U.S. regulations do not afford consistent protections to human research subjects. One complaint is that they focus on federally sponsored research, with private research covered only if it falls under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration. This paper examines a deeper problem: Even when the regulations do apply, they still do not afford consistent standards of protection. The U.S. Common Rule and related FDA regulations lack a workable regulatory control mechanism.

In this study, we examine the belief bias effect in syllogistic reasoning under both standard presentation and in a condition where participants are required to respond within 10 seconds. As predicted, the requirement for rapid responding increased the amount of belief bias observed on the task and reduced the number of logically correct decisions, both effects being substantial and statistically significant. These findings were predicted by the dual-process account of reasoning, which posits that fast heuristic processes, responsible for belief bias, (...) compete with slower analytic processes that can lead to correct logical decisions. Requiring rapid responding thus differentially inhibits the operation of analytic reasoning processes, leading to the results observed. (shrink)

Universities and other research institutions are increasingly providing additional training in research integrity to improve the quality and reliability of research. Various training courses have been developed, with diverse learning goals and content. Despite the importance of training that focuses on moral character and professional virtues, there remains a lack of training that adopts a virtue ethics approach. To address this, we, a European Commission-funded consortium, have designed a train-the-trainer programme for research integrity. The programme is based on (1) virtue (...) ethics, (2) the ethos of science, (3) learning by doing and (4) learner-centred teaching. The blended learning programme combines e-learning modules with participatory group sessions. Trainers are taught how to guide researchers through a series of structured exercises for fostering reflection on scientific virtues, and how to promote understanding and application of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Trainers are provided with adaptable tools and resources that can be used and combined in different ways. The programme implementation began in Spring 2020 and 470 trainers have participated to date. When trainers were asked to grade – between 0 (very bad) and 10 (excellent) – the e-learning modules and the participatory exercises, 60% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 8, IQR = 2) for the e-learning modules, whereas 80% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 9, IQR = 1) for the participatory exercises. A majority felt that the training helped them as a trainer to learn about ways to organise and teach a research integrity course (82%) and would recommend the interactive exercises to others (92%). Trainers have educated over 3300 researchers in Europe using our virtue-based approach. The VIRT2UE train-the-trainer programme fosters research integrity by providing trainers with exercises and tools which enable them to stimulate the development of good researchers across Europe. (shrink)

Many philosophers and psychologists now argue that emotions play a vital role in reasoning. This paper explores one particular way of elucidating how emotions help reason which may be dubbed ?the search hypothesis of emotion?. After outlining the search hypothesis of emotion and dispensing with a red herring that has marred previous statements of the hypothesis, I discuss two alternative readings of the search hypothesis. It is argued that the search hypothesis must be construed as an account of what emotions (...) typically do, rather than as a definition of emotion. Even as an account of what emotions typically do, the search hypothesis can only be evaluated in the context of a specific theory of what emotions are. 1 Introduction 2 The search hypothesis of emotion 3 A red herring: the frame problem 4 The search problem 5 Two readings of the search hypothesis 6 Two final remarks 7 Conclusion. (shrink)

It is occasionally tempting, after climbing a mountain, to use the elevation one has gained to dash up to the top of a connected peak which does not have sufficient interest to induce one to climb so high for its sake alone. It is in this spirit that I turn to Geach's Latin Prose theory of relative clauses. The matter itself is of no very great moment, and some new ground will have to be covered in dealing with Geach's arguments. (...) Nevertheless we shall primarily be applying the theory constructed in the body of the paper, and when one is in a position to expose bad arguments relatively rapidly, it is perhaps a good idea not to leave them unchallenged, especially when they appear to be gaining currency. (shrink)

Teaching responsible conduct of research (RCR) to PhD students is crucial for fostering responsible research practice. In this paper, we show how the use of Moral Case Deliberation—a case reflection method used in the Amsterdam UMC RCR PhD course—is particularity valuable to address three goals of RCR education: (1) making students aware of, and internalize, RCR principles and values, (2) supporting reflection on good conduct in personal daily practice, and (3) developing students’ dialogical attitude and skills so that they can (...) deliberate on RCR issues when they arise. What makes this method relevant for RCR education is the focus on values and personal motivations, the structured reflection on real experiences and dilemmas and the cultivation of participants’ dialogical skills. During these structured conversations, students reflect on the personal motives that drive them to adhere to the principles of good science, thereby building connections between those principles and their personal values and motives. Moreover, by exploring personal questions and dilemmas related to RCR, they learn how to address these with colleagues and supervisors. The reflection on personal experiences with RCR issues and questions combined with the study of relevant normative frameworks, support students to act responsibly and to pursue RCR in their day-to-day research practice in spite of difficulties and external constraints. (shrink)

This article argues that the meaning of the word ‘autism’ experienced a radical shift in the early 1960s in Britain which was contemporaneous with a growth in epidemiological and statistical studies in child psychiatry. The first part of the article explores how ‘autism’ was used as a category to describe hallucinations and unconscious fantasy life in infants through the work of significant child psychologists and psychoanalysts such as Jean Piaget, Lauretta Bender, Leo Kanner and Elwyn James Anthony. Theories of autism (...) were then associated both with schizophrenia in adults and with psychoanalytic styles of reasoning. The closure of institutions for ‘mental defectives’ and the growth in speech therapy services in the 1960s and 1970s encouraged new models for understanding autism in infants and children. The second half of the article explores how researchers such as Victor Lotter and Michael Rutter used the category of autism to reconceptualize psychological development in infants and children via epidemiological studies. These historical changes have influenced the form and function of later research into autism and related conditions. (shrink)

Most of the papers presented at a conference held at Oxford in August 1982.

