An innovative approach to the production of anti‐receptor antibodies is now being fully exploited for a number of different cell receptors. This approach employs the concept that antibodies directed against pharmacologically active ligands have a three‐dimensional binding site which is somewhat analogous to the natural receptor. Consequently, when anti‐idiotype antibodies are produced against these anti‐ligand antibodies, some of the anti‐idiotypes will comprise a positive three‐dimensional shape which mimics the original ligand. The anti‐idiotypic antibodies generated in this fashion are able to (...) bind to cell surface receptors. This approach has now been successfully applied to peptide hormones, small bio‐active peptides, interferon, viral hemagglutinins, and a number of small neurotransmitter ligands. So far, the boundaries for this working ‘molecular engineering’ concept have not been reached. This concept may also shed light on the processes which take place in the generation of anti‐receptor antibodies in several autoimmune diseases. (shrink)

Cancer and its treatment pose challenges that affect not only patients but also their significant others, including intimate partners. Accumulating evidence suggests that couples’ ability to communicate effectively plays a major role in the psychological adjustment of both individuals and the quality of their relationship. Two key conceptual models have been proposed to account for how couple communication impacts psychological and relationship adjustment: the social-cognitive processing (SCP) model and the relationship intimacy (RI) model. These models posit different mechanisms and outcomes, (...) and thus have different implications for intervention. The purpose of this project is to test and compare the utility of these models using comprehensive and methodologically rigorous methods. Aims are: (1) to examine the overall fit of the SCP and RI models in explaining patient and partner psychological and relationship adjustment as they occur on a day-to-day basis and over the course of 1 year; (2) to examine the fit of the models for different subgroups (males vs. females, and patients vs. partners); and (3) to examine the utility of various methods of assessing communication by examining the degree to which baseline indices from different measurement strategies predict self-reported adjustment at 1-year follow up. The study employs a longitudinal, multi-method approach to examining communication processes including: standard self-report questionnaires assessing process and outcome variables collected quarterly over the course of 1 year; smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments to sample participant reports in real time; and laboratory-based couple conversations from which we derive observational measures of communicative behavior and affective expression, as well as vocal indices of emotional arousal. Participants are patients with stage II-IV breast, colon, rectal, or lung cancer and their spouses/partners, recruited from two NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. Results will be published in scientific journals, presented at scientific conferences, and conveyed to a larger audience through infographics and social media outlets. Findings will inform theory, measurement, and the design and implementation of efficacious interventions aimed at optimizing both patient and partner well-being. (shrink)

This essay is a critical response to Loren Lomasky's essay in this volume: The essay argues that Lomasky both overestimates the value of eating meat and underestimates the harms to animals of practices surrounding meat eating. While Lomasky takes the fact that an animal would not have lived at all if it were not being raised for food to constitute a benefit for animals being so raised, this essay argues that it would be better for animals raised on factory farms (...) to have never been born. It also contends that Lomasky overstates his case regarding the benefits of meat eating for human well-being. While gastronomic experiences can enrich our lives, it would be a mistake to think that meat eating is indispensable to the enrichment of our lives; one canexperience the flourishing of eating well without eating animals. (shrink)

Uncovering the historical roots of naturalistic, secular contemporary ethics, in this volume Michael Gill shows how the British moralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries completed a Copernican revolution in moral philosophy. They effected a shift from thinking of morality as independent of human nature to thinking of it as part of human nature itself. He also shows how the British Moralists - sometimes inadvertently, sometimes by design - disengaged ethical thinking, first from distinctly Christian ideas and then from (...) theistic commitments altogether. Examining in detail the arguments of Whichcote, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson against Calvinist conceptions of original sin and egoistic conceptions of human motivation, Gill also demonstrates how Hume combined the ideas of earlier British moralists with his own insights to produce an account of morality and human nature that undermined some of his predecessors' most deeply held philosophical goals. (shrink)

Virtually every empirical inquiry of issues relevant to applied business ethics involves the asking of questions that are sensitive, embarrassing, threatening, stigmatizing, or incriminating. Accordingly, questions of this sort are likely to result in unsatisfactory outcomes: 1) many individuals will not respond; and/or, 2) many individuals will not respond candidly. An obvious objective, then, is to use a method to collect information which increases participation, provides absolute anonymity, and does not jeopardize subjects' privacy. The randomized response technique (RRT) is a (...) method designed to realize this promise. We provide here an overview of RRT approaches and applications 'which may be effectively used in empirical examinations of potentially sensitive issues in business ethics. (shrink)

