Healthcare workers are often assumed to have a duty to work, even if faced with personal risk. This is particularly so for professionals. However, the health service also depends on non-professionals, such as porters, cooks and cleaners. The duty to work is currently under scrutiny because of the ongoing challenge of responding to pandemic influenza, where an effective response depends on most uninfected HCWs continuing to work, despite personal risk. This paper reports findings of a survey of HCWs conducted across (...) three National Health Service trusts in the West Midlands, UK, to establish whether HCWs’ likelihood of working during a pandemic is associated with views about the duty to work. The sense that HCWs felt that they had a duty to work despite personal risk emerged strongly regardless of professional status. Besides a strong sense that everyone should pull together, all kinds of HCWs recognised a duty to work even in difficult circumstances, which correlated strongly with their stated likelihood of working. This suggests that HCWs’ decisions about whether or not they are prepared to work during a pandemic are closely linked to their sense of duty. However, respondents’ sense of the duty to work may conflict with their sense of duty to family, as well as other factors such as a perceived lack of reciprocity from their employers. Interestingly, nearly 25% of doctors did not consider that they had a duty to work where doing so would pose risks to themselves or their families. (shrink)

The papers presented in this special collection focus upon conceptual, the oretical and epistemological aspects of sociobiology, an emerging discipline that deals with the extent to which genetic factors influence or control patterns of behavior as well as the extent to which patterns of behavior, in turn, influence or control genetic evolution. The Prologue advances a compre hensive acco/unt of the field of gene-culture co-evolution, where Lumsden and Gushurst differentiate between "classical" sociobiology (represented especially by Wilson's early work) and (...) current research on human socio biology (represented by Lumsden and Wilson's later work), which emphasizes interplay between genes, minds, and culture. The specter of genetic deter minism, no doubt, has created considerable controversy, some of which may be laid to rest by Hanna's analysis of the (ambiguous) notion of a "genetic program", which indicates the necessity for distinguishing between descriptive and prescriptive dimensions of this complex concept. Brandon offers a framework for assessing the respective contributions of nature and of nurture by advancing a means for measuring genetic and cultural influences upon "inheritance", which supports the conclusion that evolving patterns of behavior do not always maximize inclusive fitness, contrary to what socio biologists have claimed. The influence of culture upon genetic evolution, of course, can be adequately appraised only when a suitable account of culture itself has been found, a desideratum Smillie attempts to satisfy by utilizing the notion of "cinfo" as culturally transmitted ecological informa tion, a resource other species tend not to exploit. (shrink)

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.

The sequencing of the human genome and decreasing costs of sequencing technology have led to the notion of ‘personalized medicine’. This has been taken by some authors to indicate that personalized medicine will provide individualized treatments solely based on one’s DNA sequence. We argue this is overly optimistic and misconstrues the notion of personalization. Such interpretations fail to account for economic, policy and structural constraints on the delivery of healthcare. Furthermore, notions of individualization based on genomic data potentially take us (...) down the road of genetic reductionism obscuring the role of environmental factors in disease and ill health. We propose that one should see personalized medicine as a way of using personal genomic information to stratify individuals into subpopulations and suggest that personalized medicine be seen within a broader idea of personalized healthcare, reflecting healthcare that integrates personal genomic data into cultural, environmental and personal contexts. (shrink)

The protection of rare species abounds with scientific and ethical considerations. An ethical dilemma can emerge when the life of one species is valued higher than that of another, and so we discuss the basis of ranking, protection, and valuation of plants and animals. A duty to protect rare species exists in this age of great losses to plant and animal life, but the scientific and public communities are not always in agreement regarding what species deserve protection. Using a case (...) study, we illustrate how the decision to kill beavers to protect a rare plant and rare animals found in a tidewater creek demanded an ecological ethic approach. We present the concept of a" conservation mediator" and how its use may help find a common ground between stakeholders and decision-makers in similar situations. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

