Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

In the UK, the Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) is a widely used process, designed to facilitate shared decision-making between a clinician and a patient or, if the patient lacks capacity to participate in the conversation, a person close to the patient. A key outcome of the ReSPECT process is a set of recommendations, recorded on the patient-held ReSPECT form, that reflect the conversation. In an emergency, these recommendations are intended to inform clinical decision-making, and thereby (...) enable the attending clinician—usually a general practitioner (GP) or paramedic—to act in the patient’s best interests. This study is the first to explore the extent to which ReSPECT recommendations realise their goal of informing best interests decision-making in community contexts. Using a modified framework analysis approach, we triangulate interviews with patients and their relatives, GPs and nurses and care home staff. Our findings show that inconsistent practices around recording patient wishes, diverging interpretations of the meaning and authority of recommendations and different situational contexts may affect the interpretation and enactment of ReSPECT recommendations. Enacting ReSPECT recommendations in an emergency can be fraught with complexity, particularly when attending clinicians need to interpret recommendations that did not anticipate the current emergency. This may lead to decision-making that compromises the patient’s best interests. We suggest that recording patients’ values and preferences in greater detail on ReSPECT forms may help overcome this challenge, in providing attending clinicians with richer contextual information through which to interpret treatment recommendations. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the relation between two important metaphysical notions, ‘truthmaking’ and ‘grounding’. I begin by considering various ways in which truthmaking could be explicated in terms of grounding, noting both strengths and weaknesses of these analyses. I go on to articulate a problem for any attempt to analyze truthmaking in terms of a generic and primitive notion of grounding based on differences we find among examples of grounding. Finally, I outline a more complex view of how truthmaking (...) and grounding could relate. On the view explored, truthmaking is a species of grounding differentiated from other species of grounding by the unique form of dependence it involves. (shrink)

The question of whether humans are free to make their own decisions has long been debated and it continues to be a controversial topic today. In _Free Will: The Basics_ readers are provided with a clear and accessible introduction to this central but challenging philosophical problem. The questions which are discussed include: Does free will exist? Or is it illusory? Can we be free even if everything is determined by a chain of causes? If our actions are not determined, does (...) this mean they are just random or a matter of luck? In order to have the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility, must we have alternatives? What can recent developments in science tell us about the existence of free will? Because these questions are discussed without prejudicing one view over others and all technical terminology is clearly explained, this book is an ideal introduction to free will for the uninitiated._ _. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this paper, I argue against Peter van Inwagen’s claim (in “Free Will Remains a Mystery”), that agent-causal views of free will could do nothing to solve the problem of free will (specifically, the problem of chanciness). After explaining van Inwagen’s argument, I argue that he does not consider all possible manifestations of the agent-causal position. More importantly, I claim that, in any case, van Inwagen appears to have mischaracterized the problem in some crucial ways. Once we are clear on (...) the true nature of the problem of chanciness, agent-causal views do much to eradicate it. (shrink)

A prominent way of explaining how race is socially constructed appeals to social positions and social structures. On this view, the construction of a person’s race is understood in terms of the person occupying a certain social position in a social structure. The aim of this paper is to give a metaphysically perspicuous account of this form of race construction. Analogous to functionalism about mental states, I develop an account of a ‘race structure’ in which various races (Black, White, Asian, (...) etc.) are functionally defined social positions. Individual persons occupy these social positions by ‘playing the role’ characteristic of those positions. The properties by which a person plays a race role, are the realizers for one’s race. I characterize the social construction of a person’s race in terms of a realization relation that satisfies a ‘subset’ condition on the social powers of raced persons. Races, on this view, are functionally defined, multiply realizable social kinds. The final section of the paper outlines some explanatory benefits of the account. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new approach to the theory of truthmaking. According to this approach, there are multiple forms of truthmaking. Here, I characterize and motivate a specific version of this approach, which I call a ‘Pluralist Theory of Truthmaking.’ It is suggested that truthmaking is a plural, variegated phenomenon wherein different kinds of truths, e.g., positive truths, negative truths, counterfactual truths, etc., are made true in different ways. While the paper only aims to lay the groundwork for a Pluralist (...) Theory of Truthmaking, I show how the theory can be applied to positive and negative truths. The upshot of this application is that truthmaking pluralism allows us to provide negative truths with ‘non-suspicious’ truthmakers. Finally, it is argued that Truthmaker Maximalists would do well to endorse truthmaking pluralism, as it offers a new strategy for upholding Maximalism while diminishing controversial ontological commitments. (shrink)

