Volume 25, Issue 3, May 2020, Page 360-362.

Bernard Williams is one of the most influential figures in ethical theory, where he has set a considerable part of the current agenda. In this collection a distinguished international team of philosophers who have been stimulated by Williams's work give responses to it. The topics covered include equality; consistency; comparisons between science and ethics; integrity; moral reasons; the moral system; and moral knowledge. Williams himself provides a substantial reply, which shows both the directions of his own thought and also his (...) present view of earlier work of his which has been extensively discussed for twenty years. This volume will be indispensable reading for all those interested in ethical theory. (shrink)

Objective: Ethical guidelines are designed to ensure benefits, protection and respect of participants in clinical research. Clinical trials must now be registered on open-access databases and provide details on ethical considerations. This systematic survey aimed to determine the extent to which recently registered clinical trials report the use of standard of care and post-trial obligations in trial registries, and whether trial characteristics vary according to setting. Methods: We selected global randomized trials registered on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov and http://www.controlled-trials.com. We searched for intervention (...) trials of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis from 9 October 2004, the date of the most recent version of the Helsinki Declaration, to 10 April 2007. Results: We collected data from 312 trials. Fifty-eight percent (58%, 95% CI = 53 to 64) of trial protocols report informed consent. Fifty-eight percent (58%, 95% CI = 53 to 64) of trials report active controls. Almost no trials (1%, 95% CI = 0.5 to 3) mention post-trial provisions. Most trials measure surrogate outcomes. Twenty percent (20%, 95% CI = 16 to 25) of trials measure patient-important outcomes, such as death; and the odds that these outcomes are in a low income country are five times greater than for a developed country (odds ratio (OR) 5.03, 95% CI = 2.70 to 9.35, p = < 0.001). Pharmaceutical companies are involved in 28% (CI = 23 to 33) of trials and measure surrogate outcomes more often than nonpharmaceutical companies (OR 2.45, 95% CI = 1.18 to 5.09, p = 0.31). Conclusion: We found a large discrepancy in the quality of reporting and approaches used in trials in developing settings compared to wealthier settings. (shrink)

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

James Ross developed a simple and powerful argument for the immateriality of the intellect, an argument rooted in the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition while drawing on ideas from analytic philosophers Saul Kripke, W. V. Quine, and Nelson Goodman. This paper provides a detailed exposition and defense of the argument, filling out aspects that Ross left sketchy. In particular, it elucidates the argument’s relationship to its Aristotelian-Scholastic and analytic antecedents, and to Kripke’s work especially; and it responds to objections or potential (...) objections to be found in the work of contemporary writers like Peter Dillard, Robert Pasnau, Brian Leftow, and Paul Churchland. (shrink)

The surge in threats aided by or carried out through cyberspace has placed significant pressure on the intelligence community to adapt or leave itself open to attack. Indeed, many in both political and intelligence circles argue for access to ever greater amounts of cyber information in order to catch potential threats before they become real. By collecting all our digital information, the intelligence community argues that it is not only able to detail what people have done or are currently doing (...) but also predict what their next move might be. However, the ethical implications are unclear and the backlash following Edward Snowden’s revelations have shown that such activities are not without controversy. This leaves the debate stuck between the important, ethical role that intelligence can play and the potential for its unrestrained use to cause undue harm. This paper will resolve this by giving greater detail to cyber-intelligence practices, highlighting the different levels of harm that the various intelligence operations can cause. The essence of this paper is not that cyber-intelligence should be banned outright, but that it can be justified given the necessary circumstances. Therefore, the paper will develop a specialised set of Just Cyber-Intelligence Principles, built on the just war tradition, to outline if and when such activities are justified. (shrink)

This article argues that the hypothetical 'I Can' position of Sir David Ross is incompatible with his determinism.

Edward Peters, Torture Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985, viii + 202 pp.

This work is conceived as a modem study of the relationships of the concept of human freedom with the moral concepts of responsibility and obligation and other closely allied notions. One pitfall into which writers on my sub jects have occasionally fallen has been that of spending too much time in critically examining positions and arguments which no sane philosopher has ever offered. In order to guard against the danger of debating with "straw men," I have attempted to engage in (...) critical conversations with several twentieth century writers on my theme. I have attempted to pay special at tention to a handful of writers who have written extremely important and influential discussions and who are representatives of a diversity of per spectives on the issues involved. In particular, I have taken note of the work of two determinists, Sir David Ross and Hastings Rashdall, a libertarian, C. A. Campbell, and a reprel>entative of the more recent linguistic-analytic approach, P. Nowell-Smith. Many other important writers have been brought in at crucial points in the conversation. But this is not a history of the problem in the 20th century. Rather, it is a critical, systematic study of a problem or set of related problems. This work may be divided roughly into two parts, a metaphysical-psycho logical part comprising the first three chapters, and a metaethical-ethical part consisting of the last three chapters. (shrink)

Should one read T.H. Irwin’s three volume history of Western ethics, or parts of it? Here one might turn to reviews. The journal The Philosophical Forum uses the sensible strategy of getting different specialists to review different parts of the book. There are two chapters on Rawls, each one reviewed by a Rawlsian. I wish to register discontent with Steven Ross’s review.

Topics include sources of schematic effects on memory; the M. Ross and M. Conway model; E. R. Hirt's model of reconstructive memory; and moderators of the relative weighting of expectancy vs memory trace.

