This article explores the discourse-conceptual linkages between ‘Brexit’ and ‘crisis’ in European news media reporting about the UK referendum on leaving the European Union of 23 June 2016. The study examines media discourse about the Brexit vote in Austria, Germany, Poland and Sweden at the transformative moment in between the pre/after vote period. The conceptually-oriented critical discourse analysis shows how Brexit was not only constructed as an imaginary or a future crisis but also how its mediated visions were made real (...) by recontextualising elements of various past social/political/economic crises. As is shown, such a strategy of discursively amalgamating the real and the imaginary, as well as the experienced/past and the expected/future, often allowed constructing Brexit as one of the most significant, critical occurrences of post-War Europe. Through the analysis, the article aims to show how wide and diverse the importance of ‘Brexit as crisis’ has been for European news media discourse. It also emphasises that while in the UK itself – including huge part of the UK traditional media – the critical nature of Brexit was often strategically downplayed, the wider European discourse would see it as a multifaceted ‘crisis’ of huge significance to both the present and the future of the EU, wider Europe and the world. (shrink)

According to what we call the Principle of Procreative Beneficence, couples who decide to have a child have a significant moral reason to select the child who, given his or her genetic endowment, can be expected to enjoy the most well-being. In the first part of this paper, we introduce PB, explain its content, grounds, and implications, and defend it against various objections. In the second part, we argue that PB is superior to competing principles of procreative selection such as (...) that of procreative autonomy. In the third part of the paper, we consider the relation between PB and disability. We develop a revisionary account of disability, in which disability is a species of instrumental badness that is context- and person-relative. Although PB instructs us to aim to reduce disability in future children whenever possible, it does not privilege the normal. What matters is not whether future children meet certain biological or statistical norms, but what level of well-being they can be expected to have. (shrink)

In an autobiographical account the author, born in 1922, describes his childhood and school years in Lublin, then briefly presents the experiences of his generation during the German occupation, devoting more space to the period 1944–1947 he spent in Soviet camps deported as a soldier of AK (Home Army).Upon his return to Poland he embarked upon professional work in publishing industry and academic study. He left Poland in 1959 resuming a teaching career at several of American universities, and publishing a (...) significant number of studies and novels. He considers freedom to be the key to his success. (shrink)

This article aims to present polemical exchanges over capital punishment that were conducted in interwar Poland. By using the analytical method and the source texts found in the press and the minutes of the Codification Committee, the author wants to trace the evolution of views on the death penalty and its usefulness in the state policy. The opinions on the subject differed considerably which was common not only for the interwar period. Back in the 19th century, when the first statements (...) on capital punishment had been published in newspapers, they had ended with completely different conclusions. Advocates for the abolition of the death penalty had emphasized first of all its ineffectiveness as well as the doubts of a religious and moral nature, which had led to a conclusion that the state could not take away a person’s life. Whereas supporters of the death penalty had believed that, in view of the low level of civilisation development of individual communities, giving up the possibility to impose the death sentence could have contributed to an uncontrolled rise in crime rates. They had also emphasized that public opinion demanded the retaining of capital punishment and acting against it would have resulted in various manifestations of public unrest. The death penalty had not been abolished in Poland during the interwar period but the exchange of arguments during those years had laid the foundations for the future changes in that area. They occurred at the end of the 20th century. (shrink)

The events occurring in Poland in 1944 are discussed here as the story of Home Army [AK] unfolds in its dramatic developments taking place during that year. Starting with south-eastern provinces the gradual Soviet incursion moved toward the north-east, and eventually to central Poland, everywhere affecting the actions of AK aimed at liberation of Poland. The ensuing conflict culminated in the Warsaw Uprising in August and September when the Soviets refused to help AK in order to promote their own choice (...) for Poland’s government. The author participated in many of the events presented, thus being able to recall them as an eyewitness. (shrink)