In this article I explore the underlying political philosophy of public bioethics by comparing it to technocratic authority, particularly the technocratic authority claimed by economists in Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s. I find that public bioethics - at least in the dominant forms - is implicitly designed for and tries to use technocratic authority. I examine how this type of bioethics emerged and has continued. I finish by arguing that, as claims to technocratic authority go, bioethics is in an (...) incredibly weak position, which partly explains why it has never gained the degree of public legitimacy that other technocracies have gained. I conclude by arguing for a "technocracy-lite" orientation for public bioethics. (shrink)

Johnson-Laird and Byrne present a theory of conditional inference based upon the manipulation of mental models. In the present paper, the theory is critically examined with regard to its ability to account for psychological data, principally with respect to the rate at which people draw the four basic inferences of modus ponens, denial of the antecedent, affirmation of the consequent and modus tollens. It is argued first that the theory is unclear in its definition and in particular with regard to (...) predictions of problem difficulty. Clarification and specification of principles are consequently provided here. Next, it is argued that there are a number of phenomena in the conditional reasoning literature for which the theory cannot account in its present form. Specifically, the relatively frequency of DA and AC inferences on affirmative conditionals is not as predicted by the theory, differences occur between inferences on if then and only if rules beyond the capacity of the theory to explain and there is no account of the “negative conclusion bias” observed when negated components are introduced into the rules. A number of revisions to the mental model theory of conditional reasoning are proposed in order to account for these findings. (shrink)

Here, a distinguished group of international contributors examines what we know about, feel, and hope to accomplish in real-world environments.

Cosmopolitanism seeks a political ethics of world togetherness and a political aesthetics that can contribute to this task critically and imaginatively. Regarding political ethics, I explore the world as a “cosmopolitan mind” composed of “dialogic voices” and threatened by neoliberalism, neofascism, and other nihilistic “oracles.” I also construct a criterion for determining which public artworks (1) resist oracles and (2) help us imagine a “cosmopolitan democracy” and its political ethics. The latter includes the concordance of three ethico-political virtues—solidarity, heterogeneity, and (...) fecundity (creating new voices through the interplay among other voices)—and must appeal to different peoples worldwide. I also examine how this political ethics and aesthetics can be applied to nonhuman life and non-sentient formations in a non-anthropocentric manner; indeed, how the cosmos in its entirety and plurality can also be thought of as voices and participants in the cosmopolitan mind and its artistic expression. Moreover, I contend that my ontology of dialogic voices and proposed public art criterion, like the cosmopolitan mind itself, are “events” or “becomings.” This means that there can never be an articulation of the ontology that is final nor a public art criterion that could curtail the imaginative reach of art. (shrink)

In her paper, 'The Open Universe: Totality, Self-reference and Time', Ismael argues that the agent experience of dynamic time, in which the world comes into being, is more than 'mere appearance'. The key to her argument is that the actual world includes agents (minds) and their corresponding agential (mental) activity, which Ismael describes as 'the crucial step down from 'mere appearance' to actuality'. We present here a model of an agent as a complex physical system with a view to providing (...) a tenable illustration of Ismael's schema for understanding the 'actuality' of time. The radical implication for physical time as a result is that there is, in Ismael's words, 'no pure... conception of the way [the] world is independently of ourselves and our representational activity', but rather only 'embodied and engaged' knowledge of the world. (shrink)

The use of covert video surveillance in the investigation of suspected life-threatening child abuse and Munchausen syndrome by proxy raises important ethical questions. That the recently reported provision of this facility in North Staffordshire was not presented to a Local Research Ethics Committee (LREC) for approval as a research exercise raises important questions about the ethical review of research and practice. The case made for avoiding such review is first set out and then examined. The three main premisses which form (...) the basis of the view that LREC approval is not required are identified and tested in turn. The conclusion is that there is an undeniable element of research involved in the procedure and that the welfare of all those subjected to the surveillance would be best protected by the submission of the protocol to an independent committee for ethical assessment. (shrink)

There is an unspoken distinction in ethical criteria in bioethics. On the one hand, there are criteria that can be used with discretion and judgment by an individual or small group of people like a...

We give an axiomatic framework for the non-modular simple 0-categorical structures constructed by Hrushovski. This allows us to verify some of their properties in a uniform way, and to show that these properties are preserved by iterations of the construction.

Kant's short essay is a reflection on the contemporary structure of academic studies; he examines this structure in terms of the functions of the State and of the Universities which form part of it. His analysis links the empirical facts with conceptual distinctions, in ways that are familiar from his more general and abstract philosophy. His main aim is to ground a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate ways in which different Faculties of the University may approach intellectual issues that are (...) of common interest to them. I then consider to what extent and how a Kantian analysis might be applied to our contemporary University situation. Despite the societal and intellectual differences between Kant's environment and ours, I argue that significant parallels exist between the two cases and that Kant's proposals and strictures for his own time have application for us today. (shrink)

In the thousand years from the end of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance and Reformation of the Sixteenth century the discussion of the great questions of philosophy and religion was intense. Does God exist? What is he like? What is the purpose of human life and how does God show concern for the future of mankind? This is an introduction to the debates which did more than anything else to transform the ancient into the modern world of thought.