Actin is a protein that plays an important role in cell structure, cell motility, and the generation of contractile force in both muscle and nonmuscle cells. In many organisms, multiple forms of actin, or isoactins, are found. These are products of different genes and have different, although very similar, amino acid sequences. Furthermore, these isoactins are expressed in a tissue specific fashion that is conserved across species, suggesting that their presence is functionally important and their behavior can be distinguished quantitatively (...) from one another in vitro. In muscle cells, they are differentially distributed within the cell and some are specifically associated with structures such as costameres, mitochondria, and neuromuscular junctions. There is also good evidence for specific isoactin function in microvascular pericytes and in the intestinal brush border. However, the necessity of specific isoactins for various functions has not yet been conclusively demonstrated. (shrink)

While Heidegger's earlier phenomenological writings inform much contemporary discourse in the continental philosophy of religion, his 1927 essay on ‘Phenomenology and Theology’ offers a largely uncontested distinction between philosophy and theology on the basis of their possibilities as sciences following ontological difference. This paper reconsiders Heidegger's distinction by invoking spirit and wonder, concepts Jacques Derrida and Mary-Jane Rubenstein have more recently emphasized as central to thought that is open to that which ruptures metaphysical schemas. I contend Heidegger's use of (...) ontological difference as a formal distinction between philosophy and theology distances us from the wonder, spirit, and truth (alētheia) that undoes the binaries behind which we take shelter. However, I temper this critique with the recognition that Heidegger, Derrida, and Rubenstein equally recognize an inescapable repetition of metaphysical thinking in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Explores the philosophy of corporate responsibility in in terms of collective vs individualist theory. It reports and defends distinctions among collectivities that run counter to individualist theory, develops a theory of the corporation as a moral person, and provides applications of the theory to actual cases.

In this lucid and penetrating book, Peter A. Schouls considers Locke's major writings in terms of the closely related ideas of freedom, progress, mastery, reason, and education.

Here, we revise Pietraszewski's model of groups by assigning participant pairs with two triplets, denoting: the type of game that models the interaction, its critical switching point between alternatives, and the perception of strategic similarity with the opponent. These triplets provide a set of primitives that accounts for individuals' strategic motivations and observed behaviors.

In April 1999, Dr. Curt Freed of the University of Colorado in Denver and Dr. Stanley Fahn of Columbia Presbyterian Center in New York presented the results of a four-year, $5.7 million government-financed study using tissue from aborted fetuses to treat Parkinson’s disease at a conference of the American Academy of Neurology. The results of the first government-financed, placebo-controlled clinical study using fetal tissue showed that the symptoms of some Parkinson’s patients had been relieved. This research study involved forty subjects, (...) nineteen women and twenty-one men; all suffered from Parkinson’s disease for an average of 13.5 years. In the study, each subject underwent neurosurgery: “four tiny burr holes, drilled through the wrinkle lines above the eyebrows into the skull, to clear a pathway to the brain. But only half received injections of fetal cells into the putamen, the region of the brain that controls movement; the other half received nothing. One year later, three members of the placebo group said their symptoms had improved.” In two-thirds of the transplant recipients, the fetal tissue took hold and seemed to establish a new network to produce the missing neurochemical dopamine. (shrink)

Subjectivism about moral wrongness is the view that the moral wrongness of an action (if and how wrong that action is) is grounded solely in facts about the agent's mental state at the time of action. Antisubjectivism is the denial of subjectivism. I offer an argument against subjectivism, and for antisubjectivism, based on an examination of the main concern of the morally conscientious person, viz., the concern to avoid acting wrongly.

