stimulate debate. Further, not only is this a call to the members of the Academy to engage in some thoughtful debate and possible amendment of its new code, but also a caution to all such associations to take seriously the hurdles that must be jumped before any code can be developed and promulgated to worthwhile effect. (shrink)

While we agree in broad strokes with the characterisation of rationalization as a “useful fiction,” we think that Fiery Cushman's claim remains ambiguous in two crucial respects: (1) the reality of beliefs and desires, that is, the fictional status of folk-psychological entities and (2) the degree to which they should be understood as useful. Our aim is to clarify both points and explicate the rationale of rationalization.

Microbial ecology is flourishing, and in the process, is making contributions to how the ecology and biology of large organisms is understood. Ongoing advances in sequencing technology and computational methods have enabled the collection and analysis of vast amounts of molecular data from diverse biological communities. While early studies focused on cataloguing microbial biodiversity in environments ranging from simple marine ecosystems to complex soil ecologies, more recent research is concerned with community functions and their dynamics over time. Models and concepts (...) from traditional ecology have been used to generate new insight into microbial communities, and novel system-level models developed to explain and predict microbial interactions. The process of moving from molecular inventories to functional understanding is complex and challenging, and never more so than when many thousands of dynamic interactions are the phenomena of interest. We outline the process of how epistemic transitions are made from producing catalogues of molecules to achieving functional and predictive insight, and show how those insights not only revolutionize what is known about biological systems but also about how to do biology itself. Examples will be drawn primarily from analyses of different human microbiota, which are the microbial consortia found in and on areas of the human body, and their associated microbiomes (the genes of those communities). Molecular knowledge of these microbiomes is transforming microbiological knowledge, as well as broader aspects of human biology, health and disease. (shrink)

Clinical trials of xenotransplantation (XTx) may begin early in the next decade, with kidneys from genetically modified pigs transplanted into adult humans. If successful, transplanting pig hearts into children with advanced heart failure may be the next step. Typically, clinical trials have a specified end date, and participants are aware of the amount of time they will be in the study. This is not so with XTx. The current ethical consensus is that XTx recipients must consent to lifelong monitoring. While (...) this presents challenges to the right to withdraw in the adult population, additional and unanswered questions also linger in the paediatric population. In paediatric XTx, parents or guardians consent not only to the initial treatment of the child but also to lifelong monitoring, thus making a decision whose consequences will remain present as the child develops the capacity for assent, and finally the capacity for informed consent or refusal. This article presents and evaluates unanswered paediatric ethical questions in regard to the right to withdraw from XTx follow-up in the paediatric population. (shrink)

This volume identifies and develops how philosophy of mind and phenomenology interact in both conceptual and empirically-informed ways. The objective is to demonstrate that phenomenology, as the first-personal study of the contents and structures of our mentality, can provide us with insights into the understanding of the mind and can complement strictly analytical or empirically informed approaches to the study of the mind. Insofar as phenomenology, as the study or science of phenomena, allows the mind to appear, this collection shows (...) how the mind can reappear through a constructive dialogue between different ways—phenomenological, analytical, and empirical—of understanding mentality. (shrink)

Primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) shows a highly variable disease progression with poor prognosis and a characteristic accumulation of disabilities in patients. These hallmarks of PPMS make it difficult to diagnose and currently impossible to efficiently treat. This study aimed to identify plasma metabolite profiles that allow diagnosis of PPMS and its differentiation from the relapsing-remitting subtype (RRMS), primary neurodegenerative disease (Parkinson’s disease, PD), and healthy controls (HCs) and that significantly change during the disease course and could serve as surrogate (...) markers of multiple sclerosis (MS)-associated neurodegeneration over time. We applied untargeted high-resolution metabolomics to plasma samples to identify PPMS-specific signatures, validated our findings in independent sex- and age-matched PPMS and HC cohorts and built discriminatory models by partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). This signature was compared to sex- and age-matched RRMS patients, to patients with PD and HC. Finally, we investigated these metabolites in a longitudinal cohort of PPMS patients over a 24-month period. PLS-DA yielded predictive models for classification along with a set of 20 PPMS-specific informative metabolite markers. These metabolites suggest disease-specific alterations in glycerophospholipid and linoleic acid pathways. Notably, the glycerophospholipid LysoPC(20:0) significantly decreased during the observation period. These findings show potential for diagnosis and disease course monitoring, and might serve as biomarkers to assess treatment efficacy in future clinical trials for neuroprotective MS therapies. (shrink)

