Background It has been suggested that researchers are obliged to offer summary findings to research participants to demonstrate respect for persons, and that this may increase public trust in, and awareness of, the research enterprise. Yet little research explores researchers' attitudes and practices regarding the range of initiatives that might serve these ends. Methods Results of an international survey of 785 eligible authors of genetics research studies in autism or cystic fibrosis are reported. Results Of 343 researchers who completed the (...) survey (44% response rate), the majority agreed that their team should (i) inform participants of summary findings (90.7%) and (ii) ensure they gain an awareness of developments in the field (86.9%). Additionally, the majority reported that in practice, their team (i) informs participants of summary findings (69.4%) and (ii) provides other types of relevant non-results information (eg, state of science in the field, opportunities for research participation) (67.9%). Conclusion Researchers endorsed the obligation of communicating with research participants by providing summary findings and other research-related information in equal measure. In light of these findings, it is suggested that while the provision of summary results may contribute to efforts to discharge the obligation of respect for persons, it may be neither a necessary nor a sufficient means to this end. (shrink)

To understand political power it's necessary to comprehend why individuals and entire nations make the choices they do. Two influential approaches to understanding the intentions behind human behavior are known as realism and liberalism. Neoliberalism developed in response to the charge that liberalism represented an overly utopian view of the world. To explain whether cooperation or conflict should be expected between two parties, international relations scholars often try to calculate costs and benefits of either strategy. Among the most famous of (...) their scenarios is the “Prisoner's Dilemma”. In the case of Ender's Game, the humans and buggers face a dilemma about whether or not to cooperate with one another or defect, which means fighting a war for survival. The dilemma for Ender and the I.F. is complicated by the fact that there seems to be no possibility of communication between humans and buggers. (shrink)

The dominant unspoken philosophical basis of medical care in the United States is a form of Cartesian reductionism that views the body as a machine and medical professionals as technicians whose job is to repair that machine. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for an alternative philosophy of medicine based on the concept of healing relationships between clinicians and patients. This is accomplished first by exploring the ethical and philosophical work of Pellegrino and Thomasma and then by connecting (...) Martin Buber's philosophical work on the nature of relationships to an empirically derived model of the medical healing relationship. The Healing Relationship Model was developed by the authors through qualitative analysis of interviews of physicians and patients. Clinician-patient healing relationships are a special form of what Buber calls I-Thou relationships, characterized by dialog and mutuality, but a mutuality limited by the inherent asymmetry of the clinician-patient relationship. The Healing Relationship Model identifies three processes necessary for such relationships to develop and be sustained: Valuing, Appreciating Power and Abiding. We explore in detail how these processes, as well as other components of the model resonate with Buber's concepts of I-Thou and I-It relationships. The resulting combined conceptual model illuminates the wholeness underlying the dual roles of clinicians as healers and providers of technical biomedicine. On the basis of our analysis, we argue that health care should be focused on healing, with I-Thou relationships at its core. (shrink)

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

Est-il exact que tout système philosophique ne soit, comme le voulait Nietzsche, qu'une confession déguisée? Pour la grande majorité des philosophies, nous ne pouvons répondre à cette question, faute de renseignements suffisants, mais peut-être l'autobiographie de Sartre nous apportera-t-elle une contribution valable. Nous essayerons done de l'examiner comme document historique et comme document psychologique.

Nous présentons ici une introduction à la lecture des Deux sources de la morale et de la religion d'Henri Bergson, publié en 1932. Cet ouvrage est le moins fréquenté des livres de Bergson : on le ramène à quelques formules sur l'opposition du " clos " et de " l'ouvert ", et à un mysticisme un peu fumeux. Pourtant, Bergson a mis vingt-cinq ans à se documenter pour écrire ce livre qui constitue une synthèse philosophique des travaux de la sociologie, (...) de l'anthropologie et de la psychologie des religions de son temps. Surtout, on voit s'y articuler les trois dimensions qui travaillent toute la pensée métaphysique de Bergson : le vital, le mental et le social ; et on comprend mieux que l'affirmation du point de vue de la conscience individuelle ne nie en aucune façon son inscription dans la vie biologique et dans une société politique. L'existence de grands individus y est mise au service de l'action de toute l'humanité et de la vie elle-même. F. Keck propose une présentation générale de l'ouvrage à travers son contexte intellectuel et sa méthode dualiste. A. Bouaniche commente cinq textes extraits des Deux sources ou d'ouvrages qui l'éclairent. F. Worms présente une interprétation de ce livre à la lumière du rapport entre la vie et la morale chez Bergson et dans la philosophie contemporaine. (shrink)

Le Traité de Psychopathologie d'Eugene Minkowski se distingue par son caractère très personnel, non moins que par l'ampleur de son information. Cet ouvrage résume l'œuvre d'une vie consacrée à la pratique de la psychothérapie, à la méditation philosophique, et à une active participation aux mouvements intellectuels de l'époque.L'origine de ce livre, nous confie l'auteur, remonte à une promesse faite à Louis Lavelle en 1939, mais il a été rédigé à intervalles irréguliers de 1948 à 1966. Minkowski y a incorporé de (...) nombreux travaux écrits à diverses périodes de sa vie et sur des sujets multiples. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human (...) history. (shrink)

Human genomics is a translational field spanning research, clinical care, public health, and direct-to-consumer testing. However, law differs across these domains on issues including liability, consent, promoting quality of analysis and interpretation, and safeguarding privacy. Genomic activities crossing domains can thus encounter confusion and conflicts among these approaches. This paper suggests how to resolve these conflicts while protecting the rights and interests of individuals sequenced. Translational genomics requires this more translational approach to law.

