Objective To compare the perspectives of medical students in the preclinical and clinical phases of medical training on the issue of rationing scarce medical resources in times of crisis. Methods Questionnaire-based cross-sectional study. Results A total of 201 participants took part in the study, with 100 participants in the preclinical phase group, and 101 in the clinical phase group. A multivariable analysis found that just 14.9% (n = 34) of the clinical phase students were willing to give a short-supplied blood (...) unit to the first-arrived patient to the emergency department when more patients are expected compared to 63.9% in the preclinical group (n = 62) ( p < 0.001, OR = 0.75 95% CI: 0.029−0.192). Seventy-four percent (n = 74) of the clinical phase students were found to be willing to remove a patient from a respirator to allocate it to an ill child compared to 35.7% (n = 35) in the preclinical phase group ( p < 0.001, OR = 4.168 95% CI: 1.931−8.998). Of the clinical phase group, 46.6% (n = 41) were willing to allocate a short supplied flu medicine to a patient with poor prognosis compared to 57.7% (n = 56) in the preclinical phase group ( p = 0.04, OR = 0.457 95% CI: 0.216−0.966). Conclusion Clinical exposure during training may affect the way medical students make ethical decisions, independent of age, sex, as well as marital and parental status. (shrink)

Contributing Authors: Lilli Alanen & Frans Svensson, David Alm, Gustaf Arrhenius, Gunnar Björnsson, Luc Bovens, Richard Bradley, Geoffrey Brennan & Nicholas Southwood, John Broome, Linus Broström & Mats Johansson, Johan Brännmark, Krister Bykvist, John Cantwell, Erik Carlson, David Copp, Roger Crisp, Sven Danielsson, Dan Egonsson, Fred Feldman, Roger Fjellström, Marc Fleurbaey, Margaret Gilbert, Olav Gjelsvik, Kathrin Glüer & Peter Pagin, Ebba Gullberg & Sten Lindström, Peter Gärdenfors, Sven Ove Hansson, Jana Holsanova, Nils Holtug, Victoria Höög, Magnus Jiborn, Karsten (...) Klint Jensen, Sigurður Kristinsson, Isaac Levi, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, David Makinson, Anna-Sofia Maurin, Philippe Mongin, Kevin Mulligan, Lennart Nordenfelt, Jonas Olson, Erik J. Olsson, Ingmar Persson, Johannes Persson, Björn Petersson, Philip Pettit, Hans Rott, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Krister Segerberg, John Skorupski, Howard Sobel, Fredrik Stjernberg, Fred Stoutland, Caj Strandberg, Pär Sundström, Folke Tersman, Torbjörn Tännsjö, Peter Vallentyne, Bruno Verbeek, Stella Villarmea, and Michael J. Zimmerman. (shrink)

What is it for a group to believe something? A summative account assumes that for a group to believe that p most members of the group must believe that p. Accounts of this type are commonly proposed in interpretation of everyday ascriptions of beliefs to groups. I argue that a nonsummative account corresponds better to our unexamined understanding of such ascriptions. In particular I propose what I refer to as the joint acceptance model of group belief. I argue that group (...) beliefs according to the joint acceptance model are important phenomena whose aetiology and development require investigation. There is an analogous phenomenon of social or group preference, which social choice theory tends to ignore. (shrink)

A target question for the scientific study of consciousness is how dimensions of consciousness, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or reflect on one’s own experience, vary in different states and animal species. Considering the tight link between consciousness and moral status, answers to these questions have implications for law and ethics. Here we point out that given this link, the scientific community studying consciousness may face implicit pressure to carry out certain research programs or interpret results (...) in ways that justify current norms rather than challenge them. We show that because consciousness largely determines moral status, the use of nonhuman animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics—the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Finally, in light of these considerations, we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has accumulated and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness. (shrink)

