The upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has the potential to eliminate or severely restrict access to legal abortion care in the United States. We a...

Under the assumption that anticipatory models are required for anticipatory behavior, an important question arises about the different manners in which organisms acquire anticipatory models. This article aims to articulate four different non-exhaustive ways that anticipatory models might possibly be acquired over both phylogenetic and ontogenetic timescales and explore the relationships among them. To articulate these different model-acquisition mechanisms, four schematics will be introduced, each of which represents a particular acquisition structure that can be used for the purposes of comparison, (...) analysis, and hypothesis formulation. By bringing to the fore the differences and similarities between each of the four ways that anticipatory models are acquired, a more complete picture of both anticipatory behavior and its pervasive role in biological self-maintenance can be offered. In doing so, this article helps not only to shed light on how anticipatory behavior might arise in the wide range of organisms that it has been observed in but also to throw into relief the subtle and often still overlooked causal interplay between ontogenetic and phylogenetic plasticity. (shrink)

Transcending the various formal concepts of life, this captivating book offers a unique overview of life's history, essences, and future. "A masterpiece of scientific writing. You will cherish "What Is Life?" because it is so rich in poetry and science in the service of profound philosophical questions".--Mitchell Thomashow, "Orion". 9 photos. 11 line illustrations.

Basal cognition investigates cognition working upward from nonneuronal organisms. Because basal cognition is committed to empirically testable hypotheses, a methodological challenge arises: how can experiments avoid using zoocentric assumptions that ignore the ecological contexts that might elicit cognitively driven behavior in nonneuronal organisms? To meet this challenge, I articulate the principle of dynamic holism (PDH), a methodological principle for guiding research on nonneuronal cognition. I describe PDH’s relation to holistic research programs in human-focused cognitive science and psychology then present an (...) argument from analogy based on holistic developmental biology. Last, I examine two experiments exemplifying the need for PDH. (shrink)

Holobionts are multicellular eukaryotes with multiple species of persistent symbionts. They are not individuals in the genetic sense— composed of and regulated by the same genome—but they are anatomical, physiological, developmental, immunological, and evolutionary units, evolved from a shared relationship between different species. We argue that many of the interactions between human and microbiota symbionts and the reproductive process of a new holobiont are best understood as instances of reciprocal scaffolding of developmental processes and mutual construction of developmental, ecological, and (...) evolutionary niches. Our examples show that mother, fetus, and different symbiotic microbial communities induce or constitute conditions for the development and reproduction of one another. These include the direct induction of maternal or fetus physiological changes, the restructuring of ecological relations between communities, and evolutionary selection against undesirable competitors. The mutual scaffolding and niche constructing processes start early—prior to amniotic rupture. We are evolutionarily, physiologically, and developmentally integrated holobiont systems, strung together through mutual reliance and mutual construction. Bringing the processes of niche construction and developmental scaffolding together to interpret holobiont birth conceptually scaffolds two new directions for research: in niche construction, identifying the evolutionary implications of organisms actively constructing multiple overlapping niches and scaffolds, and in Evolutionary Developmental Biology, characterizing evolutionary and ecological processes as developmental causes. (shrink)

Intelligence in current AI research is measured according to designer-assigned tasks that lack any relevance for an agent itself. As such, tasks and their evaluation reveal a lot more about our intelligence than the possible intelligence of agents that we design and evaluate. As a possible first step in remedying this, this article introduces the notion of “self-concern,” a property of a complex system that describes its tendency to bring about states that are compatible with its continued self-maintenance. Self-concern, as (...) argued, is the foundation of the kind of basic intelligence found across all biological systems, because it reflects any such system's existential task of continued viability. This article aims to cautiously progress a few steps closer to a better understanding of some necessary organisational conditions that are central to self-concern in biological systems. By emulating these conditions in embodied AI, perhaps something like genuine self-concern can be implemented in machines, bringing AI one step closer to its original goal of emulating human-like intelligence. (shrink)

There is currently a great debate about whether the holobiont, i.e. a multicellular host and its residential microorganisms, constitutes a biological individual. We propose that resident microorganisms have a general and important role in the individuality of the host organism, not the holobiont. Drawing upon the Equilibrium Model of Immunity, we argue that microorganisms are scaffolds of immune capacities and processes that determine the constituency and persistence of the host organism. A scaffolding perspective accommodates the contingency and heterogeneity of resident (...) microorganisms while accounting for their necessity and unifying contributions to host individuality. In our symbiotic view of life, holobionts may not be organisms or units of selection, but macroorganisms cannot persist nor function as individuals without their scaffolding microorganisms. (shrink)

SummaryA sample of 104 British parents with criminal convictions had an average fertility of 3·91 children as compared with 2·21 for the general population. The result suggests that fertility for criminal behaviour is dysgenic involving an increase in the genes underlying criminal behaviour in the population.

