This discussion aims to give a normative theoretical basis for a “best judgment” model of surrogate decision making rooted in a regulative ideal of love. Currently, there are two basic models of surrogate decision making for incompetent patients: the “substituted judgment” model and the “best interests” model. The former draws on the value of autonomy and responds with respect; the latter draws on the value of welfare and responds with beneficence. It can be difficult to determine which of these two (...) models is more appropriate for a given patient, and both approaches may seem inadequate for a surrogate who loves the patient. The proposed “best judgment” model effectively draws on the values incorporated in each of the traditional standards, but does so because these values are important to someone who loves a patient, since love responds to the patient as the specific person she is. (shrink)

This paper explores the philosophical aspects of a problem—clutter—that has gathered growing attention from social scientists, but not philosophers, in recent years. The central questions are: What role should things play as we go about the business of living? How can we modify our relationship to things to better reflect who we are—our values and the shape we want our lives to have? I offer an analysis of clutter in both objective and subjective terms, suggesting that the problem of clutter (...) lies on the subjective side. I then defend the claim that the problem stems from a mistaken sense of what kinds of action are appropriate with respect to things, given the attitudes called for by the recognition of value. My answer to the motivating questions, then, is that things can and should have personal value, and that once we recognize this, we are in a better position to see clearly the role they play in our identities and thus to respond appropriately to their value, thus preventing the experience of our stuff as clutter. (shrink)

ABSTRACT When misattributed paternity is discovered in the course of genetic testing, a genetic counselor is presented with a dilemma concerning whether to reveal this information to the clients. She is committed to treating the clients equally and enabling informed decision making, but disclosing the information may carry consequences for the woman that the counselor cannot judge in advance. A frequent suggestion aimed at avoiding this problem is to include the risk of discovering nonpaternity in the informed consent process for (...) counseling. In this paper I argue that such a move does not resolve the problem, because the conflict hinges on the interpretation of equality on which the counselor operates. Given the principles of genetic counseling, neither construal of equality yields a satisfactory solution to the conflict. In fact, I conclude that including nonpaternity in informed consent is not endorsed by either view, and we are still left with the question of what to do should nonpaternity be discovered. I suggest a compromise position concerning disclosure, involving revealing relevant genetic information but withholding nonpaternity when possible. (shrink)

Bioethics has made remarkable progress as a scholarly and applied field. A mere fledgling in the 1960s, it is now firmly established in hospitals, medical schools, and government agencies and boasts a number of professional associations and a handsome collection of journals.

As in other fields, scholarly publication in sociology is not only the key to career success but also the route by which feminist analyses and perspectives become known to others in the discipline. A growing literature has analyzed women's and men's rates of publication, but the gender politics of the prepublication production of research and gender differences in reputation building after publication remain underexplored. This report reviews the current state of knowledge about sociological publishing at three phases: prepublication, the publication-seeking (...) phase, and postpublication. It concludes with critical questions to be addressed in developing a comprehensive model of gender effects on sociological publishing. (shrink)

Working retrospectively in an uncertain field of knowledge, physicians are engaged in an interpretive practice that is guided by couterweighted, competing, sometimes paradoxical maxims. When you hear hoofbeats, don't think zebras, is the chief of these, the epitome of medicine's practical wisdom, its hermeneutic rule. The accumulated and contradictory wisdom distilled in clinical maxims arises necessarily from the case-based nature of medical practice and the narrative rationality that good practice requires. That these maxims all have their opposites enforces in students (...) and physicians a practical skepticism that encourages them to question their expectations, interrupt patterns, and adjust to new developments as a case unfolds. Yet medicine resolutely ignores both the maxims and the tension between the practical reasoning they represent and the claim that medicine is a science. Indeed, resolute epistemological naivete is part of medicine's accommodation to uncertainty; counterweighted, competing, apparently paradoxical (but always situational) rules enable physicians simultaneously to express and to ignore the practical reason that characterizes their practice. (shrink)