In the mid-20th century, descriptive meta-ethics addressed a number of central questions, such as whether there is a necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation, whether moral reasons are absolute or relative, and whether moral judgments express attitudes or describe states of affairs. I maintain that much of this work in mid-20th century meta-ethics proceeded on an assumption that there is good reason to question. The assumption was that our ordinary discourse is uniform and determinate enough to vindicate one side (...) or the other of these meta-ethical debates. I suggest that ordinary moral discourse may be much less uniform and determinate than 20th century meta-ethics assumed. (shrink)

Michael B. Gill offers a new account of Humean moral pluralism: the view that there are different moral reasons for action, which are based on human sentiments. He explores its historical origins, and argues that it offers the most compelling view of our moral experience. Together, pluralism and Humeanism make a philosophically powerful couple.

One of the most significant disputes in early modern philosophy was between the moral rationalists and the moral sentimentalists. The moral rationalists — such as Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke and John Balguy — held that morality originated in reason alone. The moral sentimentalists — such as Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume — held that morality originated at least partly in sentiment. In addition to arguments, the rationalists and sentimentalists developed rich analogies. The (...) most significant analogy the rationalists developed was between morality and mathematics. The most significant analogy the sentimentalists developed was between morality and beauty. These two analogies illustrate well the main ideas, underlying insights, and accounts of moral phenomenology the two positions have to offer. An examination of the two analogies will thus serve as a useful introduction to the debate between moral rationalism and moral sentimentalism as a whole. (shrink)

On the most popular account of material constitution, it is common for a material object to coincide precisely with one or more other material objects, ones that are composed of just the same matter but differ from it in sort. I argue that there is nothing that could ground the alleged difference in sort and that the account must be rejected.

Moral cognitivists hold that in ordinary thought and language moral terms are used to make factual claims and express propositions. Moral non-cognitivists hold that in ordinary thought and language moral terms are not used to make factual claims or express propositions. What cognitivists and non-cognitivists seem to agree about, however, is that there is something in ordinary thought and language that can vindicate one side of their debate or the other. Don Loeb raises the possibility — which I will call (...) “the variability thesis” — that ordinary moral thought and language contains both cognitivist and non-cognitivist elements, and that there is no principled reason for thinking that either the cognitivist or non-cognitivist elements are conceptually more primary or aberrant than the other. According to the variability thesis, cognitivists accurately capture some aspects of what we think and say when we use moral terms and non-cognitivists capture other aspects, but neither side provides a correct analysis of ordinary moral thought and language as a whole. (shrink)

I argue that a policy of presumed consent for cadaveric organ procurement, which assumes that people do want to donate their organs for transplantation after their death, would be a moral improvement over the current American system, which assumes that people do not want to donate their organs. I address what I take to be the most important objection to presumed consent. The objection is that if we implement presumed consent we will end up removing organs from the bodies of (...) people who did not want their organs removed, and that this situation is morally unacceptable because it violates the principle of respect for autonomy that underlies our concept of informed consent. I argue that while removing organs from the bodies of people who did not want them removed is unfortunate, it is morally no worse that not removing organs from the bodies of people who did want them removed, and that a policy of presumed consent will produce fewer of these unfortunate results than the current system. (shrink)

Some children living with life-shortening medical conditions may wish to attend school without the threat of having resuscitation attempted in the event of cardiopulmonary arrest on the school premises. Despite recent attention to in-school do-not-attempt-resuscitation (DNAR) orders, no assessment of state laws or school policies has yet been made. We therefore sought to survey a national sample of prominent school districts and situate their policies in the context of relevant state laws. Most (80%) school districts sampled did not have policies, (...) regulations, or protocols for dealing with student DNARs. A similar majority (76%) either would not honor student DNARs or were uncertain about whether they could. Frequent contradictions between school policies and state laws also exist. Consequently, children living with life-shortening conditions who have DNARs may not have these orders honored if cardiopulmonary arrest were to occur on school premises. Coordinated efforts are needed to harmonize school district, state, and federal approaches in order to support children and families' right to have important medical decisions honored. (shrink)