This paper is a contribution to the discussion of how religious perspectives can improve business ethics. Two such perspectives are in natural law of antiquity and recent Catholic social doctrine and teaching. This paper develops a conceptual framework from natural law and CSD/T that business leaders can adopt to build an ethos of humanistic management. This “Human Dignity-Centered” framework fills the gap between time-tested Christian norms and contemporary firm-leaders’ concrete needs. “Human dignity” is used as a rhetorical device to convey (...) the idea that firms are composed of dynamic social networks, with an ultimate purpose of serving human needs. Ultimately, the principles and virtues the framework employs have a logic that should inspire excellence, as ethical practices and concern for human welfare lay a foundation for long-term business prosperity. In a one-frame visual representation, this paper portrays: firm leadership challenges; a transforming ethical prism of principles and virtues; and results and feedback mechanisms. The accompanying narrative describes each element and how each affects humanistic management. Finally, illustrative company examples and questions are provided to illustrate how the framework can be used to benefit human flourishing. The framework provides an adjunct to current formulations of improving managerial excellence. (shrink)

Although recent research suggests that women are underrepresented in philosophy after initial philosophy courses, there have been relatively few empirical investigations into the factors that lead to this early drop-off in women’s representation. In this paper, we present the results of empirical investigations at a large American public university that explore various factors contributing to women’s underrepresentation in philosophy at the undergraduate level. We administered climate surveys to hundreds of students completing their Introduction to Philosophy course and examined differences in (...) women’s and men’s feelings of belonging, comfort, and confidence in the philosophy classroom. We present findings suggesting various factors that contribute to women’s lower willingness to continue in philosophy compared to men’s, including perceptions about intuition-based methods in philosophy, the usefulness of the philosophy major, philosophy as a male discipline, and philosophical abilities as innate talents. We conclude by providing some suggestions for improving undergraduate philosophy courses in ways that would increase women’s willingness to continue in philosophy and may improve the courses for all students. (shrink)

Business ethics is once again a hot topic as examples of improper business practices that violate commonly accepted ethical norms are brought to our attention. With the increasing number of scandals business schools find themselves on the defensive in explaining what they are doing to help respond to the call to teach ‘‘more’’ business ethics. This paper focuses on two issues germane to business ethics teaching efforts: the ‘‘targeted output’’ goals of teaching business ethics and when in the curriculum business (...) ethics should be taught. (shrink)

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) "Policy for the Management of Terminally Ill Patients Who May Become Organ Donors after Death" proposes to take organs from certain patients as soon as possible after expected cardiopulmonary death. This policy requires clear understanding of the descriptive state of the donor's critical cardiopulmonary and neurologic functional capacity at the time interventions to sustain or harvest organs are undertaken. It also requires strong consensus about the moral and legal status of the donor during (...) dying and confirmation of death. There has been no need for the clarity and precision that this policy relies upon, and thus the needed research and conceptual work has not previously been generated. The empiric base and societal consensus are both too frail to provide justification for this policy at this time. (shrink)

This book collects some of the most exciting pioneering work in perceptual and cognitive psychology. The authors' quantitative approach to the study of mental images and their representation is clearly depicted in this invaluable volume of research which presents, interprets, evaluates, and extends their work. The selections are preceded by a thorough review of the history of their experiments, and all of the articles have been updated with reviews of the current literature. The book's first part focuses on mental rotation; (...) the second includes other, more complex transformations and sequences of transformations. A third part describes work on rotational transformations in the context of the perceptual illusion of &"apparent motion.&" Roger N. Shepard is Professor of Psychology, Stanford University. Lynn A. Cooper is Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Dealing with situations where parents’ views about treatment for their child are strongly opposed to doctors’ views is one major area of ethical challenge in paediatric health care. The traditional approach focuses on the child’s best interests, but this is problematic for a number of reasons. The Harm Principle test is regarded by many ethicists as more appropriate than the best interests test. Despite this, use of the best interests test for intervening in parental decisions is still very common in (...) clinical settings and can lead to confusion. In this paper, I propose the Zone of Parental Discretion as a means of putting into practice the key ideas of the Harm Principle, in a clear, step-by-step process. The Zone of Parental Discretion provides a tool for ethical deliberation by clinicians and ethicists about all situations in which parents and doctors disagree about treatment of a child, whether parents are refusing medically recommended treatment, or requesting non-recommended treatment. (shrink)