Much ink has been spilt over the last decade in discussion of the theories and practices of social enterprise — see especially Peattie and Morley2 for a comprehensive review of the field, including of other reviews. This brief paper is about a specific aspect of these theories and practices: the effort to establish social enterprises as distinctive from others in having at least a double bottom-line (or in some cases a triple bottom-line, or even some greater multiple of bottom-lines). The (...) effort to establish this distinction does not fit comfortably with Freeman’s ideas about stakeholders, as exemplified in his suggestion that ‘all of those groups and individuals that can affect, or are affected by, the accomplishment of the business enterprise’ should be taken into account by its managers.3 The main feature of the multiple bottom-line is, on the contrary, that only some interests, not all, should be taken into account in decision making. I do not claim that the multiple bottom-line is the sole distinctive characteristic of organisations defined (by themselves or other) as social enterprises, but it is the only characteristic that concerns me in relation to stakeholder theory in this paper. I also do not claim that stakeholder theory consists only of a view about who should be taken into account by managers, but this is the only element of stakeholder theory that concerns me, in this paper, in relation to social enterprises; and all other aspects of social enterprise theory and practice, and all other aspects of stakeholder theory, will have to wait until another day. (shrink)

Identifying plausible truthmakers for negative truths has been a serious and perennial problem for truthmaker theory. I argue here that negative truths are indeed made true but not in the way that positive truths are. I rely on a distinction between “existence-independence” and “variation-independence” drawn by Hoffman and Horvath to characterize the unique form of dependence negative truths exhibit on reality. The notion of variation-independence is then used to motivate a principle of truthmaking for contingent negative truths.

This paper defends a new version of truthmaker non-maximalism. The central feature of the view is the notion of a default truth-value. I offer a novel explanation for default truth-values and use it to motivate a general approach to the relation between truth-value and ontology, which I call truth-value-maker theory. According to this view, some propositions are false unless made true, whereas others are true unless made false. A consequence of the theory is that negative existential truths need no truthmakers (...) and that positive existential falsehoods need no falsemakers. (shrink)

This article considers three recent attempts by David Armstrong, Ross Cameron, and Jonathan Schaffer to provide truthmakers for negative existential truths. It is argued that none of the proposed truthmakers are up to the task of making any negative existential truth true and, it will turn out, for the same reason.

In this commentary piece, I argue that Asay’s accounts of truth and truthmaking in A Theory of Truthmaking give no role to the idea that truth depends on being. In fact, some of the positions taken in the book are in tension with this idea that has been central to truthmaker theory. I consider how three aspects of Asay’s account relate to the idea that truth depends on being.

Ásta’s Categories We Live By is a superb addition to the literature on social metaphysics. In it she offers a powerful framework for understanding the creation and maintenance of social categories. In this commentary piece, I want to draw attention to Ásta’s reliance on explanatory individualism – the view that the social world is best explained by the actions and attitudes of individuals. I argue that this reliance makes it difficult for Ásta to explain how many social categories are maintained (...) and why certain categories are reliably available to us and so resistant to change. These explanatory deficiencies could be overcome, I argue, by eschewing explanatory individualism and positing social structures to figure in structural explanations of the maintenance and availability of social categories. (shrink)

Intertwined with the celebration of Athenian democratic institutions, we find in the "Oresteia" another chain of interactions, in which the elite families of Argos, Phokis, Athens, and even Mount Olympos employ the traditional aristocratic relationships of xenia and hetaireia to renegotiate their own status within-and at the pinnacle of-the civic order, and thereby guarantee the renewed prosperity of their respective communities. The capture of Troy is the result of a joint venture by the Atreidai and the Olympian "family" . Although (...) Agamemnon falls victim to his own mishandling of aristocratic privilege, his son is raised by doryxenoi in Phokis , a relationship which is mirrored by that with the Olympian "allies," Hermes and Apollo. Orestes' recovery of his father's position is thus shown to depend upon a network of "guest-friends" and "sworn-comrades," reinforced by the traditional language of oaths and reciprocal loyalty. In the Eumenides, the alliance between the Olympian and Argive royal families is re-invoked as the basis both for Athena's protection of Orestes, and finally for Zeus' concern for his daughter's Athenian dependents. In contrast to this successful "networking," and the resultant benefits that trickle down to the citizens of Argos and Athens, stand the seditious oaths and perverted "comradeship" of Aigisthos and Klytaimestra; likewise, the Erinyes are unable to draw on equivalent claims of pedigree or xenia to those enjoyed by Orestes and Apollo. Like all Greek tragedies, the "Oresteia" presents the action through constantly shifting viewpoints, those of aristocrats and commoners, leaders and led, while the propriety of this hierarchy itself is never questioned. And although the action moves from monarchical Argos to an incipiently democratic Athens, paradoxically we hear less and less about "ordinary," lower-class citizens as the trilogy progresses. Thus, at the same time that the trilogy reinforces the sense of collective survival and civic values , it also suggests that these can be maintained only through the proper interventions of their traditional leaders. Aeschylus' plays were composed during a time when the Athenian democracy was still developing, and elite leadership and patronage were still taken for granted. Attic tragedy and the City Dionysia may be seen as a site of negotiation between rival ideologies within the polis, wherein a kind of "solidarity without consensus" is achieved. Written and staged by the elite under license from the demos, the dramas play out dangerous stories of royal risk-taking, crime, glory, and suffering, in such a way as to reassure the citizen audience simultaneously of their own collective invulnerability, and of the unique value of their leading families. (shrink)

