Accelerated changes to the planet have created novel spaces to re-imagine the boundaries and foci of environmental health research. Climate change, mass species extinction, ocean acidification, biogeochemical disturbance, and other emergent environmental issues have precipitated new population health perspectives, including, but not limited to, one health, ecohealth, and planetary health. These perspectives, while nuanced, all attempt to reconcile broad global challenges with localized health impacts by attending to the reciprocal relationships between the health of ecosystems, animals, and humans. While such (...) innovation is to be encouraged, we argue that a more comprehensive engagement with the ethics of these emerging fields of inquiry will add value in terms of the significance and impact of associated interventions. In this contribution, we highlight how the concept of spatial and temporal scale can be usefully deployed to shed light on a variety of ethical issues common to emerging environmental health perspectives, and that the potential of scalar analysis implicit to van Potter’s conceptualization of bioethics has yet to be fully appreciated. Specifically, we identify how scale interacts with key ethical issues that require consideration and clarification by one health, ecohealth, and planetary health researchers and practitioners to enhance the effectiveness of research and practice, including justice and governance. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 77-80.

In this chapter we extend earlier work (Vinuesa et al., Nat Commun 11, 2020) on the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations (UN) for the 2030 Agenda. The present contribution focuses on three SDGs related to healthy and sustainable societies, i.e., SDG 3 (on good health), SDG 11 (on sustainable cities), and SDG 13 (on climate action). This chapter extends the previous study within those three goals and goes (...) beyond the 2030 targets. These SDGs are selected because they are closely related to the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic and also to crises like climate change, which constitute important challenges to our society. (shrink)

The purpose of Donald Winch’s "historiographic revision" is to show that most recent interpretations of Smith have distorted his meaning because they have misread the intention of Smith’s work, treating it either as the first great justification of the nascent liberal capitalist polity, or as such a justification infiltrated by intimations of the Marxian notion of alienation. In Winch’s view, either account of Smith’s project is misleading by virtue of imposing nineteenth-century perspectives and categories upon "what is (...) quintessentially a work of the eighteenth century." The problem, then, is to determine the historically appropriate context or problematic within which the complex and at times paradoxical thought of the Wealth of Nations, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and the Lectures on Jurisprudence can reasonably be situated. As Winch notes, his study is an application of the contextualist methodological principles of Quentin Skinner and J. G. A. Pocock, and is similar in design to recent works on Locke by John Dunn and on Hume by Duncan Forbes. (shrink)

Mill's feminism has been attacked as being logically incoherent. The general verdict has been that Mill can easily be defended from the charge. However, both sides in the debate have ignored the fact that his feminism is part of a broader theory of liberal empiricism. Placing The Subjection of Women in this context re–opens the question of its logical credentials and reveals a basic weakness in Millian feminism.

Writing in the foreword to Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and speaking of his upbringing in Chicago between the wars Saul Bellow attests that …as a Midwesterner, the son of immigrant parents, I recognized at an early stage that I was called upon to decide for myself to what extent my Jewish origins, my surroundings [‘the accidental circumstances of Chicago’], my schooling, were to be allowed to determine the course of my life. I did not intend to (...) be wholly dependent upon history and culture. Full dependency must mean that I was done for. The commonest teaching of the civilized world in our time can be stated simply: ‘Tell me where you come from and I'll tell you what you are’. (shrink)

Although Emmanuel Levinas later expressed regret that he sided with Martin Heidegger rather than the more “ideal”-minded Ernst Cassirer in their 1929 Davos encounter, Cassirer’s philosophy of culture would never have been an apt framework for Levinas’s own project, which was always directed more to fundamental orientation than to formative activities or achievements. In “Meaning and Sense” (1964), Levinas conceived a totalizing cultural “meaning” as a foil to transcendent ethical “sense.” In a 1983 paper, however, he proposed an ethical conception (...) of culture. He could have developed this further using another element from “Meaning and Sense,” an ethical conception of work as service of the Other. The work-in-progress of culture combines pure ethics and implemented morality, pure command and consistent style, infinite vulnerability and actual power. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Real-time graphical interval logic is a modal logic for reasoning about time in which the basic modality is the interval. The logic differs from other logics in that it has a natural intuitive graphical representation that resembles the timing diagrams drawn by system designers. We have developed an automted deduction system for the logic, which includes a theorem prover and a user interface. The theorem prover checks the validity of proofs in the logic and produces counterexamples to invalid proofs. (...) The user interface includes a graphical editor that enables the user to create graphical formulas on a workstation display, and a database and proof manager that tracks proof dependencies and allows graphical formulas to be stored and retrieved. In this paper we describe the logic, the automated deduction system, and an application to robotics. (shrink)

Based on a bold equation of cinema with history, Jean-Luc Godard’s essay-film Histoire du Cinéma provokes new thoughts about what historical understanding involves and how cinematic revelation can happen. This paper discusses how Histoire engages conventional standards of historical understanding while also taking us into uncharted depths of historical realization, examining the undeniable historical evidence presented in the film, undismissable insights into relations among historical data, and possibly valid judgments of historical truth. Reaching for non-obvious connections, Godard risks misleading decontextualization (...) of his materials. But by stocking our minds with pertinent film selections, new treatments of those images, and various writers’ musings he draws us into his quest for a practically decisive realization of the significance of the recent history of our civilization. (shrink)