The application of evolutionary theory to human behavior has elicited a variety of critiques, some of which charge that this approach expresses or encourages conservative or reactionary political agendas. In a survey of graduate students in psychology, Tybur, Miller, and Gangestad (Human Nature, 18, 313–328, 2007) found that the political attitudes of those who use an evolutionary approach did not differ from those of other psychology grad students. Here, we present results from a directed online survey of a broad (...) sample of graduate students in anthropology that assays political views. We found that evolutionary anthropology graduate students were very liberal in their political beliefs, overwhelmingly voted for a liberal U.S. presidential candidate in the 2008 election, and identified with liberal political parties; in this, they were almost indistinguishable from non-evolutionary anthropology students. Our results contradict the view that evolutionary anthropologists hold conservative or reactionary political views. We discuss some possible reasons for the persistence of this view in terms of the sociology of science. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

L'articolo affronta il rapporto tra Henry Miller e Il tramonto dell'Occidente di OSwald Spengler, oggetto di una lettura approfondita e appassionata. Temi centrali sono quelli della decadenza della civiltà e delle vie d'uscita in chiave vitalistica e letteraria, da questo declino.

This paper consists of commentaries about and the reprint of an autobiographical essay authored by Italian medium Eusapia Palladino and published in 1910. The details of the essay are discussed in terms of the writings of other individuals about the life and performances of the medium. The essay conveys a view of Palladino as a person who has suffered much in life and has a mission to help scientific research into mediumship. Typical of the positive emphasis in autobiographies in general, (...) the medium did not discuss negative aspects of her performances. Due to the fact that the essay appeared during Palladino's visit to New York City in which many authors branded her as a fraud, it may be speculated that the purpose of this autobiography was to elicit sympathy from the American public. While some of the statements that Palladino made about phenomena are consistent with the statements of other authors who have written about her, there are several statements that show alternate or incomplete versions of particular events in her life. The differences suggests that Palladino's essay and other discussions about the medium's life are not reliable when it comes to specific details and to biographical accuracy. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

In working his way through his complex conception of the relation of fiction and reality, [Henry] James thus found the unconscious moral dimension inextricably embedded within "realism" itself. In following the threads of realism back to consciousness itself, James invariably found there intertwined with its roots those aspects and elements that other theorists kept carefully separate. By exploring experience to its source, he found imagination. By following objective life from "out there" to conception, he found individual vision. By following (...) the seeming oneness of the passing show back to perception, he found infinite variation and multiplicity. By following the uncolored flux and flow of events to their embodiment in the fictional medium, he found coloration of personality. And by following the "felt life" back to the artist's "prime sensibility", James found there the "moral sense" and the "enveloping air of the artist's humanity"—that which gives "the last touch to the worth of a work." James E. Miller, Jr., professor of English at the University of Chicago, is the author of A Critical Guide to Leaves of Grass; Walt Whitman; F. Scott Fitzgerald: His Art and His Technique; J.D. Salinger; Theory of Fiction: Henry James; and numerous articles on American literature and education. He contributed "Catcher In and Out of History" to Critical Inquiry, Spring 1977. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin is widely acknowledged as a major figure in twentieth-century political philosophy and the history of ideas. His famous Oxford inaugural lecture, Two Concepts of Liberty, especially the last, crucial, section, entitled The One and the Many, has provoked a vast secondary literature. So it is surprising that until now there has been no substantial critical reader dedicated to his work.Editors George Crowder and Henry Hardy have admirably filled this need with this stimulating new volume, which provides a (...) systematic and comprehensive treatment of the main aspects of Berlin's work. The essays (all but two of which are newly commissioned) critically examine Berlin's work across its whole range, including his treatment of Marx, Russian thinkers, Jewish themes, liberty, pluralism, the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, nationalism, history, and religion.The contributors are: Jonathan Allen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Shlomo Avineri (Hebrew University, Jerusalem); Terrell Carver (University of Bristol); Joshua L. Cherniss (Harvard and Oxford Universities); George Crowder (Flinders University); William A. Galston (University of Maryland); Graeme Garrard (Cardiff University); Ryan Hanley (Marquette University); Henry Hardy (Oxford University); Michael Jinkins (Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary); David Miller (Oxford University); Mario Ricciardi (University of Milan); and Andrzej Walicki (University of Notre Dame).Complete with a valuable bibliography, this outstanding collection of recent scholarship on a seminal thinker shows the continuing relevance and importance of Berlin's many contributions to the understanding of our contemporary predicament.George Crowder (Adelaide, Australia), associate professor in the School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, is the author of Classical Anarchism, Liberalism and Value Pluralism and Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism.Henry Hardy (Oxford, England), a Fellow of Wolfson College (Oxford, England), Isaiah Berlin's editor, and one of his literary trustees, has edited or co-edited 17 books by Isaiah Berlin, most recently Political Ideas in the Romantic Age, Flourishing: Letters 1928-1946, and The Soviet Mind: Russian Culture under Communism. He is currently working with Jennifer Holmes on an edition of Berlin's letters. (shrink)