This essay provides a short introduction to the ideas and potential implications of quantum physics for scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Quantum-inspired ideas pepper current discourse in all of these fields, in ways that range from playful metaphors to sweeping ontological claims. We explain several of the most important concepts at the core of quantum theory, carefully delineating the scope and bounds of currently established science, in order to aid the evaluation of such claims. In particular, we (...) emphasize that the smallest units of matter and light, as described in quantum physics, are not things, meaning that they do not obey the logic we take for granted when discussing the behavior of macroscopic objects. We also highlight the substantial debate that exists within physics about the interpretation of the equations and empirical results at the core of quantum physics, noting that implicit philosophical commitments necessarily accompany any discussion of quantum ideas that takes place in non-technical language. (shrink)

This paper reports from an ongoing multidisciplinary, ethnographic study that is exploring the views, values and practices (the ethical frameworks) drawn on by professional staff in assisted conception units and stem cell laboratories in relation to embryo donation for research purposes, particularly human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, in the UK. We focus here on the connection between possible incidental findings and the circumstances in which embryos are donated for hESC research, and report some of the uncertainties and dilemmas of (...) our staff participants. We explore the views of our study participants in relation to two themes: (1) rights to information and anticipating how donors might be informed about future research findings and (2) occupational work goals and trust. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Excited DeliriumThe Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Police BrutalityKathryn Petrozzo (bio)In their timely and pressing piece, Arjun Byju and Phoebe Friesen explore the contentious diagnosis of excited delirium; a syndrome characterized by erratic, aggressive, and “delusional” behavior (2023). Overwhelmingly, this term is used when individuals come in contact with police and/or first responders. Although much attention has been given to debating whether or not this is a “real” diagnosis, the authors (...) want to shift the focus to examining the work that excited delirium is doing in the world, as well as the underlying beliefs guiding it that are perpetuating substantial harm. Drawing significantly on the work of Ian Hacking (1998, 2006) and Sherene Razack (2015), Byju and Friesen explore what kinds of people are being made up by the label of “excited delirium” and the subsequent dehumanization that perpetuates violence towards those in this grouping.Despite the lack of an agreed upon definition, excited delirium tends to frequently group together young Black men and other marginalized people of color, who have a psychiatric history, and those who have taken or are suspected to have taken drugs (Byju & Friezen, 2023). As this is “observed” when individuals come into contact with law enforcement and/or first responders, those who are presumed to be suffering from excited delirium are typically met with physical restraints (chokeholds, hogties, etc.), forced injections of sedatives, and/or taser guns. The violent reactions are often justified not only by this “diagnosis,” but the employment of racial stereotypes; notably, the notion that Black bodies as being less susceptible to pain. As the authors aptly put it:This kind of symptom language helps make up the novel category of a person who suffers from excited delirium: a crazed and inhumane monster, a golem that must be met with unrelenting and superordinate force, who is fated, regardless of interventions, to die a spontaneous death. This paradox, that those with excited delirium are supposedly both too strong and too weak, is at the core of the illness narrative.(2023)It is evident that this label is reinforcing the combination of two harmful stereotypes: the notion that those suffering from severe mental illness occupy a space that is “less than fully human,” and racist stereotyping of Black bodies “superseding human strength.” This perpetuates total dehumanization of the individual, where it is then justified to invoke brutal tactics, as well as signal [End Page 357] to the greater community this is how individuals with mental illnesses and/or belonging to a particular racial group (chiefly, Black men), should be treated. This is despite the fact that those suffering from mental illnesses are significantly more likely to be victims of violent crimes, Black Americans are 3.2 times more likely to be murdered by police, and convergence of these factors (being Black and living with a mental illness) increases likelihood of such fatal interactions (Schwartz & Jahn 2020; Shadravan, Edwards, & Vinson 2021; Stuart, 2003).Although I am in wholehearted support of their account, I take issue with the authors’ conceptualization of excited delirium as non-falsifiable, as well as the notion that diseases, generally, are falsifiable. In an attempt to further criticize the utilization of excited delirium, Byju and Friesen call upon Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion as a measure for what constitutes as scientific; arguing that excited delirium is not a legitimate scientific concept as it is impossible to falsify. First, I am not convinced that excited delirium is in principle non-falsifiable; as the way in which it’s conceptualized actually appears to be falsifiable. The authors point out that external factors, such as tasing and violent restraints, are clearly the causal explanation, which should in fact, lead one to reject the hypothesis of an excited delirium diagnosis. However, in practice, those who are seeking to exonerate the police/first responders responsible for these deaths, are not accepting this evidence leading them to reject the excited delirium diagnosis, but rather, are crafting an incorrect causal narrative. This is deeply problematic, but it does not necessarily render excited delirium as non-falsifiable. More broadly, I am concerned with the reliance on the falsifiability criterion, which has been widely criticized in the... (shrink)