The allocation of vaccines and therapeutics for Covid‐19 obviously raises ethical questions, and physicians and ethicists have begun to address them. Writers have identified various criteria that should guide allocation decisions, but the criteria often conflict and need to be balanced against one another. This article proposes a model for thinking about how different considerations that are relevant to the distribution of vaccines and scarce treatments for Covid‐19 could be integrated into an allocation procedure. The model employs the construct of (...) a weighted lottery, which is a construct that has been employed in other contexts that involve the distribution of scarce resources. The article highlights the advantages of applying a weighted lottery to the Covid‐19 context and offers an illustration for how it might work in practice. The primary aim of the article is to articulate the structural features of a weighted lottery for this context and to bring out its advantages over other methods for allocating Covid‐19 medications. (shrink)

Geography is experiencing a ‘moral turn’ in its research interests and practices. There is also a flourishing interest in animal geographies that intersects this turn, and is concurrent with wider scholarly efforts to reincorporate animals and nature into our ethical and social theories. This article intervenes in a dispute between Michael Dear and Richard Symanski. The dispute is over the culling of wild horses in Australia, and I intervene to explore how geography deepens our moral understanding of the animal/human dialectic. (...) I begin by situating the inquiry into ethics and animals in geography. Next, I provide a synopsis of Dear and Symanski's comments on ‘animal rights’, followed in turn by discussions of moral value and value paradigms. I then introduce a value paradigm termed geocentrism as a geographical account of our moral relations to animals. Finally, I discuss the wider significance of this debate for geographical ethics, moral philosophy and social theory. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 7, Page 765-773, September 2022.

This chapter contains sections titled: The NBIC Fields Philosophical Implications of Convergence Conclusion References and Further Reading.

"This 2-volume set within the SAGE Reference Series on Leadership tackles issues relevant to leadership in the realm of science and technology. To encompass the key topics in this arena, this handbook features 100 topics arranged under eight headings. Volume 1 concentrates on general principles of science and technology leadership and includes sections on social-scientific perspectives on S&T leadership; key scientific concepts about leading and innovating in S&T; characteristics of S&T leaders and their environments; and strategies, tactics, and tools of (...) S&T leadership. Volume 2 provides case studies of leadership in S&T, with sections considering leadership in informal communities of scientists and engineers; leadership in government projects and research initiatives; leadership in industry research, development, and innovation; and finally, leadership in education and university-based research. By focusing on key topics within 100 brief chapters, this unprecedented reference resource offers students more detailed information and depth of discussion than typically found in an encyclopedia entry but not as much jargon, detail or density as in a journal article or a research handbook chapter. Entries are written in language and style that is broadly accessible, and each is followed by cross-references and a brief bibliography and further readings. A detailed index and an online version of the work enhances accessibility for today's student audience"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Massively multiplayer online games are not merely electronic communication systems based on computational databases, but also include artificial intelligence that possesses complex, dynamic structure. Each visible action taken by a component of the multi-agent system appears simple, but is supported by vastly more sophisticated invisible processes. A rough outline of the typical hierarchy has four levels: interaction between two individuals, each either human or artificial, conflict between teams of agents who cooperate with fellow team members, enduring social-cultural groups that seek (...) to accomplish shared goals, and large-scale cultural traditions, often separated into virtual geographic regions. In many MMOs, both magic and religion are represented, in ways that harmonize with a social-scientific theory that defines them in terms of specific versus general psychological compensators. This article draws empirical examples from five diverse MMOs: Dark Age of Camelot, Dungeons and Dragons Online, World of Warcraft, A Tale in the Desert and Gods and Heroes. (shrink)

The relationship between ethics and economics has never been easy. Opponents in a tug of war, friends in a warm embrace, ships passing in the night—the relationship has been highly variable. In recent years, the friendship model has been gaining credence, particularly among U.S. corporate executives. Increasingly, companies are launching ethics programs, values initiatives, and community involvement activities premised on management’s belief that “Ethics pays.”.