God’s revelation is not uncommonly represented as a past speaking---“God has spoken,” “We have heard.” In order to study how the possibilities of reasoning are affected when the crucial evidence to which reasoning may appeal is a remembered speaking, a parableis offered in which three young brothers dispute whether their mother has called them home. Their arguments necessarily take an ad hominem tum. It is found that the claims of the brother who remembers hearing are provisionally, partially, and prescriptively reasonable. (...) This brother’s position resembles that of St. Paul at Romans 1 :18-32 (“So they are without excuse” ). (shrink)

Some of kant's rationales for conceiving the highest good of morality as virtue rewarded with happiness rest on the subject's "necessary" natural desire for happiness, While others appeal to a still-Obscure principle of moral desert. The principle, I argue, Is that the moral agent qua moral necessarily hopes for the "approval" of fellow moral legislators and god, Who "would" (did they exist, And if they could) signify their approval by bestowing the means of happiness.

In this book, Steven G. Smith focuses on the guidance function in language and scripture and evaluates the assumptions and ideals of scriptural religion in global perspective. He brings to language studies a new pragmatic emphasis on the shared modeling of life-in-the-world by communicators constantly depending on each other's guidance. Using concepts of axiality and axialization derived from Jaspers' description of the 'Axial Age', he shows the essential role of scripture in the historical progress of communicative action. This volume (...) clarifies the formative power of scriptures in religions of the 'world religion' type and brings scripture into philosophy of religion as a major cross-cultural category of study, thereby helping philosophy of religion find a needed cross-cultural footing. (shrink)

BackgroundThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration traditionally has kept confidential significant amounts of information relevant to the approval or non-approval of specific drugs, devices, and biologics and about the regulatory status of such medical products in FDA’s pipeline.ObjectiveTo develop practical recommendations for FDA to improve its transparency to the public that FDA could implement by rulemaking or other regulatory processes without further congressional authorization. These recommendations would build on the work of FDA’s Transparency Task Force in 2010.MethodsIn 2016-2017, we convened (...) a team of academic faculty from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Yale Medical School, Yale Law School, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to develop recommendations through an iterative process of reviewing FDA’s practices, considering the legal and policy constraints on FDA in expanding transparency, and obtaining insights from independent observers of FDA.ResultsThe team developed 18 specific recommendations for improving FDA’s transparency to the public. FDA could adopt all these recommendations without further congressional action.FundingThe development of the Blueprint for Transparency at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine some of the consequences of the recent advances in neurobiology in terms of the ability of drugs to manipulate the mind. Most laymen are totally ignorant of the general mechanism underlying the brain-mind relationship and therefore of the action of mind-altering drugs. Professor Grahame-Smith considers that one of the intrinsic evils of man's neurobiological make up is that a prime motive of the brain seems to be to bring comfort, security and (...) pleasure for itself. Therefore it is not surprising that drugs - notably the barbiturates and more recently the benzodiazepines (tranquilizers) - have been prescribed to give to the brain that peace of mind that it seeks. However, it can be argued that such drugs cannot replace anxiety with peace of mind or unhappiness or depression with happiness. The action of such drugs upon the molecules of the brain is negative - a placebo effect. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed numerous weaknesses in pandemic preparedness and response, including underfunding, inadequate surveillance, and inequitable distribution of countermeasures. To overcome these weaknesses for future pandemics, WHO released a zero draft of a pandemic treaty in February, 2023, and subsequently a revised bureau's text in May, 2023. COVID-19 made clear that pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reflect choices and value judgements. These decisions are therefore not a purely scientific or technical exercise, but are fundamentally grounded in ethics. The latest (...) treaty draft reflects these ethical considerations by including a section entitled Guiding Principles and Approaches. Most of these principles are ethical—they establish core values that undergird the treaty. Unfortunately, the treaty draft's set of principles are numerous, overlapping, and show inadequate coherence and consistency. We propose two improvements to this section of the draft pandemic treaty. First, key guiding ethical principles should be clearer and more precise than they currently are. Second, the link between ethical principles and policy implementation should be clearly established and define boundaries on acceptable interpretation, ensuring that signatories abide by these principles. (shrink)

Kant’s central notion of a “causality of freedom” seems inconsistent with his theoretical analysis of causation. Because of its detachment from any reference to time, it is also seriously in tension with ordinary moral ideals of individuality, efficacy, responsiveness, and personal growth in the exercise of freedom. I suggest a way of conceiving moral freedom that avoids the absurdity of practical timelessness while preserving the main strengths of Kant’s theories of theoretical and practical meaning, including his refusal to specify the (...) content of human fulfillment. Much as Kant’s ideal of the highest good combines the supreme good of moral virtue with its necessarily desired complement of worthy happiness, a Kantian ideal of the fullest freedom can combine the transcendental freedom of the moral disposition with individual exercises of freedom in the dramatic interaction of actual moral community. (shrink)

