The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

Personal values have long been associated with individual decision behavior. The role played by personal values in decision making within an organization is less clear. Past research has found that managers tend to respond to ethical dilemmas situationally. This study examines the relationship between personal values and the ethical dimension of decision making using Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. The study examines personal values as they relate to five types of ethical dilemmas. We found a significant positive contribution of altruistic (...) values to ethical decision making and a significant negative contribution of self-enhancement values to ethical decision making. (shrink)

This major publication is a history of the semantic tradition in philosophy from the early nineteenth century through its incarnation in the work of the Vienna Circle, the group of logical positivists that emerged in the years 1925–1935 in Vienna who were characterised by a strong commitment to empiricism, a high regard for science, and a conviction that modern logic is the primary tool of analytic philosophy. In the first part of the book, Alberto Coffa traces the roots of logical (...) positivism in a semantic tradition that arose in opposition to Kant's theory that a priori knowledge is based on pure intuition and the constitutive powers of the mind. In Part II, Coffa chronicles the development of this tradition by members and associates of the Vienna Circle. Much of Coffa's analysis draws on the unpublished notes and correspondence of many philosophers. The book, however, is not merely a history of the semantic tradition from Kant 'to the Vienna Station'. Coffa also critically reassesses the role of semantic notions in understanding the ground of a priori knowledge and its relation to empirical knowledge and questions the turn the tradition has taken since Vienna. (shrink)

Thirty years ago, Alvin Plantinga gave a lecture called "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments," which served as an underground inspiration for two generations of scholars and students. In it, he proposed a number of novel and creative arguments for the existence of God which have yet to receive the attention they deserve. In Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God, each of Plantinga's original suggestions, many of which he only briefly sketched, is developed in detail by a wide variety (...) of accomplished scholars. The authors look to metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, ethics, aesthetics, and beyond, finding evidence for God in almost every dimension of reality. Those arguments new to natural theology are more fully developed, and well-known arguments are given new life. Not only does this collection present ground-breaking research, but it lays the foundations for research projects for years to come."--Back cover. (shrink)

'The genocide in Rwanda showed us how terrible the consequences of inaction can be in the face of mass murder. But the conflict in Kosovo raised equally important questions about the consequences of action without international consensus and clear legal authority. On the one hand, is it legitimate for a regional organization to use force without a UN mandate? On the other, is it permissible to let gross and systematic violations of human rights, with grave humanitarian consequences, continue unchecked?'. This (...) book is a comprehensive, integrated discussion of 'the dilemma' of humanitarian intervention. Written by leading analysts of international politics, ethics, and law, it seeks, among other things, to identify strategies that may, if not resolve, at least reduce the current tension between human rights and state sovereignty. This volume is an invaluable contribution to the debate on all aspects of this vital global issue. (shrink)

In a reflective and richly entertaining piece from 1979, Doug Hofstadter playfully imagined a conversation between ‘Achilles’ and an anthill (the eponymous ‘Aunt Hillary’), in which he famously explored many ideas and themes related to cognition and consciousness. For Hofstadter, the anthill is able to carry on a conversation because the ants that compose it play roughly the same role that neurons play in human languaging; unfortunately, Hofstadter’s work is notably short on detail suggesting how this magic might be achieved1. (...) Conversely in this paper - finally reifying Hofstadter’s imagination - we demonstrate how populations of simple ant-like creatures can be organised to solve complex problems; problems that involve the use of forward planning and strategy. Specifically we will demonstrate that populations of such creatures can be configured to play a strategically strong - though tactically weak - game of HeX (a complex strategic game).We subsequently demonstrate how tactical play can be improved by introducing a form of forward planning instantiated via multiple populations of agents; a technique that can be compared to the dynamics of interacting populations of social insects via the concept of meta-population. In this way although, pace Hofstadter, we do not establish that a meta-population of ants could actually hold a conversation with Achilles, we do successfully introduce Aunt Hillary to the complex, seductive charms of HeX. (shrink)