Normative ethical theories owe us an account of how to evaluate decisions under risk and uncertainty. Deontologists seem at a disadvantage here: our best decision theories seem tailor-made for consequentialism. For example, decision theory enjoins us to always perform our best option; deontology is more permissive. In this paper, we discuss and defend the idea that, when some pro-tanto wrongful act is all-things considered permissible, because it is a ‘lesser evil’, it is often merely permissible, by the lights of deontology. (...) We show that this raises new problems for deontological decision theory, and we show that to resolve them, we need to take a more innovative approach to morally evaluating decision-making under risk and uncertainty. (shrink)

Technology is our conduit of power. In our modern world, technology is the gatekeeper deciding who shall have and who shall have not. Either technology works for you or you work for technology. It shapes the human race just as much as we shape it. But where is this symbiosis going? Who provides the directions, the intentions, the goals of this human-machine partnership? Such decisions do not derive from the creators of technology who are enmeshed in their individual innovations. They (...) neither come from our social leaders who possess only sufficient technical understanding to react to innovations, not to anticipate or direct their progress. Neither is there evidence of some omnipotent 'invisible hand,' the simple fact is that no one is directing this enterprise. In Mind, Machine and Morality, Peter Hancock asks questions about this insensate progress and has the temerity to suggest some cognate answers. He argues for the unbreakable symbiosis of purpose and process, and examines the dangerous possibilities that emerge when science and purpose meet. Historically, this work is a modern-day child of Bacon's hope for the 'Great Instauration.' However, unlike its forebear, the focus here is on human-machine systems. The emphasis centers on the conception that the active, extensive face of modern philosophy is technology. Whatever we are to become is bound up not only in our biology but critically in our technology also. And to achieve rational progress we need to articulate manifest purpose. This book is one step along the purposive road. (shrink)

Peter Kwasniewski shows that St. Thomas contemplates the nature of ecstasy at key stages in the development of his thought and that it plays a crucial role in his doctrine of love. St. Thomas recognized that all love involves ecstatic transcendence, whether it be the creature's self-oblation to the Creator, the reverence of an inferior for a superior, a superior's generosity toward an inferior, or the mutual affection and help of equals joined in friendship. Love of persons for their (...) own sake generates an ecstatic love in which the self is borne as a gift to another subject by sharing a common life aspiring to common goods. Kwasniewski also examines Aquinas on the question of whether or not God experiences ecstasy, and if so, in what ways. (shrink)

There is presently a debate between Subjectivists and Objectivists about moral wrongness. Subjectivism is the view that the moral status of our actions, whether they are morally wrong or not, is grounded in our subjective circumstances – either our beliefs about, or our evidence concerning, the world around us. Objectivism, on the other hand, is the view that the moral status of our actions is grounded in our objective circumstances – all those facts other than those which comprise our subjective (...) circumstances. A third view, Ecumenism, has it that the moral status of our actions is grounded both in our subjective and our objective circumstances. After outlining and evaluating the various arguments both against Subjectivism and against Objectivism, this Element offers a tentative defense of Objectivism about moral wrongness. (shrink)

Peter Schouls examines the role played by the concepts of freedom, mastery, and progress in Descartes' writings, arguing that these ideas express a vital and ...

In the past few decades, scholars have offered positive, normative, and most recently, interpretive theories of contract law. These theories have proceeded primarily from deontological and consequentialist premises. In A Theory of Contract Law: Empirical Understandings and Moral Psychology, Professor Peter A. Alces confronts the leading interpretive theories of contract and demonstrates their interpretive doctrinal failures. Professor Alces presents the leading canonical cases that inform the extant theories of Contract law in both their historical and transactional contexts and, argues (...) that moral psychology provides a better explanation for the contract doctrine than do alternative comprehensive interpretive approaches. (shrink)

Although knowledge of torture and physical and psychological abuse was widespread at both the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and known to medical personnel, there was no official report before the January 2004 Army investigation of military health personnel reporting abuse, degradation, or signs of torture. Mounting information from many sources, including Pentagon documents, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc., indicate that medical personnel failed to maintain medical records, (...) conduct routine medical examinations, provide proper care of disabled and injured detainees, accurately report illnesses and injuries, and falsified medical records and death certificates. Medical personnel and medical information was also used to design and implement psychologically and physically coercive interrogations. The United States military medical system failed to protect detainee's human rights, violated the basic principles of medical ethics and ignored the basic tenets of medical professionalism. (shrink)