: We argue that healthy people should be allowed to sell one of their kidneys while they are alive—that the current prohibition on payment for kidneys ought to be overturned. Our argument has three parts. First, we argue that the moral basis for the current policy on live kidney donations and on the sale of other kinds of tissue implies that we ought to legalize the sale of kidneys. Second, we address the objection that the sale of kidneys is intrinsically (...) wrong because it violates the Kantian duty of respect for humanity. Third, we address a range of consequentialist objections based on the idea that kidney sales will be exploitative. Throughout the paper, we argue only that it ought to be legal for an individual to receive payment for a kidney. We do not argue that it ought to be legal for an individual to buy a kidney. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers in the Western tradition have used phenomenological claims as starting points for philosophical inquiry; aspects of moral phenomenology have often been taken to be anchors to which any adequate account of morality must remain attached. This paper raises doubts about whether moral phenomena are universal and robust enough to serve the purposes to which moral philosophers have traditionally tried to put them. Persons’ experiences of morality may vary in a way that greatly limits the extent to which (...) moral phenomenology can constitute a reason to favor one moral theory over another. Phenomenology may not be able to serve as a pre-theoretic starting point or anchor in the consideration of rival moral theories because moral phenomenology may itself be theory-laden. These doubts are illustrated through an examination of how moral phenomenology is used in the thought of Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler, Francis Hutcheson, and Søren Kierkegaard. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NABER on Embryo SplittingMichael B. BurkeMadam:In its interesting Report on Human Cloning through Embryo Splitting: An Amber Light (KIEJ, September 1994), NABER (the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction) discusses ten potential clinical uses of embryo splitting. With one member dissenting, NABER finds two of the uses to be acceptable in principle: (1) “to improve the chances of initiating pregnancy in those individuals undergoing IVF who produce only (...) a limited number of embryos for transfer and implantation” (p. 267) and (2) “to minimize the number of egg retrieval procedures for those undergoing IVF by providing embryos for cryopreservation and future transfer” (p. 268).However, some members of NABER limit their support for these uses to cases in which none of the embryos into which the originals are split are intentionally destroyed (see pp. 266–68). I find their position puzzling. They consider it “ethically unacceptable to discard cryopreserved embryos” (p. 268). In general, they object to intentional destruction of embryos resulting from embryo splitting. Yet they accept intentional destruction of the original embryos.Does the splitting of an embryo truly destroy it? Yes, it does, at least if the embryo is split into two equal parts—or into more than two parts, none of which contains a majority of the cells contained by the original. Suppose, for instance, that a two-cell embryo has been split into two one-cell embryos. Then the original embryo, although it may not have “died” and although its cells have both survived, has nonetheless ceased to exist. Even though the resulting one-cell embryos are identical genetically to the original embryo, neither of them is that embryo. (There is nothing to confer this honor on one of them rather than the other.) The original embryo has undergone what I will call “destructive splitting.”Now it is possible, even likely, that some splittings are not destructive splittings. Suppose that a four-cell embryo is spilt into a three-cell embryo and a one-cell embryo. At least from my perspective as an identity theorist, there is nothing to stop us from identifying the three-cell embryo with the four-cell original: we could say that the original embryo, although diminished, still exists. In any case, there is no indication that any members of NABER intended to limit their acceptance of embryo splitting to cases in which the original embryo survives.How are we to understand the apparent indifference of conservative members of NABER to the embryo that is split, given their concern for the embryos that result from the split? Perhaps the explanation is found in the following passage:NABER members represent a broad spectrum of views on the moral status of the embryo, and yet virtually all of them find embryo splitting per se ethically permissible if the resulting embryos are not damaged or destroyed in the process. These members maintain that there is nothing inherently wrong with creating several embryos [End Page 210] from a single embryo, providing all the embryos involved [except the original!] remain intact at the conclusion of the procedure. Embryo splitting parallels the spontaneous production of identical twins or triplets at this stage of embryo development, an occurrence that is accepted in our society with equanimity. The fact that embryo splitting is deliberately used to produce multiple embryos does not make it inherently wrong to employ the procedure.(Report, pp. 266–67)This argument appears to rely on the following principle: if something is properly viewed with equanimity when it happens spontaneously, then it is not inherently wrong to bring it about deliberately. At least in its full generality, this is a principle generally and rightly viewed with suspicion (by moral conservatives above all). Although it is proper to view with equanimity, even with relief, the natural deaths of terminally ill patients in great pain, many hold that active euthanasia is inherently wrong.When NABER has occasion to revisit the issue of embryo splitting, those members who object to destruction of embryos resulting from embryo splitting should make clear whether they accept the destructive splitting of embryos. If they do, they should clarify their reasons for accepting it.Michael B. BurkeDepartment of Philosophy Indiana... (shrink)