This study compares involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories in depressed and never depressed individuals. Twenty depressed and twenty never depressed individuals completed a memory diary; recording their reactions to 10 involuntary and 10 voluntary memories over 14–30 days. Psychiatric status , psychopathology, rumination and avoidance were assessed. For both groups, involuntary memories more frequently lead to strong reactions than voluntarily memories. For both modes of retrieval, depressed individuals reported more frequent negative reactions than never depressed individuals and rated memories as (...) more central to identity with higher levels of rumination and avoidance. Depressed individuals retrieved both positive and negative memories during involuntary retrieval. These findings support the view that involuntary memory retrieval represents a basic mode of retrieval during healthy and disordered cognition, and that during depression, both involuntary and voluntary memories are central to identity and associated with rumination and avoidance. (shrink)

The rapid fertility decline in most advanced industrial nations, coupled with secularization and the disintegration of the family, is a sign that Western Civilization is beginning to collapse, even while radical religious movements pose challenges to Western dominance. Under such dire circumstances, it is pointless to be cautious about developing new Converging Technologies. Historical events are undermining the entire basis of ethical decision-making, so it is necessary to seek a new basis for ethics in the intellectual unification of science and (...) the power to do good inherent in the related technological convergence. This article considers the uneasy relations between science and religion, in the context of fertility decline, and the prospects for developing a new and self-sustaining civilization based in a broad convergence of science and technology, coalescing around a core of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive technologies. It concludes with the suggestion that the new civilization should become interstellar. (shrink)

Unrealistic optimism is a bias that leads people to believe, with respect to a specific event or hazard, that they are more likely to experience positive outcomes and/or less likely to experience negative outcomes than similar others. The phenomenon has been seen in a range of health-related contexts—including when prospective participants are presented with the risks and benefits of participating in a clinical trial. In order to test for the prevalence of unrealistic optimism among participants of early-phase oncology trials, we (...) conducted a survey with patients over 18 years of age who were enrolled in a phase I, phase I/II, or phase II clinical cancer trial in the New York City area between August 2008 and October 2009. Participants in our study were asked to compare their own chances of experiencing a range of risks and benefits related to the trial they were enrolled in with the chances of the other trial participants. We found a significant optimistic bias in their responses. Respondents tended to overestimate the benefits of the trial they were enrolled in and underestimate its risks. In addition, we found no significant relationship between respondents’ understanding of the trial’s purpose and how susceptible they were to unrealistic optimism. Our findings suggest that improving the consent process for oncology studies requires more than addressing deficits in understanding. (shrink)

One cue that may facilitate children's word learning is iconicity, or the correspondence between a word's form and meaning. Some have even proposed that iconicity in the early lexicon may serve to help children learn how to learn words, supporting the acquisition of even noniconic, or arbitrary, word–referent associations. However, this proposal remains untested. Here, we investigate the iconicity of caregivers’ speech to young children during a naturalistic free‐play session with novel stimuli and ask whether the iconicity of caregivers’ speech (...) facilitates children's learning of the noniconic novel names of those stimuli. Thirty‐four 1.5‐2‐year‐olds (19 girls; half monolingual English learners and half bilingual English‐Spanish learners) participated in a naturalistic free‐play task with their caregivers followed by a test of word‐referent retention. We found that caregivers’ use of iconicity, particularly in utterances in which they named the novel stimuli, was associated with the likelihood that children learned that novel name. This result held even when controlling for other factors associated with word learning, such as the concreteness and frequency of words in caregiver speech. Together, the results demonstrate that iconicity not only can serve to help children identify the referent of novel words (as in previous research) but can also support their ability to retain even noniconic word‐referent mappings. (shrink)

Managing the Nanotechnology Revolution: Consider the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Criteria.................................................................................. 24..

Nurses are encountering an increasing number of ethical dilemmas in clinical practice. Ethics courses for baccalaureate nursing students provide the opportunity for the development of critical thinking skills in order to deal with these effectively. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to describe ethical reasoning in 70 baccalaureate nursing students enrolled in a nursing ethics course. Reflective clinical journals were analyzed as appropriate for qualitative inquiry. The overriding theme emerging from the data was `in the process of becoming', (...) which includes: practicing as a professional, lacking the confidence as a student nurse to take an ethical stand, advocating for patients, being just in the provision of care, identifying the spiritual dimensions of nursing practice, confronting the `real world' of health care, making a commitment to practice with integrity, and caring enough to care. The development of critical thinking and ethical reasoning within the framework of knowing and connecting is essential in nursing education. (shrink)

Enhancement of human abilities can be accomplished in several ways, and need not require modification of the person's biological body. Avatars in virtual worlds are a contemporary example, and in future teleoperation of personal robots or entirely fresh alternatives may become popular.