Advocates of paid living kidney donation frequently argue that kidney sellers would benefit from paid donation under a properly regulated kidney market. The poor outcomes experienced by participants in existing markets are often entirely attributed to harmful black-market practices. This article reviews the medical and anthropological literature on the physical, psychological, social, and financial harms experienced by vendors under Iran's regulated system of donor compensation and black markets throughout the world and argues that this body of research not only documents (...) significant harms to vendors, but also provides reasons to believe that such harms would persist under a regulated system. This does not settle the question of whether or not a regulated market should be introduced, but it does strengthen the case against markets in kidneys while suggesting that those advocating such a system cannot appeal to the purported benefits to vendors to support their case. (shrink)

Behavioral intervention techniques leveraging reactive responses have gained popularity as tools for promoting ethical behavior. Choice architects, for example, design and present default opt-out options to nudge individuals into accepting preselected choices deemed beneficial to both the decision-maker and society. Such interventions can also employ mild financial incentives or affective triggers including joy, fear, empathy, social pressure, and reputational rewards. We argue, however, that ethical competence is achieved via reflection, and that heavy reliance on reactive behavioral interventions can undermine the (...) development of ethical competence over the long term. Specifically, drawbacks may occur through motivational displacement, dependency, moral crowding out, loss of personal autonomy, and reactance. We introduce complementary cognitive boosting techniques designed to stimulate reflective cognition, as a more promising long-term strategy for instilling ethical behavior. One such approach is the Moral Self-Awareness (MSA) motivational construct, which incrementally leads agents to increasing levels of ethical reflection. We explain why ethical boosting approaches present more edifying and durable alternatives to reactive behavioral interventions and offer suggestions for social and organizational policy. (shrink)

I contend that mathematical domains are freestanding institutional entities that, at least typically, are introduced to serve representational functions. In this paper, I outline an account of institutional reality and a supporting metaontological perspective that clarify the content of this thesis. I also argue that a philosophy of mathematics that has this thesis as its central tenet can account for the objectivity, necessity, and atemporality of mathematics.

All univocal analyses of causation face counterexamples. An attractive response to this situation is to become a pluralist about causal relationships. "Causal pluralism" is itself, however, a pluralistic notion. In this article, I argue in favor of pluralism about concepts of cause in the social sciences. The article will show that evidence for, inference from, and the purpose of causal claims are very closely linked. Key Words: causation • pluralism • evidence • methodology.

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for explaining the subjective character of pain experience in terms of what we will call ‘embodied predictive processing’. The predictive processing (PP) theory is a family of views that take perception, action, emotion and cognition to all work together in the service of prediction error minimisation. In this paper we propose an embodied perspective on the PP theory we call the ‘embodied predictive processing (EPP) theory. The EPP theory proposes to explain pain (...) in terms of processes distributed across the whole body. The prediction error minimising system that generates pain experience comprises the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic system in continuous causal interaction with pathways spread across the whole neural axis. We will argue that these systems function in a coordinated and coherent manner as a single complex adaptive system to maintain homeostasis. This system, which we refer to as the neural-endocrine-immune (NEI) system, maintains homeostasis through the process of prediction error minimisation. We go on to propose a view of the NEI ensemble as a multiscale nesting of Markov blankets that integrates the smallest scale of the cell to the largest scale of the embodied person in pain. We set out to show how the EPP theory can make sense of how pain experience could be neurobiologically constituted. We take it to be a constraint on the adequacy of a scientific explanation of subjectivity of pain experience that it makes it intelligible how pain can simultaneously be a local sensing of the body, and, at the same time, a more global, all-encompassing attitude towards the environment. Our aim in what follows is to show how the EPP theory can meet this constraint. (shrink)

The psychedelic psilocybin has shown promise both as treatment for psychiatric conditions and as a means of improving well-being in healthy individuals. In some jurisdictions (e.g., Oregon, USA), psilocybin use for both purposes is or will soon be allowed and yet, public attitudes toward this shift are understudied. We asked a nationally representative sample of 795 US Americans to evaluate the moral status of psilocybin use in an appropriately licensed setting for either treatment of a psychiatric condition or well-being enhancement. (...) Showing strong bipartisan support, participants rated the individual’s decision as morally positive in both contexts. These results can inform effective policy-making decisions around supervised psilocybin use, given robust public attitudes as elicited in the context of an innovative regulatory model. We did not explore attitudes to psilocybin use in unsupervised or non-licensed community or social settings. (shrink)

