Laplace once argued that if one could “comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated,” it would be possible to predict the future and explain the past. The advent of analysis of large-scale data sets has been accompanied by newfound concerns about “Laplace’s Demon” as it relates to certain fields of science as well as management, evaluation, and audit. I begin by asking how statistical data are constructed, illustrating the hermeneutic acts necessary to create a variable. These include attributing (...) a certain characteristic to a particular phenomenon, isolating the characteristic of interest, and assigning a value to it. In addition, a population must be identified and a sample must be “taken” from that population. Next, I examine how statistical analyses are conducted, examining the interpretive acts there as well. In each case, I show how big data add new challenges. I then show how statistics are incorporated into audits and evaluations, emphasizing how alternative interpretations are concealed in the audit process. I conclude by noting that these issues cannot be “resolved” as Laplace suggested. His Demon, already banished from physics, needs to be banished from other fields of science, management, audits, and evaluations as well. (shrink)

An understudied aspect of African thought is the question of laughter and humor. Little attempt has, as yet, been made to locate whether laughter and humor add any value in the African worldview and whether this has any theoretical potential in the effort to improve the human condition through an African perspective. By “improving the human condition” is meant (re‐)articulating those core values, such as peace, happiness, and contentment, around which life and human existence acquire meaning and is lived in (...) the best possible manner. This article sets out to address this knowledge gap. It provides views that illustrate a philosophy of humor with an African pedigree. To do this, it maps out a variety of axioms and proverbs in Igbo thought to interpret them and illustrate the insight they provide in locating an African philosophy of humor. The method applied is a mixed method of hermeneutics and critical synthesis. (shrink)

What is the core of the distinctiveness of Homo sapiens? Some of the most famous hypotheses include tool use and tool making, language, free will and moral agency, self-consciousness, mind itself, and reason or rational problem-solving. All these answers are partly true. But recent work in comparative psychology, primatology, and cognitive science have converged on a conception of human distinctiveness that underlies these. Remarkably, it was explored a century ago by George Herbert Mead. The American pragmatists played a special role (...) in the development of non-reductive naturalism. But among them, Mead uniquely endorsed the notion of “emergence” developed by the British Emergentists. This led him to an analysis of the emergence of the human self and mind out of social processes, most famously employing his concept of “significant gesture.” In recent decades both notions have been buttressed by philosophical and scientific work. Emergence has returned in the sciences of nonlinear dynamics and complexity, and has been re-conceptualized by philosophers like Wiliiam Wimsatt. Mead’s social conception of the human mind and self have been repurposed by a host of scientists, as in Michael Tomasello’s conception of “joint intentionality” and Antonio Damasio’s analysis of self-consciousness. These developments show that Mead was remarkably prescient in his core insights. (shrink)

Lawrence Johnson advocates a major change in our attitude toward the nonhuman world. He argues that nonhuman animals, and ecosystems themselves, are morally significant beings with interests and rights. The author considers recent work in environmental ethics in the introduction and then presents his case with the utmost precision and clarity. Written in an attractive, nontechnical style, the book will be of particular interest to philosophers, environmentalists and ecologists.

In this paper, we argue that, omissions are not events or actions, but rather fact-like entities, and that, insofar as only events and actions can be causes, omissions cannot be causes. Nevertheless, since omissions can, and often do, play a role in the explanations of events, their place in such explanations must be found; and an attempt to find such a place is made.

U.S. politicians and policymakers have been preoccupied with how to pay for health care. Hardly any thought has been given to what should be paid for—as though health care is a commodity that needs no examination—or what health outcomes should receive priority in a just society, i.e., rationing. I present a rationing proposal, consistent with U.S. culture and traditions, that deals not with “health care,” the terminology used in the current debate, but with the more modest and limited topic of (...) medical care. Integral to this rationing proposal—which allows scope to individual choice and at the same time recognizes the interdependence of the individual and society—is a definition of a “decent minimum,” the basic package of medical treatments everyone should have access to in a just society. I apply it to a specific example, diabetes mellitus, and track it through a person's life span. (shrink)

This paper explores the moral status of various gambling maxims, particularly as they relate to the bettor’s interest in profit and the mathematical expectation of the game being played. Certain difficulties with the prevailing interpretations of the Formula of Universalizability will also be discussed, particularly in relation to games for which the bettor can have a positive expectation.