Resumo: O presente texto apresenta o Núcleo de Estudos de Filosofias e Infâncias com seus vinte anos de ensino, pesquisa e extensão dedicados ao ensino de filosofia e uma educação filosófica. O texto tematiza a especificidade e a história do grupo, colocando ênfase em algumas dimensões de sua atuação presente: a) Os colóquios internacionais de filosofia e educação; b) a NEFI edições; c) o Mestrado Profissional em educação filosófica com infâncias; d) os projetos de extensão; e) o periódico childhood & (...) philosophy; f) as experiências de formação. Antes, um breve histórico é oferecido e, depois, uma reflexão sobre a dimensão metodológica do NEFI. Assim, o texto é oferecido como uma oportunidade para pensar o NEFI como um coletivo – possibilidade aberta e em permanente busca de sentidos relativos ao ensino de filosofia ou, para dizê-lo mais amplamente, a uma educação filosófica. Palavras-chave: Núcleo de Estudos de Filosofias e Infâncias (NEFI); Infância; Escuta; Pergunta; Metodologia The Center for the Study of Philosophy and Childhood (NEFI): a path to think about the field of the teaching of philosophy in Brazil Abstract: The present text presents the Center for the Study of Philosophy and Childhood (NEFI) with its twenty years of teaching, research and extension dedicated to the teaching of philosophy and a philosophical education. The text discusses the specificity and the history of the group, emphasizing some dimensions of its present action: a) the international colloquiums on philosophy and education; b) the NEFI editions; c) the Professional Master in philosophical education with childhoods; d) the extension projects; e) the journal childhood & philosophy; f) the educational (formation) experiences. First, a brief history is offered, and then a reflection on the methodological dimension of the NEFI. Thus, the text is presented as an opportunity to think of the NEFI as a collective – open possibility in permanent search for meaning concerning the teaching of philosophy or, to put it more broadly, a philosophical education. Keywords: Center for the Study of Philosophy and Childhood (NEFI); Childhood; Listening; Question; Methodology Núcleo de Estudios de Filosofías e Infancias: una trayectoria para pensar el campo de la enseñanza de la filosofía en Brasil Resumen: El presente texto presenta el Centro de Estudios de Filosofía e Infancia con sus veinte años de docencia, investigación y extensión dedicados a la enseñanza de la filosofía y a una educación filosófica. El texto discute la especificidad y la historia del grupo, poniendo énfasis en algunas dimensiones de su acción actual: a) los coloquios internacionales de filosofía y educación; b) las ediciones del NEFI; c) el Máster Profesional en educación filosófica con infancias; d) los proyectos de extensión; e) la revista childhood & philosophy; f) las experiencias de formación. Antes, se ofrece una breve historia y, a continuación, una reflexión sobre la dimensión metodológica del NEFI. Así, el texto se ofrece como una oportunidad para pensar el NEFI como un colectivo – posibilidad abierta y en permanente búsqueda de significados relativos a la enseñanza de la filosofía o, para decirlo más ampliamente, a una educación filosófica. Palabras-clave: Núcleo De Estudios De Filosofías E Infancias (NEFI); Infancia; Escucha; Pregunta; Metodología Data de registro: 23/01/2024 Data de aceite: 23/08/2023. (shrink)

Lee and Schwarz propose that grounded procedures can also be related to connection rather than separation. Drawing on consumer behavior research, we point to different grounded procedures of connection – in terms of the motor actions involved, their salient properties, and their motivational conditions – and discuss how procedures of separation may be affected by the procedures of connection that precede them.