Summary Sister and brother Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin; 1743–1825) and John Aikin (1747–1822) are two famous Rational Dissenting writers who strategically appropriated republican discourse to advance the Dissenting cause. Both make the case that, far from being subversive, Rational Dissent actually granted its adherents the independence that, from a republican perspective, was considered essential to true patriotism. In a fresh formulation of republican discourse, they present the strength of the Rational Dissenting commitment to ‘free inquiry’ as security for continuing (...) independence, enabling liberal Dissenters to act as patriotic guardians of British virtue and liberty against the dangerous effects of luxury, even as they continued to contribute towards the development of the British commercial economy and to promote the benefits of commerce, traditionally regarded with hostility by classical republicans. Effectively exploiting the classical republican belief in the central role of education, Barbauld and Aikin particularly sought to publicize the role that the Dissenting academies had played in producing patriots by making ‘free inquiry’ the basis of their pedagogical philosophy and practice. (shrink)

Nothing, one day, seemed more imperative to me than the project of composing a book whose fiction would be constructed not as the representation of some preexistent entity, real or imaginary, but rather on the basis of certain specific mechanisms of generation and selection. The principle of selection may be called overdetermination. It requires that every element in the text have at least two justifications. In this perspective, each element is invested with a coefficient of overdetermination. If there is a (...) choice to be made between two overdetermined elements, the one with the highest coefficient of overdetermination will always be chosen. This principle, as we might expect, was not elected at random: it corresponds to any text construed as nonlinear. Take, for example, the simplest element, with a coefficient of two. A double relation connects it with the text: the one due to its place in the written line , and the one linking it with some other element in the text . By operating at a maximum level of multiple determinations, the text is elaborated by means of a maximum number of transversal relations, in a field diametrically opposed to the realm of the linear. Jean Ricardou is equally well known for his fiction, including L'Observatoire de Cannes , La Prise de Constantinople , Les Lieux-dits , and Les Révolutions Minuscules , and his criticism, including Problèmes du Nouveau Roman , Pour une Theorie du Nouveau Roman , and Le Nouveau Roman , LE PARADIGME d' Albert Ayme , and a collection of essays, Nouveaux Problèmes du Roman. His "Composition Discomposed" appeared in the Autumn 1976 issue of Critical Inquiry. Erica Freiberg regularly translates Jean Ricardou's works. She holds degrees in French and Italian, philosophy and modern literature from the University of Paris and the University of Geneva. (shrink)

Planning problems arise in law when an individual (or corporation)wants to perform a sequence of actions that raises legal issues. Manylawyers make their living planning transactions, and a system thathelped them to solve these problems would be in demand.The designer of such a system in a common-law domain must addressseveral difficult issues, including the open-textured nature of legal rules,the relationship between legal rules and cases, the adversarial nature ofthe domain, and the role of argument. In addition, the system's design isconstrained (...) by the fact that the intended users are lawyers, and its operation and output must be convenient for lawyers to use.In this article, I describe a system called CHIRON that I have developed to explore solutions to these issues. This system develops simple plans from representations of statutes and cases in the domain of United States personal income tax planning. (shrink)

Ten years after over half a million Christians signed their names to a statement of conscience clarifying where they stood, the three issues dealt with in the Manhattan Declaration are of more cultural importance than ever. The main difference now, as opposed to then, is the state has since claimed authority, not only over life, but also over marriage and religious liberty." -- Amazon.com.