Viewed in the light of the remarkable performance of ‘Watson’ - IBMs proprietary artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language - on the US general knowledge quiz show ‘Jeopardy’, we review two experiments on formal systems - one in the domain of quantum physics, the other involving a pictographic languaging game - whereby behaviour seemingly characteristic of domain understanding is generated by the mere mechanical application of simple rules. By re-examining both experiments in the context (...) of Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, we suggest their results merely endorse Searle’s core intuition: that ‘syntactical manipulation of symbols is not sufficient for semantics’. Although, pace Watson, some artificial intelligence practitioners have suggested that more complex, higher-level operations on formal symbols are required to instantiate understanding in computational systems, we show that even high-level calls to Google translate would not enable a computer qua ‘formal symbol processor’ to understand the language it processes. We thus conclude that even the most recent developments in ‘quantum linguistics’ will not enable computational systems to genuinely understand natural language. (shrink)

Defending Life is arguably the most comprehensive defense of the pro-life position on abortion - morally, legally, and politically - that has ever been published in an academic monograph. It offers a detailed and critical analysis of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as well as arguments by those who defend a Rawlsian case for abortion-choice, such as J. J. Thomson. The author defends the substance view of persons as the view with the most explanatory power. The substance (...) view entails that the unborn is a subject of moral rights from conception. While defending this view, the author responds to the arguments of thinkers such as Boonin, Dworkin, Stretton, Ford and Brody. He also critiques Thomson's famous violinist argument and its revisions by Boonin and McDonagh. Defending Life includes chapters critiquing arguments found in popular politics and the controversy over cloning and stem cell research. (shrink)

The strange story of the von Neumann impossibility proof is recalled, and the even stranger story of later impossibility proofs, and how the impossible was done by de Broglie and Bohm. Morals are drawn.

Viewed in the light of the remarkable performance of ‘Watson’ - IBMs proprietary artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language - on the US general knowledge quiz show ‘Jeopardy’, we review two experiments on formal systems - one in the domain of quantum physics, the other involving a pictographic languaging game - whereby behaviour seemingly characteristic of domain understanding is generated by the mere mechanical application of simple rules. By re-examining both experiments in the context (...) of Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, we suggest their results merely endorse Searle’s core intuition: that ‘syntactical manipulation of symbols is not sufficient for semantics’. Although, pace Watson, some artificial intelligence practitioners have suggested that more complex, higher-level operations on formal symbols are required to instantiate understanding in computational systems, we show that even high-level calls to Google translate would not enable a computer qua ‘formal symbol processor’ to understand the language it processes. We thus conclude that even the most recent developments in ‘quantum linguistics’ will not enable computational systems to genuinely understand natural language. (shrink)

Populations, species, biotic communities, ecosystems, landscapes, biomes, and the biosphere are the referents of “ecological collectives.” The essence-accident moral ontology prevailing in twentieth-century moral philosophy cannot, while the theory of moral sentiments originating with Hume, biologized by Darwin, and ecologized by Leopold can, endow ecological collectives with moral considerability. The Hume-Darwin-Leopold approach to environmental ethics has been validated by twenty-first-century evolutionary moral psychology, while the twenty-first-century analysis of the human microbiome has revealed that erstwhile human “individuals” are themselves ecological collectives, (...) thus rendering future ethical theory exclusively concerned with ecological collectives. To reconceptualize ourselves as moral beings in relational, communal, and collective terms is a matter of the greatest urgency for twenty-first century moral philosophy. (shrink)

CHAPTER I THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF HUSSERL'S 'PHILOSOPHY OF ARITHMETIC'. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: WEIERSTRASS AND THE ARITHMETIZATION OF ANALYSIS In ...

This paper challenges defenders/advocates of the semantic-completeness route towards gluts to explain, in simple and plausible terms, why the ‘trivializer paradox’, framed in terms of closure relatives on theories, fails to undermine their argument.

Relevance logics came of age with the one and only International Conference on relevant logics in 1974. They did not however become accepted, or easy to promulgate. In March 1981 we received most of the typescript of IN MEMORIAM: ALAN ROSS ANDERSON Proceedings of the International Conference of Relevant Logic from the original editors, Kenneth W. Collier, Ann Gasper and Robert G. Wolf of Southern Illinois University. 1 They had, most unfortunately, failed to find a publisher - not, it appears, (...) because of overall lack of merit of the essays, but because of the expense of producing the collection, lack of institutional subsidization, and doubts of publishers as to whether an expensive collection of essays on such an esoteric, not to say deviant, subject would sell. We thought that the collection of essays was still (even after more than six years in the publishing trade limbo) well worth publishing, that the subject would remain undeservedly esoteric in North America while work on it could not find publishers (it is not so esoteric in academic circles in Continental Europe, Latin America and the Antipodes) and, quite important, that we could get the collection published, and furthermore, by resorting to local means, published comparatively cheaply. It is indeed no ordinary collection. It contains work by pioneers of the main types of broadly relevant systems, and by several of the most innovative non-classical logicians of the present flourishing logical period. We have slowly re-edited and reorganised the collection and made it camera-ready. (shrink)