The requirements of rationality are fundamental in practical and theoretical philosophy. Nonetheless, there exists no correct account of what constitutes rational requirements. This paper attempts to provide a correct constitutive account of ‘rationality requires’. I argue that rational requirements are grounded in ‘necessary explanations of subjective incoherence’, as I shall put it. Rationality requires of you to X if and only if your rational capacities, in conjunction with the fact that you not-X, explain necessarily why you have a non-maximal degree (...) of subjective coherence. (shrink)

One way to make philosophy of science more socially relevant is to attend to specific scientific practises that affect society to a great extent. One such practise is biomedical research. This paper looks at contemporary U.S. biomedical research in particular and argues that it suffers from important epistemic, moral and socioeconomic failings. It then discusses and criticises existing approaches to improve on the status quo, most prominently by Thomas Pogge (a political philosopher), Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel-prize winning economist) and James (...) Robert Brown (a philosopher of science). Finally, it sketches an alternative proposal and argues for its superiority. The proposal has four components: changing the intellectual property regime; instituting independent clinical research; aligning innovators' and patients' interests; and enacting additional regulation. (shrink)

Stephen Read presented harmonious inference rules for identity in classical predicate logic. I demonstrate here how this approach can be generalised to a setting where predicate logic has been extended with epistemic modals. In such a setting, identity has two uses. A rigid one, where the identity of two referents is preserved under epistemic possibility, and a non-rigid one where two identical referents may differ under epistemic modality. I give rules for both uses. Formally, I extend Quantified Epistemic Multilateral Logic (...) with two identity signs. I argue that a uniform meaning for identity tout court can be given by adopting Maria Aloni’s account of reference using conceptual covers. We obtain a harmonious set of rules for identity that is sound and complete for Aloni’s model theory. (shrink)

In her excellent and comprehensive article, Friesen argues that utilising personal responsibility in healthcare is problematic in several ways: it is difficult to ascribe responsibility to behaviour; there is a risk of prejudice and bias in deciding which behaviours a person should be held responsible for; it may be ineffective at reducing health costs. In this short commentary, I will elaborate the critique of personal responsibility in health but suggest one way in which it could be used ethically. In doing (...) so, I will introduce the concepts of reasonable risk and golden opportunity. I previously argued that it is both difficult to disentangle responsibility and that we risk prejudice and bias in singling out behaviours that are socially disapproved of.1 So I am sympathetic to Friesen’s concerns. I also discussed another way in which ascribing personal responsibility for health is problematic which Friesen does not discuss and which, in my view, is the most concerning and further supports her arguments. It represents a back door assault on liberalism and neutrality towards concepts of the good life. Even if one were to accurately and in an unbiased way divine the personal contribution to disease, the greatest problem would remain: those who voluntarily take on risk would be penalised. That is, such a system would be risk-averse. Those lives which avoided risk would be prioritised, while those who chose to take on risky activities in their conception of the good life would be penalised. Yet risk is necessary, both for the good life, and social progress. Columbus, Edmund Hilary, Florence Nightingale, Ernest Hemingway and countless monumental figures in human history took risks in order to achieve something great. Should we aim for a society of trembling, teetotalling health nuts? Surely that prospect is horrific. It is horrific because it elevates health …. (shrink)

Stereotypes of social construction suggest that the existence of social constructs is accidental and that such constructs have arbitrary and subjective features. In this paper, I explore a conception of social construction according to which it consists in the collective imposition of function onto reality and show that, according to this conception, these stereotypes are incorrect. In particular, I argue that the collective imposition of function onto reality is typically non-accidental and that the products of such imposition frequently have non-arbitrary (...) and objective features. These conclusions are interesting in and of themselves since they debunk important aspects of our socially constructed conception of social construction. Yet, additionally, they have important implications for the viability of mathematical social constructivism since resistance to such constructivism is frequently grounded in the observation that mathematics is non-accidental, non-arbitrary, and objective. As a secondary focus, I explore these implications in this paper. (shrink)