This article examines the pedagogic vision of audiovisual archives in Ici et ailleurs ( Here and Elsewhere, 1974/1978) (shot by Sonimage and drawn from the abandoned project Jusqu’à la Victoire [1970]) in terms of the stratification of images and sounds. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, Tom Conley writes that a diagram that depends upon the division between the visible and the enunciable may be comprehended in terms of a map and as a line of forces. Such strata can (...) act as signposts for diverse and multilateral readings of film, as viewers “read” cinematic landscapes and time-images. In Ici et ailleurs, stratigraphic shots juxtapose the Western, static home life of a family in France with the nomadic life of Fedayeen troops in Jordan and Palestine. This article argues that Sonimage’s narrative specificity relies upon an “in-between” method that defines an inter-space between semantic orders. (shrink)

The article focuses on the role of civil society in the aggregate of causes that eventually brought about the collapse of the communist block and — in consequence — changed the global balance of power. The concept of ‘ethical civil society’ is introduced in explaining the path to democracy of former Soviet bloc countries. The article also explores cultural determinants of democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989; in particular the relation between religious confession and likelihood of democratic outcome (...) of post-communist transformation is examined. (shrink)

This paper aims at exploring the relationship between corporate wrongdoing and CEOs’careers. We hypothesize that the managerial labor market does not punish CEOs of companies involved with wrongdoing. The analysis of data on 16 companies charged by the SEC supports this hypothesis.

This article examines the possible basis for legal liability of researchers who use the Internet in the collection of research data. In particular, it examines the potential legal issues associated with the protocols of ethnographers who use listserv, discussion board, blog, chat room and other sorts of web or Internet-based postings as the source of their data. The author assumes that the forum for participation is legitimate, in that the list, board, blog, chat, etc. is not created or otherwise concocted (...) by the researcher, but involves situations akin to off-line practices where a researcher would be listening to the conversation or watching the behavior of subjects in a public place. Since these practices do not involve direct interview or interaction with or treatment of "human subjects", much of the precedent involving negligence, informed consent, and related issues is not relevant; however, it is reviewed initially for guidance in suggesting the applicable, legal standards of conduct. This article does not discuss the use of the Internet as a collection device, e.g., in online surveys. Issues of legal harm arising from claims in negligence, privacy, and defamation for subsequent disseimination of such postings are evaluated. Although it is concluded that the likelihood for a success of such claims is small, analysis will include steps that researchers can take to ensure that such risk remains negligible. (shrink)

Credibility and reliability of counter-partners are the most important features required for the efficient functioning of financial markets. Violating these requirements is an important aspect of the operational risk, posed by the human factor – both internal (managers, employees) and external (customers, shareholders, competitors, supervisors). Therefore, having a limited impact on the behaviour of outside persons, the financial institutions formulate high standards towards their own personnel. It concerns formal qualifications and professional experience, as well as specific personality traits and appropriate (...) behaviour in various situations. These standards are specified in numerous recent ethics codes – documents formulating the socalled ‘corporate governance best practices’ in internal and external relations to other people. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the fact that some of these standards generate in praxis a number of dilemmas or even conflict situations, when there appears a question of to what extent the application of a given rule does not breach other rules. Theoretically, corporate governance practices should be internally consistent. However, everyday experience brings such a multitude of real situations, diverse human characters or individual reactions that there appears a need for a sensible compromise between values of equal importance which, in some cases, prove contradicting. (shrink)

Se aborda en particular su relectura de Aristóteles y Tomás de Aquino, junto con su análisis de algunas discusiones relevantes en las ciencias sociales. Según MacIntyre, el abandono del aristotelismo y su esquema teleológico de la investigación filosófica y de la razón práctica ha generado confusión e incoherencia en las articulaciones conceptuales de la filosofía moral moderna y contemporánea. En opinión de este autor, en el concepto de tradición el presente es considerado una reapropiación del pasado, lo que brinda coherencia (...) a las argumentaciones. A los fines de este trabajo se opta por una aproximación a medio camino entre una metodología analítica y una historia conceptual basada en el reconocimiento de distintas discusiones de las cuales se nutren los conceptos macinteryanos. Finalmente, se valoran las contribuciones de MacIntyre a la vez que se indican algunas limitaciones de su tesis. (shrink)

