In this chapter, Robb Dunphy is concerned with the nature of G.E. Schulze's scepticism as he presents it in his 1792 work Aenesidemus, and with its relation to the metaphysical projects of Kant, Reinhold, and later German Idealists. After introducing Schulze's text, Dunphy turns to a recent interpretation offered by Jessica Berry, who claims that the extent to which Schulze endorsed a genuinely Pyrrhonian Scepticism has gone unacknowledged, both by his idealist contemporaries and by the majority of the secondary (...) literature on the period. Berry suggests that this unacknowledged Pyrrhonism in Aenesidemus provides the resources for a more radical criticism of the German Idealists' scientific, systematic metaphysical ambitions, to which they remain fundamentally vulnerable. Despite agreeing that an exploration of Schulze's debt to Pyrrhonism represents a valuable addition to our understanding of his scepticism, in the latter parts of the chapter Dunphy suggests that the Berry's attribution of a Pyrrhonian Scepticism to Schulze should to some extent be rejected, and that such a scepticism is perhaps not quite as problematic for the projects of Kant and the German Idealists as she suggests. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the Ganser syndrome and gives a brief account on its clinical features. A significant number of clinicians in Europe continued accepting Ganser's basic postulates that the patients showed significant memory disorder and 'answers towards the question' within the framework of traumatic or reactive hysteria. In elderly patients, Ganser type symptoms may be indicative of the onset of dementia. Ganser syndrome raises the question of the interaction between concepts, ideology and clinical observation. The clinician must be aware that (...) a misdiagnosed case of Ganser-type hysteria may result in lawsuits, unnecessary surgical interventions, inappropriate use of minor and major tranquillizers, and social consequences that may be destabilizing for the patient and family. Positive results in the organic investigation should lead to a firm diagnosis and disconfirmation of Ganser syndrome. Persistent negative results and dramatic improvement should tend to confirm the diagnosis. (shrink)

Researchers have recently documented the unexpected opportunities war can present for women. While acknowledging the devastating effects of mass violence, this burgeoning field highlights war’s potential to catalyze grassroots mobilization and build more gender sensitive institutions and legal frameworks. Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina serve as important examples of this phenomenon, yet a closer examination of both cases reveals the limits on women’s capacity to take part in and benefit from these postwar shifts. This article makes two key contributions. First, it demonstrates (...) how the postwar political settlement created hierarchies of victimhood that facilitated new social divisions and fractured women’s collective organizing. Second, it argues that while war creates certain opportunities for women, a revitalization of patriarchy in the aftermath can undermine these gains. Drawing on more than 250 interviews with women in both countries, this article ultimately questions the extent to which postwar mobilization can be maintained or harnessed for genuine gender emancipation. (shrink)

This note points out a conflict between some common intuitions about metaphysical possibility. On the one hand, it is appealing to deny that there are robust counterfactuals about how various physically impossible substances would interact with the matter that exists at our world. On the other hand, our intuitions about how concepts like MOUNTAIN apply at other metaphysically possible worlds seem to presuppose facts about ‘solidity’ which cash out in terms of these counterfactuals. I consider several simple attempts to resolve (...) this conflict and note they all fall short. (shrink)

This article is a critical and interpretive examination of moral and ethical issues that have emerged as the Internet and other digital information forms have evolved. It considers individual expectations of privacy for one's cyberspace communications against the greater public good for unencumbered access, by government and other organizations, to information that may be harmful to others. I argue for the need to find a reasonable balance between the individual's "right" not to disclose information that might be self-incriminating, as codified (...) in the Miranda Rules, and the open communication principles advocated by professional journalists that are essential to a democratic society. (shrink)

Research within psychology and other disciplines has shown that exposure to natural environments holds extensive physiological and psychological benefits. Adding to the health and cognitive benefits of natural environments, evidence suggests that exposure to nature also promotes healthy human decision-making. Unhealthy decision-making (e.g., smoking, non-medical prescription opioid misuse) and disorders associated with lack of impulse control [e.g., tobacco use, opioid use disorder (OUD)], contribute to millions of preventable deaths annually (i.e., 6 million people die each year of tobacco-related illness worldwide, (...) deaths from opioids from 2002 to 2017 have more than quadrupled in the United States alone). Impulsive and unhealthy decision-making also contributes to many pressing environmental issues such as climate change. We recently demonstrated a causal link between visual exposure to nature (e.g., forests) and improved self-control (i.e., decreased impulsivity) in a laboratory setting, as well as the extent to which nearby nature and green space exposure improves self-control and health decisions in daily life outside of the experimental laboratory. Determining the benefits of nearby nature for self-controlled decision-making holds theoretical and applied implications for the design of our surrounding environments. In this article, we synergize the overarching results of recent research endeavors in three domains including the effects of nature exposure on (1) general health-related decision-making, (2) health and decision-making relevant for application to addiction related processes (e.g., OUD), and (3) environmentally relevant decision-making. We also discuss key future directions and conclusions. (shrink)