Asim Barut once,en passant, asked the question “For what transitions of the hydrogen atom do the spectral lines coincide”? It is a pleasure for us to give the answer in this paper.

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Antipolitics” A considers what it might mean for the administrative state to be antipolitical. Two conceptions of an antipolitical administrative state are identified. The first of these—antipolitics as in opposition to administrative discretion—holds that, in a democracy, value judgments should be made only by elected officials and that all administrators should do is carry out technical tasks calling for expertise. Administrators, however, inevitably make policy decisions that call for value judgments, making this first (...) conception unattainable. On the other hand, a second conception or standard—one of antipolitics as in opposition to favoritism—is both realistic and desirable to expect of those who occupy positions of administrative power. It holds that administrators should avoid making decisions for self-interested reasons. Many doctrines of administrative law follow from aversion to favoritism, as the law aspires to free the administrative state from decision-making that is based on the interests of administrators and their partisan overseers or friends. Today, as the state comes under increasing threat from populist and authoritarian attempts to capture its power, distinguishing between these two conceptions of antipolitics—one unrealistic, the other imperative—can help to channel antipolitical impulses where they are most needed. (shrink)

This report by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage addresses how countries can make fair progress towards the goal of universal coverage. It explains the relevant tradeoffs between different desirable ends and offers guidance on how to make these tradeoffs.

In his 2009 monograph, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, Peter Godfrey-Smith accuses biologists of demonstrating ‘Darwinian Paranoia’ when they engage in what he dubs ‘agential thinking’. But as Daniel Dennett points out, he offers neither an illuminating set of examples nor an extended argument for this assertion, deeming it to be a brilliant propaganda stroke against what is actually a useful way of thinking. Compared to the dangers of teleological thinking in biology, the dangers of agential thinking have unfortunately (...) rarely been discussed. Drawing on recent work by Samir Okasha, I attempt to remedy this omission, through analyzing the nature of agential thinking, and providing a philosophical treatment of the unexamined dangers in this peculiar, yet tempting way of thinking. (shrink)

La cobertura universal de salud está en el centro de la acción actual para fortalecer los sistemas de salud y mejorar el nivel y la distribución de la salud y los servicios de salud. Este documento es el informe fi nal del Grupo Consultivo de la OMS sobre la Equidad y Cobertura Universal de Salud. Aquí se abordan los temas clave de la justicia (fairness) y la equidad que surgen en el camino hacia la cobertura universal de salud. Por lo (...) tanto, el informe es pertinente para cada agente que infl uye en ese camino y en particular para los gobiernos, ya que se encargan de supervisar y guiar el progreso hacia la cobertura universal de salud. (shrink)

This report from the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage offers advice on how to make progress fairly towards universal health coverage.

Interpersonal sensitivity, particularly threat of potential exclusion, is a critical condition in borderline personality disorder (BPD) which impairs patients’ social adjustment. Current evidence-based treatments include group components, such as mentalization-based group therapy (MBT-G), in order to improve interpersonal functioning. These treatments additionally focus on the therapeutic alliance since it was discovered to be a robust predictor of treatment outcome. However, alliance is a multidimensional factor of group therapy, which includes the fellow patients, and may thus be negatively affected by the (...) exclusion-proneness of BPD patients. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the predictive value of threat of social exclusion for the therapeutic alliance in MBT-G. In the first part of the study, social exclusion was experimentally induced in 23 BPD inpatients and 28 healthy subjects using the Cyberball paradigm, a virtual ball tossing game. The evoked level of threat was measured with the Need-Threat Scale (NTS) which captures four dimensions of fundamental human needs, i. e. the need for belongingness, for self-esteem, for control, and for a meaningful existence. In the second part of the study, therapeutic alliance was measured on three dimensions, the therapists, the fellow patients and the group as a whole, using the Group-Questionnaire (GQ-D). BPD patients scored higher in their level of threat according to the NTS in both, the inclusion and the exclusion condition. The level of threat after exclusion predicted impairments of the therapeutic alliance in MBT-G. It was associated with more negative relationships, lower positive bonding and a lower positive working alliance with the fellow patients and lower positive bonding to the group as a whole whilst no negative prediction of the alliance to the therapists was found. Consequently, our translational study design has shown that Cyberball is an appropriate tool to use as an approach for clinical questions. We further conclude that exclusion-proneness in BPD is a critical feature with respect to alliance in group treatments. In order to neutralize BPD patients’ exclusion bias, therapists may be advised to provide an “inclusive stance”, especially in initial sessions. It is also recommendable to strengthen patient to patient relations. (shrink)