In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss that people are physically demarcated, even as gestation is marked by a thorough-going intertwinement. We cannot fully appreciate what is normatively at stake with legally forcing continued gestation, or again how to discuss moral responsibilities to continue (...) gestating, until we appreciate in their own terms the goods and evils distinctive of gestational connection. To underscore the need to explore further the meanings of gestation, I provide two examples of the difference it might make to legal and moral discussions of abortion if we appreciate more fully that gestation is an intimacy. (shrink)

What is a crip politics of bodymind? Drawing upon Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's theory of the misfit, I explain my understanding of crip and bodymind within a feminist materialist framework, and argue that careful investigation of a crip politics of bodymind must involve accounting for two key, but under-explored, disability studies concepts: desire and pain. I trace the turn toward desire that has characterized DS theory for the last decade, and argue that while acknowledging disability desire, we must also attend to the (...) aspects of disability, including pain, that are sometimes bad. Although I don't argue that pain is always and only bad, I call for recognition of the ways pain complicates disability desire, as well as the possibilities it opens for specifically located, collective forms of care. (shrink)

Atheism as a belief does not have to present intellectual credentials within academia. Yet to hold beliefs means giving reasons for doing so, ones which may be found wanting. Instead, atheism is the automatic default setting within the academic world. Conversely, religious belief confronts a double standard. Religious believers are not permitted to make truth claims but are instead forced to present their beliefs as part of one language game amongst many. Religious truth claims are expected to satisfy empiricist criteria (...) of evidence but when they fail, as they must, religious belief becomes subject to the hermeneutics of suspicion. This book explores religious experience as a justifiable reason for religious belief. It uniquely demonstrates that the three pillars of critical realism --ontological intransitivity, epistemic relativity and judgemental rationality -- can be applied to religion as to any other beliefs or theories. The three authors are critical realists by philosophical position. They seek to establish a level playing field between religion and secular ideas, which has not existed in the academic world for some generations, in order for reasoned debate to be conducted. (shrink)

There is increasing public interest in understanding the nature of corporate ethics due to the knowledge that unethical decisions and activities frequently undermine the performance and abilities of many organizations. Of the current literature found on the topic of ways organizations can influence ethical behavior, a majority is found on the issue of corporate codes of ethics.Most discussions on codes of ethics evaluate the contents of the codes and offer opinions on their wording, content, and/or value. Unfortunately, very little research (...) has been devoted towards discovering whether they are effective in promoting ethical decision-making behavior. Thus, due to the lack of empirical research on this particular topic, this paper attempts to further address this issue. (shrink)

The Ethics of Nationalism blends philosophical discussion of the ethical merits and limits of nationalism with a detailed understanding of nationalist aspirations and a variety of national conflict zones. The author discusses the controversial and contemporary issues of rights of secession, the policies of the state in privileging a particular national group, the kinds of accommodations of minority national, and multi cultural identity groups that are justifiable and appropriate.

A feature of David Lewis's account of conventions in his book "Convention" which has received admiring notices from philosophers is his use of the mathematical theory of games. In this paper I point out a number of serious flaws in Lewis's use of game theory. Lewis's basic claim is that conventions cover 'coordination problems'. I show that game-Theoretical analysis tends to establish that coordination problems in Lewis's sense need not underlie conventions.

This article explores the psychological logics underpinning key perspectives in the ‘turn to affect’. Research on affect raises questions about the categorization of affective states, affective meaning-making, and the processes involved in the transmission of affect. I argue that current approaches risk depopulating affecting scenes, mystifying affective contagion, and authorizing questionable psychobiological arguments. I engage with the work of Sedgwick and Frank, Thrift, and Ahmed to explore these points and suggest that the concept of affective practice offers a more promising (...) social psychological grounding. Notions of affective practice are more commensurate with trends in contemporary psychobiology, explain the limits on affective contagion, and emphasize relationality and negotiation, attentive to the flow of affecting episodes. A practice approach positions affect as a dynamic process, emergent from a polyphony of intersections and feedbacks, working across body states, registrations and categorizations, entangled with cultural meaning-making, and integrated with material and natural processes, social situations and social relationships. (shrink)