Este escrito explora La individuación a la luz de las nociones de forma y de información de Gilbert Simondon, tomando como hilo conductor la cuestión de la animalidad. Se analiza si en dicho libro hay un corte antropológico que permita separar tajantemente la individuación del hombre de la de los otros animales. La hipótesis inicial es que tal concepción de la antropogénesis, con el excepcionalismo humanista y el especismo que implica, resulta incompatible con el sistema allí desplegado por Simondon. A (...) lo largo del trabajo se enfatiza que la ontología de Simondon, con sus ambigüedades y tensiones en torno a la cuestión, exige pensar otro concepto de “animalidad” que aquel que hereda de la tradición filosófica contra la que se enfrenta. (shrink)

Despite the tight link between the visibility of the iris and pupil, the perceived effects of these two have been studied largely in isolation. We demonstrate, across two experimental studies, that the effects of perceived pupil size are dependent on the visibility of the iris. In a first study, our participants donated more and had more positive impressions of portraits of non-human primates when these were manipulated to appear having larger pupils. Post-hoc inspection of our data suggested that the difference (...) was greater for species with more conspicuous irises. In a second study, we concomitantly manipulated iris brightness and pupil size. Brighter irises and larger pupils elicited greater donations. Participants rated photographs with brighter irises as cuter, more attractive and friendlier, but only when they had dilated pupils. Our results have methodological implications for studies manipulating eye appearance, and help interpret results from previous studies. (shrink)

Dementia is a growing issue at the end of life that presents unique challenges for advance care planning. Advance directives are a useful and important component of end-of-life planning, but standard advance directives have less utility in cases of loss of capacity due to dementia. An advance directive designed to specifically address end-of-life issues in the setting of dementia can provide patients with increased autonomy and caregivers with improved information about the desires of the individual in question. The Dartmouth Dementia (...) Directive is a dementia-specific advance directive, available online, that seeks to address common concerns of individuals who are planning for dementia-related end-of-life care. This directive was piloted in a community-based workshop, which provided important details and perspective on the best use of dementia-specific advance directives in the greater population. (shrink)

This article reviews recent developments in health care law, focusing on controversy at the intersection of health care law and culture. The article addresses: emerging issues in federal regulatory oversight of the rapidly developing market in direct-to-consumer genetic testing, including questions about the role of government oversight and professional mediation of consumer choice; continuing controversies surrounding stem cell research and therapies and the implications of these controversies for healthcare institutions; a controversy in India arising at the intersection of abortion law (...) and the rights of the disabled but implicating a broader set of cross-cultural issues; and the education of U.S. health care providers and lawyers in the theory and practice of cultural competency. (shrink)

New media have changed the parameters of public relations, multiplying audiences and altering the nature of relationships. Practitioners’ ethics approaches have been slower to adapt, frequently proving inadequate to the changes. McLuhan’s theory of technological determinism predicts this lag in conceptualizing and adapting to technological evolution; with awareness of the problem, however, practitioners have an opportunity to consciously shift to using the potential of new media proactively for ethical guidance, rather than continuing to allow ethics processes to lag behind technological (...) capacity. -/- In 1967 Marshall McLuhan wrote, “When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past” (74). His words referred to the gap he observed between the potentially innovative functionality of new media, and the predominately traditionalist approaches to their use. While McLuhan’s comments are now more than 40 years old, and a host of newer technologies has evolved from those he described, his point remains strikingly germane: This chapter demonstrates that there is still a chasm between the potential and the utilization of new media, and explores the implications of that chasm for the specific context of new media and ethics in the field of public relations. (shrink)

This article reviews recent developments in health care law, focusing on the engagement of law as a partner in health care innovation. The article addresses: the history and contents of recent United States federal law restricting the use of genetic information by insurers and employers; the recent federal policy recommending routine HIV testing; the recent revision of federal policy regarding the funding of human embryonic stem cell research; the history, current status, and need for future attention to advance directives; the (...) recent emergence of medical–legal partnerships and their benefits for patients; the obesity epidemic and its implications for the child’s right to health under international conventions. (shrink)