In a continuum of past and present, "Pittsburgh Then and Now" portrays the city through 161 pairs of matching photographs. Each archival image, culled from old books, municipal records, and library collections, was rephotographed in 1986-89 from the same camera position, forming an evocation of the past and a record of urban continuity and change. "Pittsburgh Then and Now" recalls specific locations in the city of the past and then compares them to the present, showing both how much and how (...) little Pittsburgh has changed. Most of the pairs of photographs illustrate continuity with the past, features that have remained over the decades. A steep residential street in Perry Hilltop, for example, is little changed, and a jagged hillside staircase on the South Side is still in use. Other images document urban change. Massive Duquesne Gardens, on Craig Street in Oakland, is shown alongside the University Square Apartments of the present. The old Loew's Penn Theatre on Sixth Street in 1935 is copared to its modern manifestation as Heinz hall, 1987. The pre-Renaissance cornor of Stanwyx Street and Penn Avenue is recalled before the Gateway buildings were constructed.This journey into the past shows how change and continuity have mingled in the city landscape, reveling Pittsburgh as it has evolved from architecutral styles that reflected turn-of-the-century eclecticism to the more recent styles labeled "modernist" and "postmodernist, " from horse to streetcar to automobile, and from steel mills to high-technology centers. "Pittsburgh Then and Now" is a treasury of photographic images for those who remember the old Pittsburgh, those who are curious about its past, and anyoneinterested in the evolution of a city. (shrink)

A historically responsible agent is willing to be somehow in practical solidarity with all other actors with whom action is shared over time. The responsible idea of a most-inclusive history encompasses future occurrence together with all that has happened already. Despite our lack of control over future developments, we assess possible future ages as bright or dark and position ourselves as contributors to multigenerational endeavors that we hope will be long-term successes in themselves and part of a larger historical optimality. (...) Informed by the evolutionary sciences, a plausible modern envisioning of the future must include evolutionary innovations and surprises on a very long time scale. The historically responsible agent will therefore take seriously efforts like Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men to imagine the new powers and goals of our distantly posthuman future sharers in history. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOne of the most powerful claims of disability theology is that the rejection of persons with disabilities somehow correlates with a rejection of God. This ‘correlative rejection’ is, however, frequently just stated rather than explored in detail, something this article therefore seeks to remedy by examining one example of the correlative rejection that draws together the ethical concerns of theologians writing on intellectual disability with Meister Eckhart’s teaching on the human relationship with God. Here, the correlative rejection is exposed as (...) an inevitable result of the narrow emphasis on autonomy and rationality in human self-perception which shape the habituated, even ritualised ways that we try to know persons with intellectual disabilities and God. By contrast, truly knowing and relating to persons with intellectual disabilities, God, and finally also ourselves, relies on a reconciliation with the dependence, vulnerability, and non-rational forms of exchange that a narrow attachment to a... (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have gathered impressive evidence for the surprising conclusion that philosophers' intuitions are out of step with those of the folk. As a result, many argue that philosophers' intuitions are unreliable. Focusing on the Knobe Effect, a leading finding of experimental philosophy, we defend traditional philosophy against this conclusion. Our key premise relies on experiments we conducted which indicate that judgments of the folk elicited under higher quality cognitive or epistemic conditions are more likely to resemble those of the (...) philosopher. We end by showing how our experimental findings can help us better understand the Knobe Effect. (shrink)

The relevance of Marx’s theory of value and his ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ to the analysis of the financial crisis of 2007–8 and the ensuing global slump is affirmed. The hypertrophic growth of unproductive constant capital, including the wages of ‘socially necessary’ unproductive labour and tax revenues, is identified as an important manifestation of an historical-structural crisis of capitalism, alongside the increasing weight of fictitious capital and the proliferation of fictitious profits in the (...) lead-up to the financial crisis. These phenomena have obscured the deepest roots of the global slump in the long-term profitability problems of productive capital – that is, in a crisis of surplus-value production. With these considerations taken into account, a better empirical assessment of trends in the composition of capital becomes possible, and with it a more accurate understanding of the impact of the ongoing displacement of living labour from production on the average rate of profit and the future of US and global capitalism. (shrink)

This commentary examines the role of sustainability in the latest draft of the WHO pandemic accord, highlighting its notable absence from the official list of guiding principles despite being mentioned frequently throughout the text. It argues that sustainability should be explicitly acknowledged as a core principle and given a clear definition tailored to pandemic preparedness, and proposes defining sustainability as ensuring that immediate emergency responses don't compromise future pandemic preparedness and response capabilities. Including sustainability as a guiding principle would serve (...) two key purposes: validating the relevance of ethical principles in the accord's provisions and emphasizing the importance of long-term planning in pandemic preparedness. The commentary notes that while humans naturally discount future consequences, sustainable pandemic planning requires considering impacts beyond the next pandemic. It recommends coupling any reforms, such as intellectual property changes, with alternative innovation incentives to maintain a balanced approach to pandemic preparedness and response. (shrink)