Proponents of ground, which is used to indicate relations of ontological fundamentality, insist that ground is a unified phenomenon, but this thesis has recently been criticized. I will first review the proponents' claims for ground's unicity, as well as the criticisms that ground is too heterogeneous to do the philosophical work it is supposed to do. By drawing on Aristotle's notion of homonymy, I explore whether ground's metaphysical heterogeneity can be theoretically accommodated while at the same time preserving its proponents' (...) desideratum that it be a unified phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper discusses basic concepts and recentdevelopments in intellectual property ownership in theUnited States. Various philosophical arguments havepreviously been put forward to support the creation andmaintenance of intellectual property systems. However, in an age of information, access toinformation is a critical need and should beguaranteed for every citizen. Any right of controlover the information, adopted as an incentive toencourage creation and distribution of intellectualproperty, should be subservient to an overriding needto ensure access to the information. The principlesunderlying intellectual property regimes (...) in the UnitedStates recognize and embody this. In addition, thephilosophical/ethical dimensions of this debate couldalso be structured to support this attitude as well. Intellectual property is fast becoming digitalproperty. New technologies allow owners to extendtheir control of both legitimate uses and misuses ofthe intellectual property. Recent trends demonstratethat the access principle has not always beenparamount in judicial or legislative applications. Thetrend rather is to allow a proprietarianism factor todominate the analysis. Finally, several principles areforwarded which would assist adjudicators and policymakers in reaffirming the basic purpose of theintellectual property law, which is to benefit thepublic at large. (shrink)

A number of authors, Including Thomas Schelling and David Lewis, have envisaged a model of the generation of action in coordination problems in which salience plays a crucial role. Empirical studies suggest that human subjects are likely to try for the salient combination of actions, a tendency leading to fortunate results. Does rationality dictate that one aim at the salient combination? Some have thought so, Thus proclaiming that salience is all that is needed to resolve coordination problems for agents who (...) are rational in the sense of game theory. I argue against this position; rational agents will not necessarily aim for the salient. It remains to explain how the salient comes to be chosen by human beings. Various possibilities are noted. One involves a mechanism invoked by Hume and Wittgenstein in other contexts: we may project an unreasoned compulsion onto reason, falsely believing that rationality dictates our choice of the salient. (shrink)

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that "ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company." Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results in (...) the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform. (shrink)

New theological understanding can emerge with the advancement of scientific knowledge and the use of new concepts, or older concepts in new ways. Here, the authors present a proposal to extend the concept of “rescue and recovery” found in the United Nations Law of the High Seas, off‐world and within a broader purview of other intelligent and self‐aware species that humans may someday encounter. The notion of a morality that extends to off‐world species is not new, but in this analysis, (...) rescue and recovery become an imperative when any intelligent and self‐aware species is in harm's way. Rescue and recovery encompass a necessary action component except perhaps in those cases where rescuers are in danger. The authors explore three biblical examples of rescue and recovery to derive a fundamental meaning of the concept. (shrink)

In a well-known series of articles, Norman Daniels has drawn a contrast between wide reflective equilibrium and a more traditional method of theory acceptance in ethics that would be employed by a sophisticated moral intuitionist. The more traditional method is geared towards achieving a narrow equilibrium, or ‘an ordered pair of a set of considered moral judgments acceptable to a given person P at a given time, and a set of moral principles that economically systematizes.’ Although we might achieve narrow (...) reflective equilibrium by deducing particular moral judgments from self-evident moral principles, the more plausible approach is to start from our particular moral judgments. Here we begin by screening our intial moral judgments to eliminate those in which we have little confidence and those made under circumstances conducive to error. We then search for general moral principles that best account for the remaining ‘considered’ moral judgments. (shrink)