We consider the following question of Kunen: Does Con(ZFC + ∃M a transitive inner model and a non-trivial elementary embedding j: M $\longrightarrow$ V) imply Con (ZFC + ∃ a measurable cardinal)? We use core model theory to investigate consequences of the existence of such a j: M → V. We prove, amongst other things, the existence of such an embedding implies that the core model K is a model of "there exists a proper class of almost Ramsey cardinals". Conversely, (...) if On is Ramsey, then such a j, M are definable. We construe this as a negative answer to the question above. We consider further the consequences of strengthening the closure assumption on j to having various classes of fixed points. (shrink)

The proper role of religious faith in the public life of a liberal democracy is one of the most important and controversial issues in the United States today. Since the publication in 1991 of his book Love and Power, Michael J. Perry's important writings on this issue have been among the most insightful. In this new book, Perry argues that political reliance on religious faith violates neither the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution nor, more broadly, the morality of (...) liberal democracy. Nonetheless, Perry argues, religious believers sometimes have good reasons to be wary about relying on religious beliefs in making political decisions. Along the way, Perry thoughtfully addresses three subjects at the center of fierce contemporary political debate: school vouchers, same-sex marriage, and abortion. (shrink)

Recent debates have led some to question the legitimacy of physicians refusing to provide legally permissible services for reasons of conscience. In this paper, I will explore the question of whether medical professionals have a collective duty to ensure that their profession provides nondiscriminatory access to all medical services. I will argue that they do not. I will also argue for an approach to dealing with intractable moral disagreements between patients and physicians that gives both parties veto power with regards (...) to participation. Finally, I will respond to three objections to allowing physicians broad freedom to act on their consciences: such allowances would violate the conscience of the patient, would lead to unfairness, and would thwart important societal goals. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Patient autonomy has gradually replaced physician paternalism as an ethical ideal. However, in a medical context, the principle of individual autonomy has different meanings. More knowledge is needed about what is and should be an appropriate understanding of the concept of patient autonomy in clinical practice. AIM: To challenge the traditional concept of patient autonomy by applying a discourse analysis to the issue. METHOD: A qualitative case study approach with material from one consultation. The discourse is interpreted according to (...) pragmatic and text-linguistic principles and provides the basis of a theoretical discussion of different concepts of patient autonomy. RESULTS: The consultation transcript illustrates how the patient's wishes can be respected in real life. The patient, her husband and the doctor are all involved in the discourse dynamics, governed by the subject matter, namely her mental illness. CONCLUSION: We suggest a dynamic and dialogue-based conception of autonomy as adequate for clinical purposes. These perspectives, based on mutual understanding, take communication between patient and doctor as their starting point. According to this approach, autonomy requires a genuine dialogue, an interpersonal mode of being which we choose to call "authentic interaction". (shrink)

The guiding idea of this work is that classical diffusion theory, being nonrelativistic, should be associated with nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. A study of classical diffusion leads to a generalization which should correspond to the relativistic domain. Actually, with a convenient choice of the basic constants, one sees the relativistic features (Lorentz contraction and covariant diffusion equation) emerge in the generalized process. This leads first to a derivation of the nonrelativistic and relativistic wave equations (and to a model of the Dirac (...) fluid); then to a better understanding of several relativistic aspects of quantum mechanics (spin connection with relativity and link of relativity with nonlocalization). No quantum mechanical forces are postulated: they arise as pseudo-forces in the course of the calculations. The physical significance of the stochastic model is examined and shown to give a pictorial description only in certain ideal situations, but to remove several conceptual difficulties. Remarks are presented on the role of idealization in microphysics. (shrink)