Aquinas’s Five Ways are not to be understood as demonstrative proofs, successful or not, for the existence of God. Rather, they provide a necessary step towards supplying licensable surrogates for the essential predications that cannot logically be drawn from the incomprehensible nature of God, yet would seem needed for the Summa’s declared genre of argued theology. (Predication secundum analogiam provides surrogates for non-relational accidental predications, likewise unavailable.) What Aquinas is proving in arguing deum esse in ST I.2.3 is not God’s (...) actual existence (see ST I.3.4 ad 2) but an alternative interpretation of “God’s being something” where “God is something” is a placeholder for, say, “God is prime mover” or, more explicitly, for such (necessary) identities as “The prime mover is the necessitated necessitator,” an identity whose necessity depends at more than one place on the assumption of God’s existence from faith, not on demonstrative proof of God’s existence. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to focus attention on ways in which the role of idealization in science has been rather neglected by standard methodology, and suggest that this distinct role for idealization is the truly important role it plays in science. Further, I suggest that there are a number of important cases in theoretical science where the issue of idealization is not the issue of misrepresentation in some sense. Rather, the question is which of several alternative idealizations correctly represents (...) the fundamental causalstructure of the world, and which idealizations, consequently, are appropriate for the scientific account of the world that is correct in its basic notion of what is an appropriate explanatory format for dealing with the physical phenomena in question. My argument is that the issues of idealization are important for methodology not primarily for the reasons that have so far exercised most philosophers of science who have worried about idealization in science. (shrink)

For over a century before the establishment of English vernacular religious drama in cities of the north, there was a concerted effort by the papacy and episcopacy to eradicate or rechannel lay and clerical ludi that struck the establishment as more conducive to lechery, gluttony, and the mocking of sacred things than to worshipful remembrance of Christ's sacrifice or to meditation on man's lamentable condition. However, legislating a distinction between appropriate and inappropriate ludi was not easy. When Innocent III sought (...) to ban ludi theatrales among his clergy, his edict had to be glossed to assure religious communities that the pope did not oppose the decorous representation of certain topics — the story of Rachel, the Three Kings, and Herod. Since some of these ludi took place within monastic and other religious houses, not all the participants thought them objectionable, but English bishops, particularly Grosseteste and Grandisson, tried to put down raucous and inappropriate ludi — some of which they called miracula — whether they occurred within religious houses or among the laity. (shrink)

André Naud was a French‐Canadian Catholic theologian who served as a peritus or advisor to Cardinal Leger, the Archbishop of Montreal at the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965. Naud’s entire theological career was informed by the teachings of the Council. This was the reason why during the Papacy of John Paul II after 1978 he became alarmed at the expansion and the distortion of the authority of the magisterium. Over the last fifteen years of his life, he wrote (...) three remarkable books on this theme. In the last book (2002) entitled Les Dogmes et le Respect de l’Intelligence: Plaidoyer Inspiré par Simone Weil (The Dogmas and the Respect for Intelligence: An Argument Inspired by Simone Weil), he undertook an in‐depth analysis of Simone Weil, who had argued in the 1940s that Catholicism was in need of a philosophical cleaning up. This paper elaborates and explains the particular ways that Weil’s writings helped Naud to reformulate in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council the role of the magisterium with regard to dogmatic formulations, the manner of the reception of that teaching, the inspiration of scripture, the interpretation of miracles and the understanding of the Church itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bringing Cancer Care to Those who Don't Have ItLawrence N. ShulmanI have been treating cancer patients in the Harvard Medical School hospitals since 1977, and in those 35 years we have made tremendous progress. Though work still needs to be done, and far too many patients still die of cancer, many are cured. In particular, children and young adults have a high rate of cure from such diseases as (...) Hodgkin's lymphoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and childhood sarcoma. Patients with breast cancer in the US have a greater than 80% chance for long-term survival. The death rate from cervical cancer in the US is very low. These results have been achieved by making diagnoses earlier, in many cases surgical excision, and often systemic therapies such as chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, radiation therapy, and more recently by using so-called "targeted" therapies—those directed at particular molecular characteristics of the cancer cells.Princess Dina Mired has said that the opportunity to survive cancer should not be an accident of geography. In cases where we already have effective and inexpensive tools to cure cancer, these treatments should be considered a basic human right, a life-saving medical service.I met Patty, a young woman living in the U.S. during November of her senior year in high school, after she discovered a small lump above her left collar bone. Though she felt entirely well, she called her primary care doctor who saw her the next day, felt the enlarged lymph node, and referred her to a surgeon, who did a biopsy later that week. Her primary care doctor also called me, and we scheduled a visit when the pathology results were available. The following week the pathologist notified Patty's pediatrician that the biopsy showed Hodgkin's lymphoma. When I met Patty, she was a bright and focused young woman, waiting to hear about her college applications and enjoying her senior year. Her cancer diagnosis was completely out of context with her life as she planned it, but with the support of her family and boyfriend, she seemed prepared to take things one step at a time. A PET CT scan demonstrated a modest mass in the mediastinum (chest), but no other disease. She was in an early stage of the disease with an excellent prognosis. We recommended and administered six months of chemotherapy with doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine—four chemotherapy agents that are off-patent, and relatively inexpensive. She lost her hair, not a trivial issue for her, but otherwise felt reasonably well during the treatment. She was determined to graduate with her classmates, and was able continue to attend school and keep up with her work. In June, seven months into her cancer diagnosis and treatment, she graduated with honors, and was on track to enroll in college in September.Like other 18-year-old women with Hodgkin's lymphoma, Patty had an over 80% chance for cure with the potential for a long and productive life ahead of her because we could perform a biopsy, make a diagnosis, and safely and effectively treat her with four inexpensive, off-patent, chemotherapy drugs. She had nearly the same likelihood of living a long and fruitful life as her classmates, and had the same chances for childbearing. In my line of work, with the knowledge we now possess, to allow someone like Patty to die without a chance of curative care is simply unacceptable. Treatment of curable cancers should be considered on par with the right to clean water, adequate nutrition, treatment for infectious disease, and access to maternal and child healthcare services.But in many places in the world, people with cancers we could easily eradicate in Boston have no access to cancer services, and do die unnecessarily. The local healthcare infrastructure has no [End Page E10] capacity to evaluate a patient, perform or process a biopsy, make a diagnosis, or treat the patient with potentially curative surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. I have rounded on the wards of hospitals in developing countries, stopping to talk with numerous patients like Patty: young women, some of whom might have had Hodgkin's lymphoma, but no... (shrink)