Our emotional lives are full of temporal asymmetries. Salient among these is that we tend to feel differently about painful or unpleasant events depending on their temporal location: we feel anxiety or trepidation about painful events we anticipate in the future, and relief when they are over. One question, then, is whether temporally asymmetric emotions such as relief have any ramifications for the metaphysics of time. On what has become the standard way of finessing this question, the asymmetry of relief (...) is an instance of the phenomenon of future-bias, a tendency to prefer painful events to be located in the past than in the future. The main question then posed is whether this pattern of preferences can be justified in the light of different metaphysical theories of time. In this paper I argue that this whole dialectic is misconceived. While many people may have future-biased preferences and these are a legitimate object of psychological study, this should be distinguished from the more basic phenomenon of relief that an unpleasant experience is over. Acknowledging the distinctness of these phenomena has two main consequences. First, if relief is not a manifestation of a time-biased preference, it is unclear what it would be for it to be justified or unjustified. This, in turn, should lead us to reassess how the psychology of relief bears on our metaphysical commitments. As I shall suggest, the real significance of the temporally asymmetric emotions for the metaphysics of time is that they manifest, and so reflection on them serves to draw our attention to, a structural feature of our awareness of the passage of time that resists re-articulation in other terms. (shrink)

Should people be assisted to die or be given euthanasia when they are suffering from terminal medical conditions? Should they be assisted to die when they are suffering but do not have a ‘diagnosable medical illness?’ What about assisted dying for psychiatric conditions? And is there a difference morally between assisted suicide, voluntary active euthanasia and voluntary passive euthanasia?These are deep questions directly addressed or in the background of the productive discussion between Varelius and Young.1 ,2 Their focus is whether (...) doctors should assist people to die who are ‘tired of life’ and experiencing ‘existential suffering’. An example was Edward Brongersma, an 86-year-old man, who was tired of life but with no serious medical condition, who was assisted by Dr Philip Sutorius to commit suicide in 1998. In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that this was wrong because "edical expertise, by its nature, does not extend to questions and complaints that do not have a sick- ness or ailment—mental or physical—as their source.3"Sutorius was convicted, but not punished.Robert Young, considering this case, concurs, concluding, "a physician may justifiably consider that an individual who is ‘tired of life’ should consult a non-medical, professional counsellor, and if that produces no change in outlook, choose suicide. Outside Switzerland, an individual who makes that choice has to then be determined enough to do so unassisted .2"I will argue that there is, within current medical ethics and human rights, a method of assisted suicide which could fall within the limits of the law. But first I will review some recent cases involving requests for dying. I will then discuss an alternative which some may argue addresses these cases, and those of …. (shrink)

The recent tragic and widely publicised death of Jesse Gelsinger in a gene therapy trial has many important lessons for those engaged in the ethical review of research. One of the most important lessons is that ethics committees can give too much weight to ensuring informed consent and not enough attention to minimising the harm associated with participation in research. The first responsibility of ethics committees should be to ensure that the expected harm associated with participation is reasonable. Jesse was (...) an 18-year-old man with a mild form of ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency, a disorder of nitrogen metabolism. His form of the disease could be controlled by diet and drug treatment. On September 13 1999 a team of researchers lead by James Wilson at the University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Human Gene Therapy (IHGT) injected 3.8 X 1013 adenovirus vector particles containing a gene to correct the genetic defect. He was the eighteenth and final patient in the trial. The virus particles were injected directly into the liver. He received the largest number of virus particles in a gene therapy trial.1 Four days later he was dead from what was probably an immune reaction to the virus vector. This was the first death directly attributed to gene therapy. It resulted in worldwide publicity, an independent investigation, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) suspending all trials at the IHGT, an FDA, and a senate subcommittee investigation. At a special public meeting at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in December 1999, James Wilson, also the director of the IHGT, said they still did not understand fully what had gone wrong.2 Even though a massive dose had been used, only 1% of transferred genes reached the target cells. (None of the patients in the trial showed significant gene expression. Art …. (shrink)