In spite of advances in medicine and public health, malaria and other mosquito‐borne diseases are on the rise worldwide. Although vaccines, genetically modified mosquitoes and safer insecticides are under development, herein we examine a promising new approach to malaria control through better repellents. Current repellents, usually based on DEET, inhibit host finding by impeding insect olfaction, but have significant drawbacks. We discuss how comparative genomics, using data from the Anopheles genome project, allows the rapid identification of members of three protein (...) classes critical to insect olfaction: odorant‐binding proteins, G‐protein‐coupled receptors, and odorant‐degrading enzymes. A rational design approach similar to that used by the pharmaceutical industry for drug development can then be applied to the development of products that interfere with mosquito olfaction. Such products have the potential to provide more complete, safer and longer lasting protection than conventional repellents, preventing disease transmission by interrupting the parasite life cycle. BioEssays 25:1011–1020, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

While epiphenomenalism—i.e., the claim that the mental is a causally otiose byproduct of physical processes that does not itself cause anything—is hardly ever mentioned in philosophical discussions of free will, it has recently come to play a crucial role in the scientific attack on free will led by neuroscientists and psychologists. This paper is concerned with the connection between epiphenomenalism and the claim that free will is an illusion, in particular with the connection between epiphenomenalism and willusionism, i.e., with the (...) thesis that there is empirical evidence for a thoroughgoing skepticism with regard to free will that is based on the claim that mental states are epiphenomena. The paper discusses four arguments for willusionism that in some form or other appeal to epiphenomenalism and argues that three of them can be discarded relatively easily. The fourth one, based on Daniel Wegner’s theory of apparent mental causation and his claim that free will is an illusion because the feeling of conscious will is epiphenomenal with regard to the corresponding voluntary actions, is dealt with in more detail. The overall verdict is negative: there is no empirical evidence for any kind of epiphenomenalism that would warrant the claim that free will is an illusion. Whatever it is that makes free will the object of contention between neuroscience and philosophy, epiphenomenalism provides no reason to think that free will is an illusion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper compares Spinoza with Daniel Dennett and uncovers a number of striking parallels. Genevieve Lloyd’s recent work on Spinoza reveals a picture of a philosopher that anticipated many of Dennett’s later ideas. Both share a fervent opposition to Descartes’ conception of mind and body and endorse a strikingly similar naturalist philosophy. It is the goal of this paper to tease out these connections and once again highlight the richness of a Spinozist lens of the world.

This essay explores Walter Benjamin’s critique of the concept of guilt as it underlies the occidental notion of “connective justice”. It describes both the political-moral and the psychological-ethical effects of guilt and reconstructs Benjamin’s idea of ‘Entsühnung’, understood as a rigorous termination of the circle between act and consequence. Finally, possible political, ethical and historical alternatives are discussed.

This essay is a rewriting of Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” a classic text in critical theory and media studies. Appropriating Benjamin’s sentence, paragraph, and essay structures, the essay presents a series of theoretical reflections on the status of art during the current age of transmedia production. The essay seeks to contribute to a theory of contemporary art that moves beyond capitalist, and increasingly fascist, ideologies. As in Benjamin’s essay, this work (...) is an effort to think dialectically about the contradictions that structure our contemporary moment, and therefore to formulate a socialist aesthetics. (shrink)

One of six commentaries on “Obesity: Chasing an Elusive Epidemic,” by Daniel Callahan, from the January‐February 2013 issue.