What role do fables play in Cartesian method and psychology? By looking at Descartes’ use of fables, James Griffith suggests there is a fabular logic that runs to the heart of Descartes’ philosophy. First focusing on The World and the Discourse on Method, this volume shows that by writing in fable form, Descartes allowed his readers to break from Scholastic methods of philosophizing. With this fable-structure or -logic in mind, the book reexamines the relationship between analysis, synthesis, and inexact (...) sciences; between metaphysics and ethico-political life; and between the imagination, the will, and the passions. (shrink)

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that aims to give a theoretical account of what there is and what it is like. Social justice movements seek to bring about justice in a society by changing policy, law, practice, and culture. Evidently, these activities are very different from one another. The goal of this article is to identify some positive connections between recent work in metaphysics and social justice movements. I outline three ways in which metaphysical work on social reality can (...) make a contribution to movements seeking social justice, viz., (1) by providing basic categories and concepts useful for clarifying and defending claims made by social justice movements; (2) by offering accounts of the natures of social categories, structures, and institutions that these movements seek to change; and (3) by contributing to “unmasking” or “debunking” projects that reveal putatively natural arrange- ments to be social in nature and hence subject to moral critique, alteration, and possibly eradication. (shrink)

The most important contribution which professional philosophers could make to the debate concerning abortion would be to produce a detailed conceptual analysis of the sorts of situations in which abortion is typically contemplated and/or performed and a set of moral considerations and/or principles which would be applicable to any such case. I argue that the sorts of hypothetical cases and fanciful analogies typically used by philosophers in their discussions of abortion can be either appropriate or inappropriate for this purpose, and (...) attempt to illustrate this difference by considering several possible interpretations of some of the scenarios diacussed in J.J. Thomson’s classic paper “A Defense of Abortion” together with some of my own. (shrink)

While not ignored, the question of the role of mothers in the schema of political rule in Hobbes is not often taken up. Distinct from his contemporaries, Hobbes acknowledges only minimal differences between men and women, and argues that, because maternal protection and nourishment are necessary for its survival, the mother dominates the infant in the state of nature. How to explain that the mother loses this power of domination in the social or political order? Hobbes does not explicitly say. (...) However, some possibilities can be extracted from his texts. -/- Here, I will attempt to explain the loss of maternal power by examining Hobbes's discourse on the different modes of dominion and political rule in "De Cive" and "Leviathan." I will concentrate on their differences, drawing from Yves Charles Zarka's reading of them. Then I will approach the question of the mother and her position in the hierarchy of servitude in each of these texts, appealing to Carole Pateman's analyses as well as Zarka's. Finally, I will present what role the mother's dominion over her children plays in Hobbes's schema. (shrink)

Managing grand challenges demands a relational leader who encourages collaboration, coordination, and trust with various stakeholders. Although leaders appear to play a critical role in addressing grand challenges, relatively little research exists about the factors that inform stakeholder perceptions of leaders during a grand challenge. To address this limitation, we integrate implicit leadership theory and gender role theory to consider stakeholders’ gender prescriptive expectations when evaluating leader effectiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. We theorize that stakeholders advantage female leaders based on (...) mental schemas of what is required in a pandemic—relational leadership—and stakeholders’ prescriptive expectations of female leaders as more relational. Using a laboratory experiment, we find that female leaders are perceived as more relational, and hence, more effective than their male counterparts. Our findings advance scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of strategic leadership, stakeholder management, and grand challenges. (shrink)

The ethical considerations of insider trading have been widely debated in the academic literature :171–182, 1990). In 2013, the STOCK Act, which was initially passed to mitigate insider trading by government officials, was quickly and unexpectedly amended to allow certain government employees to withhold their financial information. To identify and quantify the potential costs placed on investors by non-corporate insider traders, we use the unusual circumstances surrounding this amendment. For a sample of stocks most held by members of Congress, we (...) find that, relative to control stocks, liquidity significantly worsens and volatility increases during the post-amendment period. Our results highlight the costs that are incurred by investors in the presence of non-corporate insider trading. These findings call for a stronger development of an ethical framework that justifies the restriction of all types of insider trading. (shrink)