Humeans and anti-Humeans agree that laws of nature should explain scientifically particular matters of fact. One objection to Humean accounts of laws contends that Humean laws cannot explain particular matters of fact because their explanations are harmfully circular. This article distinguishes between metaphysical and semantic characterizations of the circularity and argues for a new semantic version of the circularity objection. The new formulation suggests that Humean explanations are harmfully circular because the content of the sentences being explained is part of (...) the content of the sentences doing the explaining. I describe the nature of partial content and demonstrate how this account of partial content renders Humean explanations ineffective while sparing anti-Humean explanations from the same fate. 1Introduction2Standard Formulations of the Circularity Charge3Humean Responses4Semantic Characterizations of the Circularity Worry 4.1Hempel and Oppenheim’s semantic circularity concern4.2A new version of the semantic circularity charge4.3Partial content as a guide to circularity5Humean Responses to the Semantic Circularity Charge 5.1Smuggling in metaphysics through the back door?5.2Do anti-Humean laws fare any better?5.3The over-generalization concern6ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

I provide a new account of what it is for the laws of nature to govern the evolution of events. I locate the source of governance in the content of law propositions. As such, I do not appeal to primitive notions of ground, essence, or production to characterize governance. After introducing the account, I use it to outline previously unrecognized varieties of governance. I also specify that laws must govern to have two theoretical virtues: explanatory power as well as a (...) theoretical virtue I call expansiveness. A theory is expansive, roughly, when it can do more with less. (shrink)

This paper offers a metaphysical explanation of the identity and distinctness of concrete objects. It is tempting to try to distinguish concrete objects on the basis of their possessing different qualitative features, where qualitative features are ones that do not involve identity. Yet, this criterion for object identity faces counterexamples: distinct objects can share all of their qualitative features. This paper suggests that in order to distinguish concrete objects we need to look not only at which properties and relations objects (...) instantiate but also how they instantiate these properties and relations. I propose that objects are identical when they stand in certain qualitative relations in virtue of their existence. And concrete objects are distinct when they do not stand in the same kinds of relations to one another in virtue of their existence. (shrink)

Identity and distinctness facts are ones like “The Eiffel Tower is identical to the Eiffel Tower,” and “The Eiffel Tower is distinct from the Louvre.” This paper concerns one question in the metaphysics of identity: Are identity and distinctness facts metaphysically fundamental or are they nonfundamental? I provide an overview of answers to this question.

Our aim in this article is to bring some clarity to the clinical ethics expertise debate by critiquing and replacing the taxonomy offered by the Core Competencies report. The orienting question for our taxonomy is: Can clinical ethicists offer justified, normative recommendations for active patient cases? Views that answer “no” are characterized as a “negative” view of clinical ethics expertise and are further differentiated based on (a) why they think ethicists cannot give justified normative recommendations and (b) what they think (...) ethicists can offer, if they cannot offer recommendations. Views that answer “yes” to the orienting question are characterized as a “positive” view of clinical ethics expertise. Positive views are distinguished according to four additional questions. First (P1), how are those recommendations generated? Second (P2), what is the nature of the recommendations? Third (P3), we ask, how are the recommendations justified? And finally (P4), how are the recommendations communicated? (shrink)

This article seeks to establish that the social sciences have an important contribution to make to the study of ethics. The discussion is framed around three questions: (i) what theoretical work can the social sciences contribute to the understanding of ethics? (ii) what empirical work can the social sciences contribute to the understanding of ethics? And (iii) how does this theoretical and empirical work combine, to enhance the understanding of how ethics, as a field of analysis and debate, is socially (...) constituted and situated? Through these questions the argument goes beyond the now commonly cited objection to the over‐simplistic division between normative and descriptive ethics (that assigns the social sciences the ‘handmaiden’ role of simply providing the ‘facts’). In extending this argument, this article seeks to establish, more firmly and in more detail, that: (a) the social sciences have a longstanding theoretical interest analysing the role that a concern with ethics plays in explanations of social change, social organisation and social action; (b) the explanations that are based on the empirical investigations conducted by social scientists exemplify the interplay of epistemological and methodological analyses so that our understanding of particular substantive issues is extended beyond the conventional questions raised by ethicists, and (c) through this combination of theoretical and empirical work, social scientists go beyond the specific ethical questions of particular practices to enquire further into the social processes that lie behind the very designation of certain matters as being ‘ethical issues’. (shrink)