The Cambridge Platonists were a group of religious thinkers who attended and taught at Cambridge from the 1640s until the 1660s. The four most important of them were Benjamin Whichcote, John Smith, Ralph Cudworth, and Henry More. The most prominent sentimentalist moral philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment – Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith – knew of the works of the Cambridge Platonists. But the Scottish sentimentalists typically referred to the Cambridge Platonists only briefly and in passing. The surface of Hutcheson, (...) Hume, and Smith's texts can give the impression that the Cambridge Platonists were fairly distant intellectual relatives of the Scottish sentimentalists – great great-uncles, perhaps, and uncles of a decidedly foreign ilk. But this surface appearance is deceiving. There were deeply significant philosophical connections between the Cambridge Platonists and the Scottish sentimentalists, even if the Scottish sentimentalists themselves did not always make it perfectly explicit. (shrink)

Michael B. Gill offers a new account of Humean moral pluralism: the view that there are different moral reasons for action, which are based on human sentiments. He explores its historical origins, and argues that it offers the most compelling view of our moral experience. Together, pluralism and Humeanism make a philosophically powerful couple.

I aim to show that there are cases in which an ordinary material object exists intermittently. Afterwards there are a few words about the consequences of acknowledging such cases, but what is of more interest is the route by which the conclusion is reached. When deciding among competing descriptions of the cases considered, I have tried to reduce to a minimum the role of intuitive judgment, and I have based several arguments on "metaphysical principles," two of which I have defended.

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The path-integral approach to quantum theory of continuous measurements has been developed in preceding works of the author. According to this approach the measurement amplitude determining probabilities of different outputs of the measurement can be evaluated in the form of a restricted path integral (a path integral “in finite limits”). With the help of the measurement amplitude, maximum deviation of measurement outputs from the classical one can be easily determined. The aim of the present paper is to express this variance (...) in a simpler and transparent form of a specific uncertainty principle (called the action uncertainty principle, AUP). The most simple (but weak) form of AUP is δS≳ℏ, whereS is the action functional. It can be applied for simple derivation of the Bohr-Rosenfeld inequality for measurability of gravitational field. A stronger (and having wider application) form of AUP (for ideal measurements performed in the quantum regime) is |∫ ′ t″ (δS[q]/δq(t))Δq(t)dt|≃ℏ, where the paths [q] and [Δq] stand correspondingly for the measurement output and for the measurement error. It can also be presented in symbolic form as Δ(Equation) Δ(Path) ≃ ℏ. This means that deviation of the observed (measured) motion from that obeying the classical equation of motion is reciprocally proportional to the uncertainty in a path (the latter uncertainty resulting from the measurement error). The consequence of AUP is that improving the measurement precision beyond the threshold of the quantum regime leads to decreasing information resulting from the measurement. (shrink)

Many philosophers, both past and present, object to materialism not from any romantic anti-scientific bent, but from sheer inability to understand the thesis. It seems utterly inconceivable to some that qualia should exist in a world which is entirely material. This paper investigates the grain objection, a much neglected argument which purports to prove that sensations could not be brain events. Three versions are examined in great detail. The plausibility of the first version is shown to depend crucially on whether (...) one holds a direct or non-direct theory of perception. Only on the latter is this version plausible. An analysis of the second "semantic" version concludes that a materialist description and explanation of the world should not be expected to transparently convey all that would be of interest or importance to human beings. The final version explicitly makes use of Grover Maxwell's non-direct perceptual theory of structural realism. Although a confusion is charged to Maxwell between phenomenal and objective properties, the critical difficulty for the grain objection is its failure to characterize "structure" from a non-percipient point of view. As the grain objection is ultimately found wanting, the real difficulty for materialism crystallizes as its irreconciliability with the mere existence of sentience, which seems to force some sort of emergence upon us. (shrink)

Portrays the relationship between evangelical Christians and science.