A superb example of the bookmaker's and translator's art, this new edition of Plato's "Symposium" exhibits aesthetic, literary, and intellectual excellences rarely found together in a single volume.Tom Griffith's translation of this foundation work of Western culture is unsurpassed for the balance it achieves between readability and fidelity to Plato's Greek. For felicity of phrasing, freshness, care to match the sense of the Greek rather than its wording, and for its idiomatic rendering of the spoken word, it has no (...) peer.Originally published in a limited edition with facing Greek and color wood engravings, Griffith's translation is here presented in reduced format that retains the aesthetic quality of the original version at an affordable price. (shrink)

Erratum to: Synthese 192:317–335 DOI 10.1007/s11229-014-0570-7The second sentence on page 317 reads “The challenge is that, prima facie, it is hard to see how a negative truth, e.g., \ of something could be made true by the existence of some entity”.This sentence should read “The challenge is that, prima facie, it is hard to see how a negative truth, e.g., \ that is concerned with the non-existence of something could be made true by the existence of some entity”.

This is an entry on Jean-Luc Nancy's understanding of certain important Cartesian concepts, such as the cogito.

This is the Introduction to a collected volume.

El artículo tiene como objetivo identificar y analizar los conocimientos que poseen las Educadoras de Párvulos que ejercen su labor en Nivel Transición II (Kínder), referido a Formación Ciudadana y como estos conocimientos posteriormente, se transforman en estrategias pedagógicas que son implementadas dentro del aula.La recogida de datos se realizó por medio de dos instrumentos, un cuestionario cualitativo y una entrevista semiestructurada, los resultados obtenidos permitieron evidenciar el nivel de conocimiento que poseen las Educadoras de Párvulos frente a la Formación (...) Ciudadana, además de conocer las estrategias pedagógicas que utilizan en las aulas con los párvulos de NT2. (shrink)

This valuable book will give educators solution-based methods and research-based resources to improve classroom culture, as well as enabling schools to elevate students' engagement and academic achievement.

This is a review of Marie-Eve Morin's translation of Jean-Luc Nancy's "Ego Sum.".

This study highlights an innovative educational project entitled ‘Dynamic Teaching through Communication Skills’ as well as forming part of joint initiative for Erasmus + Communities and Students Together (CaST) 2019-1-UK01-KA203-061463. The pilot study shows that there are many ways to approach teaching across the disciplines with Engaged Learning. The proposal includes discussions on the practical methodologyof integrated content and language in higher education. While bringing real worldproblem solving into the Health Engineering degree, the chapter underscores aspects of persuasion and pitch (...) development within the paradigm of English as a LinguaFranca. (shrink)

This article reveals three aspects of victimhood in Bataille’s reading of Sade (of the other, of the self, and Sade’s language) and relates them to some of Bataille’s metaphysical and political notions: the impossible, the general and the restricted economy, sovereignty, and transgression. Doing so shows a progressive simplification of possibilities for transgression from the pre-Christian world to that of popular sovereignty, i.e., the sovereignty of the crowd, the latter leaving open one avenue for transgression: Sadean victimhood. The article then (...) applies these aspects to the pamphlet in Sade’s Philosophy in the Boudoir, “Frenchmen, Some More Effort If You Wish to Become Republicans,” in relation to a contemporaneous document of popular sovereignty, the preamble to the Constitution of the Year III, titled “Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen.” Attending to the aspects of Sadean victimhood in “Effort” shows that its system’s very impossibility makes it the Declaration’s logical completion. Finally, that impossibility is revealed as the sovereignty of the masses, distinct from that of the crowd. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo examine health and social care professionals’ understanding of the legislation governing research involving adults lacking mental capacity in England and Wales.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted using a series of vignettes. Participants were asked to select the legally authorised decision-maker in each scenario and provide supporting reasons. Responses were compared with existing legal frameworks and analysed according to their level of concordance.ResultsOne hundred and twenty-seven professionals participated. Levels of discordance between responses and the legal frameworks were high across all (...) five scenarios. Nearly half of the participants provided responses that were discordant in all scenarios. Only two participants provided concordant responses across all five scenarios.DiscussionParticipants demonstrated a lack of knowledge about the legal frameworks, the locus of authority and the legal basis for decision-making. The findings raise concern about the accessibility of research for those who lack capacity, the ability to conduct research involving such groups and the impact on the evidence base for their care.ConclusionThis is the first study to examine health and social care professionals’ knowledge and understanding of the dual legal frameworks in the UK. Health and social care professionals’ understanding and attitudes towards research involving adults with incapacity may warrant further in-depth exploration. The findings from this survey suggest that greater training and education is required. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo examinar algunas ideas contemporáneas sobre el método científico inscritas en la corriente de pensamiento denominada "Racionalismo Crítico". En este sentido, destacan los planteamientos propuestos por Karl Popper, máximo representante de esta tesis; así como ..