The way a rational agent changes her belief in certain propositions/hypotheses in the light of new evidence lies at the heart of Bayesian inference. The basic natural assumption, as summarized in van Fraassen's Reflection Principle, would be that in the absence of new evidence the belief should not change. Yet, there are examples that are claimed to violate this assumption. The apparent paradox presented by such examples, if not settled, would demonstrate the inconsistency and/or incompleteness of the Bayesian approach, and (...) without eliminating this inconsistency, the approach cannot be regarded as scientific. The Sleeping Beauty Problem is just such an example. The existing attempts to solve the problem fall into three categories. The first two share the view that new evidence is absent, but differ about the conclusion of whether Sleeping Beauty should change her belief or not, and why. The third category is characterized by the view that, after all, new evidence is involved. My solution is radically different and does not fall into either of these categories. I deflate the paradox by arguing that the two different degrees of belief presented in the Sleeping Beauty Problem are in fact beliefs in two different propositions, i.e., there is no need to explain the change of belief. The Sleeping Beauty Problem The Problem Deflated 2.1 From contradiction to consistency 2.2 The inanimate version 2.3 Back to SB Summary CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Between his calling into question, on the one hand, the apparently unquestionable value of compassion itself, and his refusal, on the other hand, to concede that suffering is unconditionally bad, Nietzsche has been understood by many as expressing a callous indifference, or worse, to most human suffering. This article aims to show that this interpretation relies on an oversimplified characterization of the relevant moral emotions. Compassion (or pity, either of which word can be used to translate the German das (...) Mitleid) is ‘a polyphonous being’, as Nietzsche insists in Daybreak (1881). A closer look at some key passages in Nietzsche’s text, and some help from Greek thinkers Nietzsche points us toward, will demonstrate that this term has meanings that have been lost to us. Recovering those meanings will shed light both on Nietzsche’s critique of compassion (or pity) and on his own attitude toward suffering. (shrink)

Karl Popper famously opposed Marxism in general and its philosophical core – the Marxist dialectic – in particular. As a progressive thinker, Popper saw in dialectic a source of dogmatism damaging to philosophy and political theory. Popper had summarized his views on dialectic in an article that was first delivered in 1937 and subsequently republished as a chapter of his book (2002, pp. 419-451), where he accuses Marxist dialecticians of not tolerating criticism. Ironically, Popper’s view that all Marxist dialecticians dogmatically (...) dismiss any criticism of dialectic by claiming that their opponents do not understand dialectic makes his position no less dogmatic. Indeed, any attempt to criticise Popper’s views on dialectics would be seen only as an additional example of responses by “dogmatic dialecticians”, making his theory essentially immune. This completely prevents dialecticians from being able to criticise Popper’s views. This is exactly the opposite of what the great philosopher wanted. Therefore, for the sake of “anti-dogmatic science” it is desirable and even necessary to defend dialectic. In this work I address several central points about Popper’s criticism of Marxist (materialist) dialectic. In particular, I (a) analyse Popper’s definition of dialectic as the dialectic triad (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) and contrast it with a notion of dialectic as a much more complex concept which occurs in dialectical materialism today, where the triad represents only one of the aspects; (b) compare dialectic with the trial and error method; (c) discuss the place of dialectic amongst valid scientific methods: Does dialectic accept logical contradictions; (e) discuss lessons dialecticians should learn from Popper’s criticism. I will test my arguments as to their constructiveness and will demonstrate explicitly the nature of my disagreement with Popper - thereby trying to avoid the “dogmatic dialecticians” response as much as possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Moral Traditions: An Introduction to World Religious Ethics, and: Understanding Religious Ethics, and: Moral Struggle and Religious Ethics: On the Person as Classic in Comparative Theological ContextsBrian D. BerryMoral Traditions: An Introduction to World Religious Ethics Mari Rapela Heidt Winona, Minn.: Anselm Academic, 2010. 138 pp. $22.95.Understanding Religious Ethics Charles Mathewes Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 277 pp. $41.95.Moral Struggle and Religious Ethics: On the Person as Classic in (...) Comparative Theological Contexts David A. Clairmont Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 245 pp. $99.95These three texts each make significant contributions to comparative religious ethics, a relatively recent discipline that reflects the rise of religious pluralism and globalization. Taken together, these books raise questions about what comparative religious ethics is, how it should be done, and why it should be done. What makes comparative religious ethics “comparative” and to what extent can comparative religious ethics be made genuinely “theological”?Mari Rapela Heidt, who holds a PhD in theological ethics from Marquette University and currently lectures in the religious studies department at the University of Dayton, has written a well-organized and highly accessible introduction to the ethics of the world religions for beginning undergraduate students. Each of the main chapters in her book surveys a major world religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Chinese moral tradition) through four lenses: a brief review of the tradition; the moral world of the religion; values, principles, or virtues in the tradition; and the religious tradition on a particular moral issue (e.g., Hinduism on abortion, Buddhism on wealth and poverty, Judaism on the environment, Christianity on war and peace, Islam on men and women, and China’s one-child [End Page 202] policy). The book also includes opening chapters that introduce students to the study of ethics and religious ethics; a final chapter on additional religious moral traditions (Sikhism, Jainism, Bahá’í, and Shinto); sidebars highlighting major religious figures, texts, or events (e.g., Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Elie Wiesel, the Charter of Medina, and the Cultural Revolution); and discussion questions, bibliography (including visual media), footnotes, a glossary, and an index.Although this book briefly discusses the discipline of comparative religious ethics and some of its descriptive and conceptual methods in its opening chapters, its broad scope and concise treatment mean that the actual task of comparing the similarities and differences in the ethics of the world religions is kept to a minimum. The few detailed comparisons that are made focus largely on Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian understandings of the concepts of reincarnation (29, 34, 64), dharma (18–19, 23–24, 34–35, 64), karma (18–19, 21–23, 35–36, 64), and ahimsa (25–27, 38, 70–71). While the main chapters are organized in a way that facilitates comparison, and discussion questions are included that invite students to observe similarities and differences, the book would be strengthened by giving greater attention to comparison throughout and adding a concluding chapter that summarizes its comparative content. It ends somewhat abruptly with a discussion of the Shinto moral tradition.Charles Mathewes, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, has written a book that, while limited to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, achieves much greater comparative sophistication. The text is based on a course he has taught for more than ten years called “Religious Ethics and Moral Problems,” and it bears the marks of a seasoned teacher whose primary audience is advanced undergraduate students, both religious and secular. Mathewes writes from a Protestant Christian perspective “having a strong apocalyptic dimension which is focused on the next life,” acknowledging that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox may find his views “odd or confused” (53). Part 1 discusses the relationship between God and morality and provides an overview of the ethics of each of the three Abrahamic religions. Parts 2 and 3 then examine not only the moral positions but “the arguments animating the traditions” (3) on a wide range of personal and social matters (e.g., friendship, sexuality, marriage and family, lying, forgiveness, capital punishment, war, and the environment). Part 4 turns to the even more ordinary topics of labor, leisure, and life and the more... (shrink)