Nach einem Überblick über die Unterscheidung von Pausen, Schweigen und Stille und einer knappen Diskussion älterer Auffassungen zum Schweigen in therapeutischen Sitzungen wird ein theoretischer Bezugsrahmen entworfen. Danach sind Pausen nicht Gegensatz, sondern Element der Konversation und sie können nicht individuell zugerechnet werden, weil der andere sie gewährt. Das unterscheidet sie vom Schweigen. Es werden Transkriptbeispiele therapeutischer Situationen analysiert, in denen Pausen vorkommen. Sie lassen sich als Folgen von Ereignissen vor der Pause analysieren. Der theoretische Hintergrund ist die Konversationsanalyse, die (...) Anschluss an neurowissenschaftliche Überlegungen zu Sprechpausen gewinnt. Gesprächsstrukturelle Momente und motivationale Zusammenhänge lassen sich auf der Annahme von Harvey Sacks, des Begründers der Konversationsanalyse, zusammenführen: Jede Konversation wird von einer stillen Dimension, die er »my-mind-is-with-you« nannte, begleitet. (shrink)

Many people today glorify wild nature. This attitude is diametrically opposed to the denigration of wild nature that was common in the seventeenth century. One of the most significant initiators of the modern revaluation of nature was Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury. I elucidate here Shaftesbury’s pivotal view of nature. I show how that view emerged as Shaftesbury’s solution to a problem he took to be of the deepest philosophical and personal importance: the problem of how worship (...) of God can be both transportingly emotional and entirely rational. In section 1 I sketch the denigration of wild nature in two of Shaftesbury’s predecessors: Burnet and Locke. I next turn to Shaftesbury’s problem, describing in section 2 the love of God he aspired to and in section 3 his commitment to rational religion. I then explain Shaftesbury’s solution, describing in section 4 his view of beauty in general and in section 5 his view of the beauty of nature. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper explicates Shaftesbury’s idea that we ought to live our lives as though they are works of art. I show that this idea is central to many of Shaftesbury’s most important claims, and that an understanding of this idea enables us to answer some of the most contested questions in the scholarship on Characteristics.

A particular feature of this book is substantial "Stretch and Challenge" material throughout which allows students to develop further.

The abandonment of sole reliance on the logical positivist canon of wholly general, topic-neutral, a priori inference principles has created a pressing need for a principled way to set limits on the demand for justification. I diagnose the problems with several contemporary proposals via two case studies, the first concerned with the possibility of groundlessly rational theism, and the second with the use of groundlessly rational commitments in defense of scientific rationality. ;I argue that William Alston's appeal to the "practical" (...) rationality of engaging in a socially established belief-forming practice and Alvin Plantinga's defense of properly basic belief in God are overly permissive. Alston's position gives too much scope to pragmatic and social considerations, while Plantinga's rejection of polemically useful epidemic principles leaves him with an implausible externalism about rationality as the only way to block irrationality. In the case of scientific rationality, I argue that Bas van Fraassen's "liberal probabilism" gives too much scope to tradition and pragmatic factors, while Richard Boyd's methodological argument for scientific realism gives too much weight to the successful use of theories that happen to belong to one's own scientific tradition. ;In the light of these defects, I argue that the only propositions that don't require justification are "hinge-propositions"--topic-specific, defeasible principles that express conceptual competence conditions--because groundless doubt of them is either irrational or betrays lack of conceptual grasp. ;This account provides adequate fundamental principles for science, but sets strict limits to groundless rationality. For example, theistic belief-forming practices can't be groundlessly rational because they involve an unjustified departure from the application of the concept of a person in response to experience. ;I defend the closure claim that hinge-propositions are the only kind of groundlessly rational propositions by arguing that this account provides the best explanation for our shared uncontroversial judgments of rationality and irrationality. My account makes the strongest demands for justification that are compatible with our shared and secure judgments of prima facie rationality and the weakest demands for justification that are compatible with our shared and secure judgments about epistemically responsible beliefs. (shrink)