As COVID-19 drags on and new vaccines promise widespread immunity, the world's attention has turned to predicting how the present pandemic will end. How do societies know when an epidemic is over and normal life can resume? What criteria and markers indicate such an end? Who has the insight, authority, and credibility to decipher these signs? Detailed research on past epidemics has demonstrated that they do not end suddenly; indeed, only rarely do the diseases in question actually end. This article (...) examines the ways in which scholars have identified and described the end stages of previous epidemics, pointing out that significantly less attention has been paid to these periods than to origins and climaxes. Analysis of the ends of epidemics illustrates that epidemics are as much social, political, and economic events as they are biological; the “end,” therefore, is as much a process of social and political negotiation as it is biomedical. Equally important, epidemics end at different times for different groups, both within one society and across regions. Multidisciplinary research into how epidemics end reveals how the end of an epidemic shifts according to perspective, whether temporal, geographic, or methodological. A multidisciplinary analysis of how epidemics end suggests that epidemics should therefore be framed not as linear narratives—from outbreak to intervention to termination—but within cycles of disease and with a multiplicity of endings. (shrink)

A key distinction in ethics is between members and nonmembers of the moral community. Over time, our notion of this community has expanded as we have moved from a rationality criterion to a sentience criterion for membership. I argue that a sentience criterion is insufficient to accommodate all members of the moral community; the true underlying criterion can be understood in terms of whether a being has interests. This may be extended to conscious, self-aware machines, as well as to any (...) autonomous intelligent machines. Such machines exhibit an ability to formulate desires for the course of their own existence; this gives them basic moral standing. While not all machines display autonomy, those which do must be treated as moral patients; to ignore their claims to moral recognition is to repeat past errors. I thus urge moral generosity with respect to the ethical claims of intelligent machines. (shrink)

Identity criteria are powerful tools for the metaphysician. They tell us when items are identical or distinct. Some varieties of identity criteria also try to explain in virtue of what items are identical or distinct. This Element has two objectives: to discuss formulations of identity criteria and to take a closer look at one notorious criterion of object identity, Leibniz's Law. The first section concerns the form of identity criteria. The second section concerns the better-regarded half of Leibniz's Law, the (...) indiscernibility of identicals. The third section turns to the more controversial half of Leibniz's Law, the identity of indiscernibles. The author considers alternatives to Leibniz's Law as well as the possibility that there are no adequate identity criteria to be found. (shrink)

I explore proposals for stating identity criteria in terms of ground. I also address considerations for and against taking identity and distinctness facts to be ungrounded.

Climate change adaptation is largely a local matter, and adaptation planning can benefit from local climate change projections. Such projections are typically generated by accepting climate model outputs in a relatively uncritical way. We argue, based on the IPCC’s treatment of model outputs from the CMIP5 ensemble, that this approach is unwarranted and that subjective expert judgment should play a central role in the provision of local climate change projections intended to support decision-making.

This article argues that while the presence and influence of “futility” as a concept in medical decision-making has declined over the past decade, medicine is seeing the rise of a new concept with similar features: suffering. Like futility, suffering may appear to have a consistent meaning, but in actuality, the concept is colloquially invoked to refer to very different experiences. Like “futility,” claims of patient “suffering” have been used (perhaps sometimes consciously, but most often unconsciously) to smuggle value judgments about (...) quality of life into decision-making. And like “futility,” it would behoove us to recognize the need for new, clearer terminology. This article will focus specifically on secondhand claims of patient suffering in pediatrics, but the conclusions could be similarly applied to medical decisions for adults being made by surrogate decision-makers. While I will argue that suffering, like futility, is not sufficient wholesale justification for making unilateral treatment decisions, I will also argue that claims of patient suffering cannot be ignored, and that they almost always deserve some kind of response. In the final section, I offer practical suggestions for how to respond to claims of patient suffering. (shrink)

Benner, Erica. Machiavelli’s Ethics. Princeton, 2009. 527p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780691141763, $75.00; ISBN 9780691141770 pbk, $35.00.