Human beings have physical and psychological limits, but also ethical, which are precisely what make their actions human. These ethical limits enable any debate and investigation, in particular, with human beings. Therefore, any investigation would be unfeasi- ble without those limits. We talk about ethical limits, not in the sense of impediment but in the sense of possibility for action; you can only speak of ethical limits if you af rm a truth that is valid for everyone and for all (...) times, regardless of oneself. We are witnessing a true progress as long as a research is carried out for the bene t of human beings. That’s right; you can only speak of progress if it is understood in a growth in humanity. (shrink)

Many contemporary theories on good leadership (e.g., ‘moral leadership’, ‘responsible leadership’, ‘authentic leadership’ or ‘transformational leadership’) emphasize the importance of intrinsic motivation in followers and of leading by example. This also involves a rejection of the use of power and manipulation as well as advocacy for virtues such as modesty and a concern for equality. By focusing on magnanimity (Aristotle's virtue of the great), we show that, contrary to what contemporary theories often claim, there are good reasons for exemplary leaders (...) not to be modest, to point out their greatness in comparison with others, and to make use of external goods and incentives, particularly honor. This conceptual virtue ethical analysis results in specific lessons for the ethical manager who wants to lead by example and points to new questions for empirical research on the determinants of effective ethics management. (shrink)

In the philosophy of science there has traditionally been a tendency to regard physics as the incarnation of science per se. Accordingly, the status of other disciplines is evaluated then with respect to their ability to produce laws resembling those of physics. This view has yielded a considerable bias in the discussion of historical laws. Philosophers as well as historians have tended to discuss such laws mostly with reference to the situation in physics; this often led to either one of (...) two conclusions, namely that history is epistemologically completely separated from natural science, because it does not have universal laws, or that the ultimate goal of the study of history must be the formulation of such universal laws. I would maintain that neither conclusion is necessary. To substantiate this position, aspects of laws in nature are discussed. One aspect being often neglected is the fact that there are many cases of statistical laws in nature; there is no close link between laws and determinism. Moreover, there are natural systems which have a history, i.e. systems which are, like human history, shaped by irreversible, singular events. One important case is biological evolution and accordingly I discuss the relation between evolutionary theory and historiography. However, since we are part of the living world, one could also ask whether the laws of evolution are of direct relevance for understanding our history, in addition to the methodological similarities between the two fields. This issue of history as evolution is being investigated in detail in the final section of the paper. (shrink)

This article reviews recent work aimed at developing a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework, different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and ageing on explicit and implicit memory. The framework allows (...) a range of concepts in current memory research, such as familiarity, recollection, fluency, and source memory, to be linked to implicit memory. More generally, this work emphasizes the value of modern computational modelling techniques in the study of learning and memory. (shrink)