There is substantial disagreement among philosophers of embodied cognitive science about the meaning of embodiment. In what follows, I describe three different views that can be found in the current literature. I show how this debate centers around the question of whether the science of embodied cognition can retain the computer theory of mind. One view, which I will label body functionalism, takes the body to play the functional role of linking external resources for problem solving with internal biological machinery. (...) Embodiment is thus understood in terms of the role the body plays in supporting the computational circuits that realize cognition. Body enactivism argues by contrast that no computational account of cognition can account for the role of commonsense knowledge in our everyday practical engagement with the world. I will attempt a reconciliation of these seemingly opposed views. (shrink)

Mary Shelley’sFrankensteinhas captured the public imagination ever since it was first published over 200 years ago. While the narrative reflected 19th-century anxieties about the emerging scientific revolution, it also suggested some clear moral lessons that remain relevant today. In a sense,Frankensteinwas a work of bioethics written a century and a half before the discipline came to exist. This paper revisits the lessons ofFrankensteinregarding the creation and manipulation of life in the light of recent developments in stem cell and neurobiological research. (...) It argues that these lessons are becoming more relevant than ever. (shrink)

This essay criticizes the current approach to epistemic democracy. Epistemic democrats are preoccupied with the question of how a society can best exploit a given stock of knowledge. This article argues that the problem-solving capability of a society depends on two factors rather than one. The quality of decision-making depends both on how a democracy is able to make use of its stock of knowledge and on the size of the knowledge stock. Society’s problem-solving capability over time is therefore a (...) function of its ability to develop its knowledge exploitation mechanisms and the growth rate of its knowledge stock. Based on this enhanced model of social problem-solving, this essay compares two different political ideal types: experimental democracy, as commonly defended by epistemic democrats; and polycentric democracy, a model defended most commonly by political economists. (shrink)

In January 2012, the Journal of Medical Ethics published online Giubilini and Minerva's paper, ‘After-birth abortion. Why should the baby live?’.1 The Journal publishes articles based on the quality of their argument, their contribution to the existing literature, and relevance to current medicine. This article met those criteria. It created unprecedented global outrage for a paper published in an academic medical ethics journal. In this special issue of the Journal, Giubilini and Minerva's paper comes to print along with 31 articles (...) from some of the best scholars in the world, from the broadest range of perspectives on abortion and infanticide, including those strongly critical of Giubilini and Minerva.The killing of a baby is among the most shocking of human practices. I am strongly opposed to the legalisation of infanticide along the lines discussed by Giubilini and Minerva. But I would like to explain why a journal of medical ethics published an article examining infanticide and now devotes a special issue to bringing a wide range of perspectives for further examination of these issues.Infanticide has been practised throughout human history for various reasons and continues to be practised today throughout the world. In rare cases, infanticide can be practised openly and legally—for example, as specified under the ‘Groningen Protocol’, in the Netherlands. The Groningen Protocol allows doctors to end the life of neonates at the request of their parents if the infant is experiencing hopeless and unbearable suffering.2But medical infanticide arguably occurs elsewhere other than in the Netherlands today.In neonatal intensive care, it is not uncommon for a doctor to withdraw artificial ventilation with the consequence that a baby dies.3 If anyone else performed that act, including the parents of the child, it would be viewed as an act of homicide, in some cases …. (shrink)

The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 polarised French constitutional ideas. Appearing on one side was a radicalised version of the French constitution. On the other side was the theory of royal absolutism systematically developed by Bodin. The central thesis of this book is that Bodin's absolutism was as unprecedented as the doctrine it opposed. Prior to the 1570s the mainstream of the French tradition had been tentatively constitutionalist and Bodin himself had given strong expression to that tendency in his (...) Methodus of 1566. His earlier theory of sovereignty, elaborated in that work, was implicitly adapted to a notion of limited supremacy. Professor Franklin's aim is to explain how this absolutist view was formed. In doing so, he has clarified many of the notorious obscurities in Bodin's thought and since much of the absolutist doctrine of the seventeenth century was either based on Bodin's theory or relied on similar assumptions, this study will be of great importance and interest to scholars of a later period. (shrink)