According to the legend, Bishop Wilberforce at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford on Saturday, June 30th, 1860, turned to Thomas Huxley, and asked him ``Is it on your grandfather's or your grandmother's side that you claim descent from a monkey''; whereupon Huxley delivered a devastating rebuke, thereby establishing the primacy of scientific truth over ecclesiastical obscurantism. Although the legend is historically untrue in almost every detail, its persistence suggests that it may nonetheless (...) be true in some deeper, mythical, sense. To explore this possibility the British Academy has invited Dr Janet Browne to be a neo-Huxley confronting Mr J.R. Lucas, as a neo-Wilberforce, with each reconsidering their earlier arguments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MACINTYRE'S REPUBLIC J. K. SWINDLER Westminster College Fulton, Missouri CONTRARY TO HIS own evident intentions and perceptions, in After Virtue A'lasdair Macinty!l.·e is much more of a Ptlatonist 1than the A1 ristotelian he aims to be. I hase this judgment both on the positive evidence that Macintyre and Plato (in the Republic) m1gue for and against the same crucial theses and on the negative evidence that Plato has read (...) answers to the very issues which Macintyre finds 1 intractable from an AristoteHan point of viiew. My thesis can be made out in terms of a half dozen issues which Maclntyire takes as crucial to his case: (1) Can there he a science of government? (2) Is there an answer to the sophist's chaillenge to morality? (3) How oan the fragmentation of the modern self he theoretically overcome? (4) What are the hi1stocical and social determinants of morality? (5) Is there a unity of virtue in addition to individual virtues? (6) Can we reconcile ourselves to teleofogy, the absence of the polis, and the tragedy of human 1:ife? I will consider each of these in turn. I. Wisdom Plato defines wisdom as knowledge of how to rule, and Aristotle (in the Nichomachean Ethics) distinguishes between theoretical and practical wisdom, 1suggesting thereby an interesting ambiguity in Plato's view, an ambiguity of which Macintyre makes a great deal. One may rule eithecr hy law or by judgment. In his attack on the Enlightenment, MacIntyre showis quite clearly tha;t the idea of a social science that would p11ovide laws of human behavior, which could in 343 344 J. K. SWINDLER turn be used by il"ulers and managers to predict and therefore manipulate!human action, was an invention of the eighteenth century. He offers an extensive 1oritique o.f this conception of socirul science, grounded primarily in the claim that human.behavior is essentially unlawful, at least if we judge it by the standards of the physical sciences. There is in human affairs a farge 1and uneliminwble element of fortiuna which makes it impossrible rto.formulate laws of human nature or behavior that would he exceptionless and therefore underwrite predictions of behavior. For there is nothing to be done about the unpredictability of innovations or, from one's own point of view, of one's own future actions; nor can the uncertainties of gametheoretie decisions and 1 the general contingency of the outcomes of ruction,be remedied. There is therefore no possibility of a social science in the sense in which Hume tried to imitate Newton. So much for Marx and Weber and the horde of modern.social scientists. This is not to say that life is completely uncertain; on the contrary, there are genuine and general regularities in society, some natural, some social, ·some statistical, some causal, wihich make life bearable. But these provide a,ground for the Aristotelian idea, endorsed by MacIntyre, that the principles of conduct, such as they might be, hold only for the most part and not universa1ly. There is therefore in Maclntyre's view no justification for 1a mora;l oode in the modern sense, nor ev;en of moral principles of the kind we are used to from Kant ·and Mill, Rawls and Nozick, which purport to istand as a sufficient criterion of right in all cases. But, importantly, we do not find any such rules or codes in Pla.to either. For Plato, too, insists on the mixed reign of chaos and logos in the materia;l world and in our Jives and concludes that judgment is essential to· determining right conduct. He tellrs us that wise rule comes only &om good oharructer and good institutions, that legislating in such detaii1 as to eliminate judgment is "cut:ting off the heads of a hy:dra." One cannot help hut think that tMs (essentially Hemclitean) point is something Aristotle ~earned at his MACINTYRE'S REPUBLIC 345 master's knee. And both aspects of Plato's :point ~e ipresent in Aristotle, viz., that s~nce the:ve is chance in nature, there is luck (good 'and had) in life, and since no rule can capture the particularity of conorete situations right... (shrink)