Reviewed in CHOICE, April 2010

This major new study of Machiavelli’s moral and political philosophy by Benner (Yale) argues that most readings of Machiavelli suffer from a failure to appreciate his debt to Greek sources, particularly the Socratic tradition of moral and political philosophy. Benner argues that when read in the light of his Greek sources, Machiavelli appears as much less the immoralist or (...) sophist he often is taken for and instead as a serious moral philosopher very much concerned with the republican ideals of justice and the rule of law. The author does not ignore Machiavelli’s more infamous dicta, but argues that a careful reading shows that they are expressions of views he ultimately rejects. Particularly noteworthy here is her careful attention to Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories.
Benner’s reading of Machiavelli is far too complex and subtle for such a brief summary. Her research is meticulous and her arguments finely honed. This important contribution to both Machiavelli studies and the history of political philosophy will be indispensable for scholars.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty/researchers. — B. T. Harding

Endorsements:

"Machiavelli's Ethics is a superb scholarly book. Erica Benner does truly impressive work in analyzing Machiavelli's views on the most fundamental ethical issues--including necessity and virtue, justice and injustice, and ends and means. She shows, with very solid evidence, that Machiavelli did in fact worry a lot about justice and that he put it at the core of his republican theory."--Maurizio Viroli, author of Niccolò's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli

"Machiavelli's Ethics is excellent--learned, subtle, highly original, and a constant pleasure to read. And, since it is really a study of Machiavelli's thought in its entirety, it is also the first book of its kind. Its originality lies in taking seriously the claim by some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readers--notably Bacon, Spinoza, and Alberico Gentili--that Machiavelli was essentially a moral and political philosopher. Erica Benner does a brilliant job of resurrecting this neglected Machiavelli."--Giulia Sissa, University of California, Los Angeles


About the book, from the publisher:
Machiavelli's Ethics challenges the most entrenched understandings of Machiavelli, arguing that he was a moral and political philosopher who consistently favored the rule of law over that of men, that he had a coherent theory of justice, and that he did not defend the "Machiavellian" maxim that the ends justify the means. By carefully reconstructing the principled foundations of his political theory, Erica Benner gives the most complete account yet of Machiavelli's thought. She argues that his difficult and puzzling style of writing owes far more to ancient Greek sources than is usually recognized, as does his chief aim: to teach readers not how to produce deceptive political appearances and rhetoric, but how to see through them. Drawing on a close reading of Greek authors--including Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, and Plutarch--Benner identifies a powerful and neglected key to understanding Machiavelli.

This important new interpretation is based on the most comprehensive study of Machiavelli's writings to date, including a detailed examination of all of his major works: The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, and Florentine Histories. It helps explain why readers such as Bacon and Rousseau could see Machiavelli as a fellow moral philosopher, and how they could view The Prince as an ethical and republican text. By identifying a rigorous structure of principles behind Machiavelli's historical examples, the book should also open up fresh debates about his relationship to later philosophers, including Rousseau, Hobbes, and Kant.
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Comparativism maintains that physical quantities are ultimately relational in character. For example, an object’s having 1 kg rest mass depends on the relations it stands in to other objects in the universe. Comparativism, its advocates allege, reveals that quantities are not metaphysically mysterious: Quantities are reducible to familiar relations holding among physical objects. Modal accounts of intrinsicality—such as Lewis’s duplication account or Langton and Lewis’s combinatorial account—are popular accounts preserving many of our core intuitions regarding which properties are intrinsic. I (...) argue that to endorse both comparativism and a modal account of intrinsicality, we must reject the plausible thesis that determinable properties are instantiated solely in virtue of their determinates. I call this ‘the determinacy tension’ and I suggest approaches for dissolving it. (shrink)