Thought experiments are ubiquitous in science and especially prominent in domains in which experimental and observational evidence is scarce. One such domain is the causal analysis of singular events in history. A long‐standing tradition that goes back to Max Weber addresses the issue by means of ‘what‐if’ counterfactuals. In this paper I give a descriptive account of this widely used method and argue that historians following it examine difference makers rather than causes in the philosopher’s sense. While difference making is (...) neither necessary nor sufficient for causation, to establish difference makers is more consistent with the historians’ more ultimate purposes. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Erasmus University, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

We develop and test a model of pseudo-transformational leadership. Pseudo-transformational leadership is manifested by a particular combination of transformational leadership behaviors, and is differentiated from both transformational leadership and laissez-faire -leadership. Survey data from senior managers show differential outcomes of transformational, pseudo-transformational, and laissez-faire leadership. Possible extensions of the theoretical model and directions for future research are offered.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In The Gift Relationship, Richard Titmuss argued that the practice of altruistic blood donation fosters social solidarity while markets in blood erode it. This paper considers the implications of this line of argument for the organ market debate. I defend Titmuss’ arguments against a number of criticisms and respond to claims that Titmuss’ work is not relevant to the context of live donor organ transplantation. I conclude that Titmuss’ arguments are more resilient than many advocates of organ markets suggest, and (...) more relevant to the debate than is commonly appreciated. (shrink)

I argue that pregnant women have a duty to refrain from behaviours or to allow certain acts to be done to them for the sake of their foetus if the foetus has a reasonable chance of living and being in a harmed state if the woman does not refrain from those behaviours or allow those things to be done to her. There is a proviso: that her refraining from acting or allowing acts to be performed upon her does not significantly (...) harm her. This duty does not presuppose that the foetus is a person. It is grounded on principles of respect for the interests of sentient beings and prevention of harm to future individuals. I give an argument for a general duty of easy rescue. (shrink)

The knowledge norm of assertion is the subject of a lively debate on when someone is in a position to assert something. However, not much has been said about the logic that underlies such debate. In this paper, I propose a formalisation of the knowledge norm in a deontic logic that aims to be explanatory and conceptually sound. Afterwards, I investigate some problems that this formalisation makes visible. This reveals some significant limitations of the underlying logic: it can neither contain (...) Axiom 4 nor Axiom C4. Moreover, sentences of the form p and I have not asserted that p appear to licence a violation of deontic rules. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for explaining the subjective character of pain experience in terms of what we will call ‘embodied predictive processing’. The predictive processing (PP) theory is a family of views that take perception, action, emotion and cognition to all work together in the service of prediction error minimisation. In this paper we propose an embodied perspective on the PP theory we call the ‘embodied predictive processing (EPP) theory. The EPP theory proposes to explain pain (...) in terms of processes distributed across the whole body. The prediction error minimising system that generates pain experience comprises the immune system, the endocrine system, and the autonomic system in continuous causal interaction with pathways spread across the whole neural axis. We will argue that these systems function in a coordinated and coherent manner as a single complex adaptive system to maintain homeostasis. This system, which we refer to as the neural-endocrine-immune (NEI) system, maintains homeostasis through the process of prediction error minimisation. We go on to propose a view of the NEI ensemble as a multiscale nesting of Markov blankets that integrates the smallest scale of the cell to the largest scale of the embodied person in pain. We set out to show how the EPP theory can make sense of how pain experience could be neurobiologically constituted. We take it to be a constraint on the adequacy of a scientific explanation of subjectivity of pain experience that it makes it intelligible how pain can simultaneously be a local sensing of the body, and, at the same time, a more global, all-encompassing attitude towards the environment. Our aim in what follows is to show how the EPP theory can meet this constraint. (shrink)

A common strategy in bioethics is to posit a prima facie case in favour of one policy, and to then claim that the burden of proof falls on those with opposing views. If the burden of proof is not met, it is claimed, then the policy in question should be accepted. This article illustrates, and critically evaluates, examples of this strategy in debates about the sale of organs by living donors, human enhancement, and the precautionary principle. We highlight general problems (...) with this style of argument, and particular problems with its use in specific cases. We conclude that the burden ultimately falls on decision-makers to choose the policy supported by the best reasons. (shrink)