La imagen del jorobado que aparece aquí y allá en el corpus benjaminiano, una imagen que el mismo Benjamin califica como el prototipo de la distorsión es también el prototipo del sujeto necesitado de perdón. Una lectura crítica de los lugares en los que Benjamin refiere a esta “imagen distorsionada” ofrece la posibilidad de levantar una teoría del perdón que no reduce el perdón a una forma jurídica, a una particular dinámica emocional, o a un intercambio de condiciones morales, sino (...) que la dota además de una clara dimensión corporal que está simplemente ausente en la mayoría de las consideraciones a propósito del perdón desarrolladas en el siglo XX. (shrink)

A festschrift for Dorothy Edgington, containing contributions from Cleo Condoravdi, Dorothy Edgington, Kit Fine, Alan Hájek, John Hawthorne, Sabine Iatridou, Nick Jones, Rosanna Keefe, Angelika Kratzer, David Over, Daniel Rothschild, Robert Stalnaker, Scott Sturgeon, and Timothy Williamson.

What is the nature of consciousness? How is consciousness related to brain processes? This volume collects thirteen new papers on these topics: twelve by leading and respected philosophers and one by a leading color-vision scientist. All focus on consciousness in the "phenomenal" sense: on what it's like to have an experience. Consciousness has long been regarded as the biggest stumbling block for physicalism, the view that the mind is physical. The controversy has gained focus over the last few decades, and (...) phenomenal knowledge and phenomenal concepts--knowledge of consciousness and the associated concepts--have come to play increasingly prominent roles in this debate. Consider Frank Jackson's famous case of Mary, the super-scientist who learns all the physical information while confined in a black-and-white room. According to Jackson, if physicalism is true, then Mary's physical knowledge should allow her to deduce what it's like to see in color. Yet it seems intuitively clear that she learns something when she leaves the room. But then how can consciousness be physical? Arguably, whether this sort of reasoning is sound depends on how phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge are construed. For example, some argue that the Mary case reveals something about phenomenal concepts but has no implications for the nature of consciousness itself. Are responses along these lines adequate? Or does the problem arise again at the level of phenomenal concepts? The papers in this volume engage with the latest developments in this debate. The authors' perspectives range widely. For example, Daniel Dennett argues that anti-physicalist arguments such as the knowledge argument are simply confused; David Papineau grants that such arguments at least reveal important features of phenomenal concepts; and David Chalmers defends the anti-physicalist arguments, arguing that the "phenomenal concept strategy" cannot succeed. (shrink)

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and these three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists (...) in this emerging interdisciplinary field. The contributors to volume 2 discuss recent empirical research that uses the diverse methods of cognitive science to investigate moral judgments, emotions, and actions. Each chapter includes an essay, comments on the essay by other scholars, and a reply by the author of the original essay. Topics include moral intuitions as a kind of fast and frugal heuristics, framing effects in moral judgments, an analogy between Chomsky's universal grammar and moral principles, the role of emotions in moral beliefs, moral disagreements, the semantics of moral language, and moral responsibility. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Professor of Philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies at Dartmouth College. Contributors to volume 2: Fredrik Bjorklund, James Blair, Paul Bloomfield, Fiery Cushman, Justin D'Arms, John Deigh, John Doris, Julia Driver, Ben Fraser, Gerd Gigerenzer, Michael Gill, Jonathan Haidt, Marc Hauser, Daniel Jacobson, Joshua Knobe, Brian Leiter, Don Loeb, Ron Mallon, Darcia Narvaez, Shaun Nichols, Alexandra Plakias, Jesse Prinz, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Russ Shafer-Landau, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Cass Sunstein, William Tolhurst, Liane Young. (shrink)