We present a solution to the paradox of free choice permission by introducing strong and weak permission in a deontic logic of action. It is shown how counterintuitive consequences of strong permission can be avoided by limiting the contexts in which an action can be performed. This is done by introducing the only operator, which allows us to say that only is performed (and nothing else), and by introducing contextual interpretation of action terms.

The analysis of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of the genotype–phenotypic connection has, so far, only been possible in a handful of genetic model systems. Recent technological advances, including next‐generation sequencing methods such as RNA‐seq, ChIP‐seq and RAD‐seq, and genome‐editing approaches including CRISPR‐Cas, now permit to address these fundamental questions of biology also in organisms that have been studied in their natural habitats. We provide an overview of the benefits and drawbacks of these novel techniques and experimental approaches that can now (...) be applied to ecological and evolutionary vertebrate models such as sticklebacks and cichlid fish. We can anticipate that these new methods will increase the understanding of the genetic and epigenetic factors influencing adaptations and phenotypic variation in ecological settings. These new arrows in the methodological quiver of ecologist will drastically increase the understanding of the genetic basis of adaptive traits – leading to a further closing of the genotype–phenotype gap. -/- . (shrink)

The essays in this volume are all concerned with the arguments about law as a system of rule-based decision-making,particularly the ideas advanced by legal philosopher Frederick Schauer. Schauer's work has not only helped revive interest in legal formalism but has also helped relocate arguments about the relationship between posited rules and morality. The contributors to this volume, themselves distinguished theorists, have concentrated on three aspects of Schauer's work: the nature of jurisprudential description; his theory of presumptive positivism; and the application (...) of his theory of rule-based decision-making to other areas of legal and moral thought. Contributors: Larry Alexander, Brian Bix, Philip Bobbitt, Marianne Constable, Michael C. Dorf, Jeremy Elkins, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz, Jason Johnston, Dennis Patterson. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

Many philosophers of religion are unaware of research done on comparative religions, and continue to use language and to address issues that distort the nature of human religious endeavor. Despite work by Cantwell Smith, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgensteinians, and their critics, these scholars continue to confuse faith with (propositional) belief, and miss the significance of the dynamic nature of religious culture in historic context. In this paper, I defend Walter Kaufmann's view that religion addresses an essential human ontological need, on the (...) grounds that it makes sense of the immense diversity of religious expression and endeavor. (shrink)

:Statisticians have proposed formal techniques for evaluation of treatments, often in the context of models that do not explicitly specify how treatments are generated. Under such procedures they run the risk of attributing causation in settings where the implementation neutrality condition required for causal interpretation of parameter estimates is not satisfied. When treatment assignments are explicitly modelled, as economists recommend, these issues can be formally analysed, and the existence of implementation neutrality, and therefore quantifiable causation, can be determined. Examples are (...) given. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 1, Page 64-83, January 2022. Automated, wearable cameras can benefit health-related research by capturing accurate and objective information about individuals’ daily experiences. However, wearable cameras present unique privacy- and confidentiality-related risks due to the possibility of the images capturing identifying or sensitive information from participants and third parties. Although best practice guidelines for ethical research with wearable cameras have been published, limited information exists on the risks of studies using wearable cameras. The aim of this (...) literature review was to survey risks related to using wearable cameras, and precautions taken to reduce those risks, as reported in empirical research. Forty-five publications, comprising 36 independent studies, were reviewed, and findings revealed that participants’ primary concerns with using wearable cameras included physical inconvenience and discomfort in certain situations. None of the studies reviewed reported any serious adverse events. Although it is possible that reported findings do not include all risks experienced by participants in research with wearable cameras, our findings suggest a low level of risk to participants. However, it is important that investigators adopt recommended precautions, which can promote autonomy and reduce risks, including participant discomfort. (shrink)

Financial economics, and the calculations of time and uncertainty derived from it, are playing an increasingly important role in non-finance areas, such as monetary and environmental economics. In this 2001 book, Professors Le Roy and Werner supply a rigorous yet accessible graduate-level introduction to this subfield of microeconomic theory and general equilibrium theory. Since students often find the link between financial economics and equilibrium theory hard to grasp, they devote less attention to purely financial topics such as calculation of derivatives, (...) while aiming to make the connection explicit and clear in each stage of the exposition. Emphasis is placed on detailed study of two-date models, because almost all of the key ideas in financial economics can be developed in the two-date setting. In addition to rigorous analysis, substantial sections of discussion and examples are included to make the ideas readily understandable. (shrink)

Most recent developments in the study of social dilemmas give an increasing amount of attention to cognition, belief systems, valuations, and language. However, developments in this field operate almost entirely under epistemological assumptions which only recognize the instrumental form of rationality and deny that “value judgments” or “moral questions” have cognitive content. This standpoint erodes the moral aspect of the choice situation and obstructs acknowledgment of the links connecting cognition, inner growth, and moral reasoning, and the significance of such links (...) in reaching cooperative solutions to many social dilemmas. Concurrently, this standpoint places the role of communication and mutual understanding in promoting cooperation in morally relevant conflicts of action in a rather mysterious situation. This paper draws on Habermas’s critique of instrumental action, and on the most recent developments in institutional and behavioral economics with a view to enhancing our knowledge of the interventions used to cope with social dilemmas. We conclude the paper with a brief presentation of a research strategy for examining the capacity of alternative developmental models to predict dissimilar choices under similar incentive conditions in social dilemmas. (shrink)