I contrast Robert Veatch's recent liberal vision of medical decision‐making with a more rationalist liberal model. According to Veatch, physicians are biased in their determination of what is in their patient's overall interests in favour of their medical interests. Because of the extent of this bias, we should abandon the practice of physicians offering what they guess to be the best treatment option. Patients should buddy up with physicians who share the same values —‘deep value pairing’. The goal of choice (...) is maximal promotion of patient values. I argue that if subjectivism about value and valuing is true, this move is plausible. However, if objectivism about value is true — that there really are states which are good for people regardless of whether they desire to be in them — then we should accept a more rationalist liberal alternative. According to this alternative, what is required to decide which course is best is rational dialogue between physicians and patients, both about the patient's circumstances and her values, and not the seeking out of people, physicians or others, who share the same values. Rational discussion requires that physicians be reasonable and empathic. I describe one possible account of a reasonable physician. (shrink)

Do you think of atheists as immoral pessimists who live their lives without meaning, purpose, or values? Think again! Atheism: A Very Short Introduction sets out to dispel the myths that surround atheism and show how a life without religious belief can be positive, meaningful, and moral.

Extant research suggests that individuals employ traditional moral heuristics to support their observed altruistic behavior; yet findings have largely been limited to inductive extrapolation and rely on relatively few traditional frames in so doing, namely, deontology in organizational behavior and virtue theory in law and economics. Given that these and competing moral frames such as utilitarianism can manifest as identical behavior, we develop a moral framing instrument—the Philosophical Moral-Framing Measure (PMFM)—to expand and distinguish traditional frames associated and disassociated with observed (...) altruistic behavior. The validation of our instrument based on 1015 subjects in 3 separate real stakes scenarios indicates that heuristic forms of deontology, virtue-theory, and utilitarianism are strongly related to such behavior, and that egoism is an inhibitor. It also suggests that deontic and virtue-theoretical frames may be commonly perceived as intertwined and opens the door for new research on self-abnegation, namely, a perceived moral obligation toward suffering and self-denial. These findings hold the potential to inform ongoing conversations regarding organizational citizenship and moral crowding out, namely, how financial incentives can undermine altruistic behavior. (shrink)

Are hierarchical arrangements in the workplace, including the employer-employee relationship, consistent with the ideal of relating to one another as moral equals? With this question at its core, this volume of essays by leading moral and political philosophers explores ideas about justice in the workplace, contributing to both political philosophy and business ethics. Relational egalitarians propose that the ideal of equality is primarily an ideal of social relationships and view the equality of social relationships as having priority over the distributive (...) arrangements. Yet contemporary workplaces are characterized by hierarchical employer-employee relationships. The essays push discussions of the relational egalitarian tradition in new directions, helping to show its promise and its limits. They address pressing concerns at a time of widening inequality and rapid changes in the nature of work. (shrink)

I respond to some challenges raised by my critics. In particular, I argue in favour of six claims. First, against Alexandrova and Northcott, I point out that to deny the explanatoriness of economic models by assuming an ontic (specifically, causal) conception of explanation is to beg the question. Second, against defences of causal realism (by Hausman, Mäki, Rol and Grüne-Yanoff) I point out that they have provided no criterion to distinguish those claims a model makes that can be interpreted realistically (...) (the model's ?causal content? or claims it makes about causal powers or mechanisms) and those the realist can safely ignore. Third, I point out that Hausman's and Rol's claims about robustness plus the empirical observation that economic models are hardly ever robust to the right kinds of specification changes imply that these models do not explain (which is problematic as my original article argued). Fourth, I point out that Sugden's response still leaves an important question unanswered, viz. what makes economic models explanatory. Fifth, I sketch an alternative, instrumentalist account of explanation and argue that it would fit Sugden's bill. Sixth, I point out that under this account of explanation, economic models would come out as non-explanatory, which brings us back to Alexandrova and Northcott's account and its associated difficulties. The ?explanation paradox?, therefore, remains unscathed. (shrink)

Even though human smuggling is one of the central topics of contention in the political discourse about immigration, it has received virtually no attention from moral philosophy. This article aims...