What standard or principle should guide decisionmaking concerning the permissibility of allowing children to be organ donors? For a long time, it has been widely assumed that the best interest of the child is the appropriate standard. But recently, several critics have charged that this standard fails to give due weight to the interests of the family and the intimate relationships that the family makes possible.1,2 This article reviews and rejects both the best-interest standard and the alternative standard recommended by (...) the critics. I then propose a new standard to help parents, healthcare professionals, and judges decide when it is and is not permissible for children to serve as organ donors. This new standard modifies and broadens the best-interest standard to allow it to account adequately for the contribution that intimate relationships make to the well-being of children. (shrink)

A distressing number of philosophers and classicists think that the deuteros plous or “second best” mentioned at Phaedo 99c9-dl is the hypothetical method. Many of them will even tell you that Plato says the hypothetical method is the deuteros plous, and that they are not merely interpreting his meaning. They usually back off, however, when challenged on this point, for there jus isn’t any such statement by Plato. Nor, I think, does Plato give us any justification at all for taking (...) the deuteros plous as the hypothetical method. I will argue in this paper that he is referring rather to the explanation of things in terms of their formal causes, and that this sort of explanation is “second best” when compared to a teleological explanation in terms of final causes. The hypothetical method of the dialectician is simply the logical device or apparatus by means of which the theory of ideas and the attendant notion of formal causation are introduced into the discussion; it is not a “second best” method and is not inferior to anything else. (shrink)

We generalize the Unstable Formula Theorem characterization of stable theories from Shelah [11], that a theory T is stable just in case any infinite indiscernible sequence in a model of T is an indiscernible set. We use a generalized form of indiscernibles from [11], in our notation, a sequence of parameters from an L-structure M, , indexed by an L′-structure I is L′-generalized indiscernible inM if qftpL′=qftpL′ implies tpL=tpL for all same-length, finite ¯,j from I. Let Tg be the theory (...) of linearly ordered graphs in the language with signature Lg={<,R}. Let Kg be the class of all finite models of Tg. We show that a theory T has NIP if and only if any Lg-generalized indiscernible in a model of T indexed by an Lg-structure with age equal to Kg is an indiscernible sequence. (shrink)

BackgroundFor children with life-limiting conditions who are unable to participate in decision-making, decisions are made for them by their parents and paediatricians. Shared decision-making is widely recommended in paediatric clinical care, with parents preferring a collaborative approach in the care of their child. Despite the increasing emphasis to adopt this approach, little is known about the roles and responsibilities taken by parents and paediatricians in this process. In this study, we describe how paediatricians approach decision-making for a child with a (...) life-limiting condition who is unable to participate in decision-making for his/herself.MethodsThis qualitative phenomenological study involved 25 purposively sampled paediatricians. Verbatim transcripts from individual semi-structured interviews, conducted between mid-2019 and mid-2020, underwent thematic analysis. Interviews were based around a case vignette matched to the clinical experience of each paediatrician.ResultsTwo key themes were identified in the exploration of paediatricians' approach to decision-making for children with life-limiting conditions: there is a spectrum of paediatricians’ roles and responsibilities in decision-making, and the specific influences on paediatricians’ choice of approach for end-of-life decisions. In relation to, analysis showed four distinct approaches: non-directed, joint, interpretative, and directed. In relation to, the common factors were: harm to the child, possible psychological harm to parents, parental preferences in decision-making, and resource allocation.ConclusionsDespite self-reporting shared decision-making practices, what paediatricians often described were physician-led decision-making approaches. Adopting these approaches was predominantly justified by paediatricians’ considerations of harm to the child and parents. Further research is needed to elucidate the issues identified in this study, particularly the communication within and parental responses to physician-led approaches. We also need to further study how parental needs are identified in family-led decision-making approaches. These nuances and complexities are needed for future practice guidance and training around paediatric decision-making.Trial registration: Not applicable. (shrink)