Seventeenth century discussions of materialism, whether favorable or hostile towards the position, are generally conducted on a level of much less precision and sophistication than recent work on the problem of the mind-body relation. Nevertheless, the earlier discussions can still be interesting to philosophers, as the plethora of references to Cartesian arguments in the recent literature makes clear. Certainly the early development of materialist patterns of thought, and efforts on both the materialist and immaterialist side to establish fundamental points in (...) the philosophical analysis of mind, have considerable historical interest at the present time. This paper attempts to clarify the significance of some of leibniz's views in connection with the materialist thesis. I do not have in mind his rather notorious parallelism, though some of the points made below bear indirectly on the character of this position. Instead, I will examine his approach to arguments against materialism. (shrink)

Co-creating knowledge takes a new approach to human phenotypic morality as a biologically based, human lineage specific trait. Authors from very different backgrounds first review research on the nature and origins of morality using the social brain network, and studies of individuals who cannot “know good” or think morally because of brain dysfunction. They find these models helpful but insufficient, and turn to paleoanthropology, cognitive science, and neuroscience to understand human moral capacity and its origins long ago, in the genus (...) Homo. An unusual narrative capturing “morality in action” takes the reader back 900,000 years, and then the authors analyze the essential features of moral thinking and behavior as expressed by early and later species on our lineage. In what has primarily been the province of philosophers to date, the authors’ morality model is presented for further scientific testing. (shrink)

In Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism, Shannon Sullivan considers: "What can white people do to help end racial injustice?". As one response to this question, Sullivan argues that prescribing "white shame" and "white guilt" is useless, since promoting these ideas leads to self-hate and inaction on the part of white people. In this paper, I agree with Sullivan, but for different reasons. I argue that assuming that white people can feel ashamed simply about being white within (...) our current society is unfounded. I will maintain that the project of "promoting white shame" is fraught to begin with, and show the significance of this finding for conversations about white people's role in... (shrink)

This analysis summarizes conclusions on an evolutionary model for the origin of moral and religious capacities in the genus Homo. The authors’ published model (2020, Routledge) is now extended to the emergence of nascent theological thinking, augmenting the previous line of theory based on genomics, cognitive science, neuroscience, paleoneurology, cognitive archaeology, ethnography, and modern social science. This analysis concludes that findings support the earliest theological thinking in Homo sapiens, but not in an earlier species, Homo erectus, and clarifies why and (...) when it likely began. Types of anatomy, behavior, neurology, and cognition are presented that support tendencies to frame a structure of religious principles and a set of supernatural figures that early humans would consider right, just, exemplary, and even sacred. Stages of emergent physical, behavioral, and cognitive features are presented in tables. While based on published research results in the sciences, the model is presented here with anticipation of future testing. (shrink)

This edition aims to make Cavendish's most mature philosophical work more accessible to students and scholars of the period. Grounds of Natural Philosophy is important not only because it is Cavendish's final articulation of her metaphysics, but also because it succinctly outlines her fundamental views on 'the nature of nature'--or the base substance and mechanics of all natural matter--and vividly demonstrates her probabilistic approach to philosophical enquiry. Moreover, Grounds spends considerable time discussing the human body, including the functions of the (...) mind, a topic of growing interest to both historians of philosophy and literary scholars. This Broadview Edition opens to modern readers a vibrant, unique, and provocative voice of the past that challenges our standard view of seventeenth-century English philosophy. (shrink)

This collection reconsiders canonical figures and the formation of disciplinary boundaries during the Scientific Revolution.

The large, ancient ape population of the Miocene reached across Eurasia and down into Africa. From this genetically diverse group, the chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans evolved from populations of successively reduced size. Using the findings of genomics, population genetics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and archaeology, the authors construct a theoretical framework of evolutionary innovations without which religious capacity could not have emerged as it did. They begin with primate sociality and strength from a basic ape model, and then explore how (...) the human line came to be the most adaptive and flexible of all, while coming from populations with reduced genetic variability. Their analysis then delves into the importance of neurological plasticity and a lengthening developmental trajectory, and points to their following article and the last building block: the expansion of the parietal areas, which allowed visuospatial reckoning, and imagined spaces and beings essential to human theologies. Approximate times for the major cognitive building blocks of religious capacity are given. (shrink)