The search for the Northwest Passage in the years following the Napoleonic Wars provided both a market and testing ground for marine chronometers. Long voyages and extreme temperatures challenged the best chronometers. Among the firms seeking to meet those challenges was that of William Parkinson & William James Frodsham. Their chronometers performed particularly well in the Arctic, as John and James Clark Ross, William Edward Parry, and Edward Sabine gladly recognized. The way in which chronometers were made (...) and sold, however, meant that there were sometimes controversies over who was entitled to claim credit for a particular instrument. A letter from Parkinson & Frodsham in 1821 illustrates the problem, and its causes in the nature of the trade; the text of that letter is published here in its entirety. Also problematic, and discussed here, was the craft aspect of the industry, in which the ‘mechanical construction’ of a chronometer might not reveal the process of manufacture that gave it its steady rate and accuracy. (shrink)

Drawing upon Saul Kripke’s discussion of rules, James F. Ross deduces the immateriality of thinking from the metaphysical determinacy of thinking and the metaphysical indeterminacy of any physical process. It has been objected that Ross does not establish the metaphysical indeterminacy of what function a physical process realizes, that Ross does not show the incoherence of a highly deflationary view of our talk about thinking, and that Ross opens up an unbridgeable gulf between sui generis thinking (...) and behavior. Edward Feser has recently defended Ross’s argument from these objections. The present paper explains why Ross’s argument remains vulnerable to all three objections. (shrink)

This paper attempts a critical examination of the thesis that an apprenticeship to a Lancaster druggist was, for Edward Frankland, a wholly inappropriate preparation for a career in chemistry. This view, which stems directly from Frankland himself, is defective in several ways. It fails to take into account certain benefits which he accepted as valuable; it implies an exceptional degree of ‘negligence’ which was in fact quite typical; it ignores certain positive indicators of the value of such experience; and (...) it involves questionable value-judgments on the behaviour of one individual, the druggist Stephen Ross. Although Frankland's perspective may be no longer acceptable, the reasons for its inadequacy are perhaps the most important aspect of the whole affair. Their identification raises questions of historiography of wider significance, while the whole episode underlines certain issues in scientific training that were to become crucial in the growth of Victorian chemistry in Britain. (shrink)

Ross Cameron (2022) argues that metaphysical infinitists should reject the generally accepted idea that metaphysical determination relations back metaphysical explanations. Otherwise it won’t be possible for them to come up with successful explanations for the existence of dependent entities in non-wellfounded chains of dependence. I argue that his argument suffers from what he calls the finitist dogma, although indirectly so. However, there is a better way of motivating Cameron’s conclusion. Assuming Cameron’s principle of Essence, explanations for the existence of (...) dependent entities turn out to be circular if determination relations back explanations. This latter argument provides a stronger case as it puts the foundationalist under significant pressure, besides putting the infinitist under some pressure, to deny the idea that determination relations back explanations. (shrink)

The authors, on the basis of brief arguments, have dismissed tensor networks as a viable response to Jackendoff's challenges. However, there are reasons to believe that connectionist approaches descended from tensor networks are actually very well suited to answering Jackendoff's challenges. I rebut their arguments for dismissing tensor networks and briefly compare the approaches.

Sacrifice haunts the Phaedo. In this article, I argue that the mise-en-scène of the death scene of the Phaedo, as well as other sacrificial elements in the background of the dialogue, creates a nexus that positively integrates the birth, philosophical practice, and death of Socrates into the ritualized rhythm of the life of the city of Athens. A close reading of the death scene presented as a synopsis with Walter Burkert’s well-known analysis of Greek sacrifice reveals convergences and divergences between (...) the Phaedo and Greek sacrificial practice. Socrates appears as a willing victim who accepts the city’s sacrificial practice while remaining on his own terms. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In the debate about the nature and identity of possible worlds, philosophers have neglected the parallel questions about the nature and identity of moments of time. These are not questions about the structure of time in general, but rather about the internal structure of each individual time. Times and worlds share the following structural similarities: both are maximal with respect to propositions (at every world and time, either p or p is true, for every p); both are consistent; both are (...) closed (every modal consequence of a proposition true at a world is also true at that world, and every tense-theoretic consequence of a proposition true at a time is also true at that time); just as there is a unique actual world, there is a unique present moment; and just as a proposition is necessarily true iff true at all worlds, a proposition is eternally true iff true at all times. In this paper, I show that a simple extension of my theory of worlds yields a theory of times in which the above structural similarities between the two are consequences. (shrink)

This article provides new information on the printing and readership history of the fifth edition of De iure belli ac pacis. Building on our earlier research on the way that the dispute between Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius influenced the publication of the 1631 edition of the text, this article studies how Blaeu harnessed his position to make the 1632 edition more reputable than the earlier version published by his rival. The article considers how, over four centuries, readers have (...) appreciated the quality of the production and three engaged with the text for radically different ends: Remigius Faesch, Baron von Boineburg, and Wendell Phillips. The article draws attention to the changes and continuities in reading and annotation patterns and offers preliminary insights into the themes that these influential readers focused on. We hope that it will inspire readers to bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

The discovery, made in Oxford, that crude penicillin could cure systemic and life‐threatening bacterial infections was followed by attempts to purify penicillin, to determine its structure and then to produce it by total chemical synthesis. The β‐lactam structure of the molecule, first proposed in October 1943, was a source of controversy until 1945. However, no useful chemical synthesis was achieved and fermentation became the commercial source of the antibiotic.In 1953, one of the products of a Cephalosporium sp. from Sardinia was (...) shown to be a new and hydrophilic penicillin (penicillin N). This was contaminated with a substance having the same side‐chain but a characteristic absorption spectrum. The latter, cephalosporin C, showed antibacterial activity but was not inactivated by a penicillinase. The determination of its β‐lactam structure and isolation of its nucleus enabled pharmaceutical companies to produce many semisynthetic cephalosporins.A new tripeptide was later found to be an intermediate in the biosynthesis of both penicillin N and cephalosporin C, and this was followed by the complete elucidation of the biosynthetic pathways leading to these compounds and to benzylpenicillin. (shrink)