Physical activity and sedentary behaviour have been linked to the mental health of children and adolescents, yet the timing of behaviours may play a role in this relationship and clarifying this could inform interventions. We explored cross-sectional associations of PA and SED in varying time segments throughout the school day with the mental health of school-aged children and adolescents from rural Northeastern Ontario, Canada. A total of 161 students wore accelerometers for 8 days and completed a self-report survey. Mental health (...) was measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Accelerometer-measured SED, light PA, and moderate and vigorous PA were estimated in the time-segments before school, school time, after school, and evenings. Associations were tested with multilevel linear regressions while adjusting for confounding factors. Students spent 72.6 min in MVPA, 209.0 min in LPA, and 621.0 min in SED per day. Daily SED was associated with less conduct problems. Evening LPA was inversely associated with hyperactivity, while SED was associated with hyperactivity and with peer problems before school, and during school. No associations were observed for MVPA, emotional symptoms, or prosocial behaviour. In conclusion, displacing SED with LPA in some specific periods of the day may benefit the mental health of students; taking this into account could strengthen interventions. (shrink)

AimThe neurocognitive basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder remains an issue of continued debate. This combined systematic review and meta-analysis provides a synthesis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of DCD.MethodsThe review included all published work conducted since September 2016 and up to April 2021. One-hundred papers with a DCD-Control comparison were included, with 1,374 effect sizes entered into a multi-level meta-analysis.ResultsThe most profound deficits were shown in: voluntary gaze control during movement; cognitive-motor integration; practice-/context-dependent (...) motor learning; internal modeling; more variable movement kinematics/kinetics; larger safety margins when locomoting, and atypical neural structure and function across sensori-motor and prefrontal regions.InterpretationTaken together, these results on DCD suggest fundamental deficits in visual-motor mapping and cognitive-motor integration, and abnormal maturation of motor networks, but also areas of pragmatic compensation for motor control deficits. Implications for current theory, future research, and evidence-based practice are discussed.Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO, identifier: CRD42020185444. (shrink)

In a recent article, C. H. Kahn addresses an ‘old scholarly myth’, namely the idea that Book I of the Republic began life as an earlier, independent dialogue and was subsequently adapted to serve as a prelude to the much longer work that we know. The case for this hypothesis rests both on stylometric considerations and on the many ‘Socratic’ features that Book I, unlike the rest of the Republic, shares with Plato's earlier works. Having disposed of the positive arguments (...) in favour of the ‘myth’, Kahn turns to the contrary—and in his view overwhelming—evidence that Book I was composed from the start as an integral part of the longer Republic. He catalogues 12 passages in Book I, accounting for roughly half its length, whose full significance will, he argues, only emerge if they are seen as instances of prolepsis, deliberate anticipations of what is to come in later books. (shrink)

Aristotle and the sea battle, by G. E. M. Anscombe.--Aristotle's different possibilities, by K. J. J. Hintikka.--On Aristotle's square of opposition, by M. Thompson.--Categories in Aristotle and in Kant, by J. C. Wilson.--Aristotle's Categories, chapters I-V: translation and notes, by J. L. Ackrill--Aristotle's theory of categories, by J. M. E. Moravcsik.--Essence and accident, by I. M. Copi.--Tithenai ta phainomena, by G. E. L. Owen.--Matter and predication in Aristotle, by J. Owens.--Problems in Metaphysics Z, chapter 13, by M. J. Woods.--The (...) meaning of agathon in the Ethics of Aristotle, by H. A. Prichard.--Agathon and eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle, by J. L. Austin.--The final good in Aristotle's Ethics, by W. F. R. Hardie.--Aristotle on pleasure, by J. O. Urmson.--Bibliography (p. 335-41). (shrink)

This book reassesses the contribution to international thought of some of the most important thinkers of the inter-war period. It takes as its starting point E.H. Carr's famous critique which, more than any other work, established the reputation of the period as the "utopian" or "idealist" phase of international relations theorizing. This characterization of inter-war thought is scrutinized through ten detailed studies of such writers as Norman Angell, J.A. Hobson, J.M. Keynes, David Mitrany, and Alfred Zimmern. The studies demonstrate the (...) diversity of perspectives within so-called "idealism" and call into question the descriptive and analytical value of the entire notion. It is concluded that "idealism" is an overly general term, useful for scoring debating points rather than providing a helpful category for analysis. (shrink)

Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in the "International Library of Psychology" series is available upon request.