Examines the role of indeterminacy in 19th-century British art. Chronicles the irreconcilable tension between the visual and the verbal, beginning in 1806 with Wordsworth's questioning of the essential ground and companionableness of things, and concluding with Hardy's dramatization of the treacherous relationship between the word and the image. Writers revealed here, including Tennyson and Browning, rely in varying degrees on the pictorial to forge analogs as evidence of the kindredness of things. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

There has been considerable controversy surrounding the routine circumcision of male infants in the United States. This is of particular concern, since the medical establishments of all the other countries of the developed world have abandoned this procedure as having dubious benefits. This article examines the medical pros and cons of neonatal male circumcision in a historical perspective and suggests that the circumstances that led to its establishment as a routine practice are largely absent today. Reasons for its continued use (...) and ethical and moral issues associated with its practice are then examined closely, especially in light of the current debate surrounding female circumcision. The article concludes that the medical and ethical issues surrounding this practice should be more broadly debated until there is some consensus as to its benefits. Prudence dictates that until such a consensus emerges, the practice should be suspended. (shrink)

The human race is an ongoing entity, not just a collection of individuals. It has interests which are not just the aggregated interests of individual humans. These interests are morally significant and have important implications for environmental ethics.

RNA editing is a newly described genetic phenomenon. It encompasses widely different molecular mechanisms and events. According to the specific RNA modification, RNA editing can be broadly classified into six major types. Type II RNA editing occurs in plants and mammals; it consists predominantly in cytidine to uridine conversions resulting from deamination/transamination or transglycosylation, although in plants other mechanisms have not been excluded. Apolipoprotein B mRNA editing is the only well‐documented editing phenomenon in mammals. It is an intranuclear event that (...) occurs posttranscriptionally, coincident with splicing and polyadenylation. Recent observations indicate that the tissue‐ and sequence‐specific process is mediated by an enzyme that has separate domains for editing and sequence recognition. The presence of apolipoprotein B mRNA editing activity in tissues that do not produce the protein suggests that other RNAs may be edited and RNA editing may be a genetic phenomenon of general biological importance to the cell. (shrink)

Can Congress require AIDS service organizations to pledge fidelity to the government's view opposing prostitution as a condition of receiving funding? This term, the Supreme Court will decide whether the First Amendment permits such censorship in USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International (AOSI). The 2008 legislation reauthorizing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) requires host countries to support “activities promoting abstinence, delay of sexual début, monogamy, and fidelity.” PEPFAR's “conscience clause” allows organizations with a moral or religious (...) objection to opt out of providing services to patients with a sexual orientation of which they disapprove. In addition, the law requires grantees to adopt “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution” and to refrain from any speech or activities the government deems “inconsistent” with that policy. The antiprostitution pledge extends not only to what a recipient says or does with PEPFAR funds, but even to what it says or does with its own private funds. The government, however, has not enforced the pledge against U.S.‐based nongovernmental organizations partly because of a preliminary injunction granted by the lower courts. That injunction is now at risk if the Supreme Court upholds the loyalty oath. (shrink)