:The most basic question one can ask of a model is ‘What is the effect on variable y2 of variable y1?’ Causation is ‘implementation neutral’ when all interventions on external variables that lead to a given change in y1 have the same effect on y2, so that the effect of y1 on y2 is defined unambiguously. Familiar ideas of causal analysis do not apply when causation is implementation neutral. For example, a cause variable cannot be linked to an effect variable (...) by both a direct path and a distinct indirect path. Discussion of empirical aspects of implementation neutrality leads to further unexpected results, such as that if one variable causes another the coefficient representing that causal link is always identified. (shrink)

Biology is the most extensive field in the Corpus Aristotelicum. In his fundamental work De anima, Aristotle tries to fix the borders of this life science. The term ψυχή has a twofold explanatory status. On the one hand, ψυχή is understood as a principle of all living beings. On the other hand, it is understood as a cause of the fact that all living beings are alive. The paper is divided into three sections. The first part shows why Aristotle discusses (...) these issues in a work entitled Περὶ ψυχῆς. Since Pythagoras and Heraclitus, ψυχή was understood as a life principle: Pythagoras believed that men, animals and plants share the same nature: they are all ἔμψυχα and they are homogenous qua ψυχή. The second part of this article deals with Aristotle’s definition of the soul in DA II: ψυχή is the principle of all living things. This establishes the external criteria to divide living and non-living beings and the internal criteria to divide living beings. The third part of this paper is concerned with the methodological consequences of this definition: the life functions are the central explanandum in Aristotle’s biology. De anima II defines such various life-functions as nourishment, sense-perception and locomotion. These capacities contour the main fields of the philosopher’s biological investigation. For Aristotle, the faculty of reproduction is a subtype of nourishment. Reproduction is the most important and most natural function of all living beings. Genetics is, therefore, the most important field in Aristotle’s biology. (shrink)

There is some very limited evidence for a role of estrogens in human psychosexual masculinization; its interpretation is uncertain. Fitch & Denenberg's demonstration of a role for estrogens in the behavioral feminization of nonhuman mammals implicitly suggests an answer to a riddle posed by the syndrome of congenital adrenal hyperplasia in women.

After having defined the KARO logic for specifying intelligent agents in earlier work we now turn to the question how to realise agents specified in the KARO framework. To this end we look at agent programming languages that we have defined, and investigate how programs in these languages can be linked to the KARO logic.

Current neuroimaging techniques with high spatial resolution constrain participant motion so that many natural tasks cannot be carried out. The aim of this paper is to show how a time-locked correlation-analysis of cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) lateralization data, obtained with functional TransCranial Doppler (fTCD) ultrasound, can be used to infer cerebral activation patterns across tasks. In a first experiment we demonstrate that the proposed analysis method results in data that are comparable with the standard Lateralization Index (LI) for within-task (...) comparisons of CBFV patterns, recorded during cued word generation (CWG) at two difficulty levels. In the main experiment we demonstrate that the proposed analysis method shows correlated blood-flow patterns for two different cognitive tasks that are known to draw on common brain areas, CWG, and Music Synthesis. We show that CBFV patterns for Music and CWG are correlated only for participants with prior musical training. CBFV patterns for tasks that draw on distinct brain areas, the Tower of London and CWG, are not correlated. The proposed methodology extends conventional fTCD analysis by including temporal information in the analysis of cerebral blood-flow patterns to provide a robust, non-invasive method to infer whether common brain areas are used in different cognitive tasks. It complements conventional high resolution imaging techniques. (shrink)

Das 12. Jahrhundert gilt als eine Epoche gro.

What made Socrates so special that he became the object of mockery, slander and hate? The answer in the Apology is expressed in the formula of the ‘Socratic pragma’. Plato claims that Socrates’ philosophical enterprise was a reaction to the Delphic oracle according to which no living Greek was wiser than Socrates. But does this really explain what it pretends to explain? The paper argues that this explanation tells us more about Plato’s philosophical approach than about this alleged turning point (...) in Socrates’ life. Our understanding of Socrates’ philosophical development should be based on other Platonic dialogues and the Old Comedy as well, for they inform us about the historical shift of philosophical interest from questions of physics to questions of ethics and political anthropology. (shrink)

The core thesis of the paper is that the constitution of biological science begins with a conceptual innovation with far-reaching consequences with effect up to the present: by conceiving the parts of living beings as organs (that is, as tools), Aristotle laid the foundation stone for a functional explanation of animate nature. Comparative anatomy is thus transformed from a merely descriptive to an explanatory theory. The point of the discussion is above all that a functional explanation must not be confused (...) with the sort of teleology according to which the function of an organ is understood as the cause of its existence. The first section outlines the theoretical motives that Aristotle adduces in arguing for biology (against contemporary contempt for biological research). The second step addresses the significance of the parts of animals in Aristotle's larger collection of zoological material, the Historia animalium . The third section demonstrates how in the major explanatory work De partibus animalium the term organon takes on the status of a key methodological concept. Finally, the fourth section discusses the significance of the Aristotelian determination of the organic with respect to current discourses in natural science. (shrink)