The purpose of this communication is to announce some recent results on the computably enumerable sets. There are two disjoint sets of results; the first involves invariant classes and the second involves automorphisms of the computably enumerable sets. What these results have in common is that the guts of the proofs of these theorems uses a new form of definable coding for the computably enumerable sets.We will work in the structure of the computably enumerable sets. The language is just inclusion, (...) ⊆. This structure is called ε.All sets will be computably enumerable non-computable sets and all degrees will be computably enumerable and non-computable, unless otherwise noted. Our notation and definitions are standard and follow Soare [1987]; however we will warm up with some definitions and notation issues so the reader need not consult Soare [1987]. Some historical remarks follow in Section 2.1 and throughout Section 3.We will also consider the quotient structure ε modulo the ideal of finite sets, ε*. ε* is a definable quotient structure of ε since “Χ is finite” is definable in ε; “Χ is finite” iff all subsets of Χ are computable. We use A* to denote the equivalent class of A under the ideal of finite sets. (shrink)

There is a moral phenomenon of “Secondary Permissibility” in which an otherwise morally impermissible option is made morally permissible by the presence of another option. In this paper I explain how this phenomenon works and argue that understanding how it works suggests a new model for the structure of the ethics of harming.

I wish this essay to be a tribute to Edwin A. Burtt. He stands for a quality of intellectual and spiritual hospitality that is all the more inspiring because it stems from widespread scholarly analysis and a moral passion for catholicity and civility. Like Kant, he has given much of his acute philosophical ability to the task of understanding the foundations of scientific, moral, and religious beliefs. If anything, he goes a step further than Kant. Persons, he argues, win truth (...) only as love unifies all their efforts. (shrink)

With the intensifying shortage of care-providers and mounting financial burden of an aging population in Japan, artificial intelligence (AI) offers a potential solution through AI-driven robots, chatbots, smartphone apps, and other AI medical services. Yet Japanese acceptance of medical AI, especially patient care, largely depends on the degree of ‘humanness’ that can be integrated into intelligent technologies. As empathy is considered a core value in the practice of healthcare workers, artificially intelligent agents must have the ability to perceive human emotions (...) and respond in an affective, human-like manner. This paper presents the results of a nationwide survey in Japan 2023 about the public perception of the use of emotionalized AI (EAI) in healthcare. The sample included 2000 Japanese citizens from 20 to 69 years old with an average age of 45 years. The questionnaire included 65 items in six categories: demographic, perception of the existing healthcare system, attitude towards the use of AI, and EAI in healthcare, trust and privacy concerns and fear of AI, and seeking literacy on new technologies. The analysis of the responses demonstrates that overall, the Japanese population has a limited knowledge of AI, EAI, and smart technologies but trusts the healthcare system, physicians, and staff to use it properly, with little worries over the potential pitfalls related to data security and safety. However, they prefer the use of more human resources and are concerned about privacy and the high cost of new technology, and believe little information is being provided to them through government and media. (shrink)

This new book describes the intellectual structure of modern science as a body of knowledge produced by the Cartesian method.

When people make judgments about the effects of a perturbation on populations of species in a food web, their judgments exhibit the dissipation effect: a tendency to judge that effects of the perturbation weaken or dissipate as they spread out through the food web from the locus of the perturbation. In the present research evidence for two more phenomena is reported. Terminal locations are points in the food web with just a single connection to the rest of the web. Judged (...) changes tended to be higher for species at terminal locations than for species the same distance from the perturbation but at nonterminal locations. Branches are points in the web where a route splits into two or more routes. Judged changes tended to be lower for species following branching points than for species the same distance from the perturbation but not following branching points. It is proposed that the findings can be explained as effects of a mental model employing concepts of influence and resistance. Under this model a perturbation is a change in energy level at a point in the system that acts as an influence affecting the rest of the system. The basic concepts in this model are domain‐general and on that basis it is predicted that the dissipation effect should be found in judgments of any physical system to which notions of influence and resistance can be applied. (shrink)

Ethics and College Sports is a careful analysis of the root problems in intercollegiate athletics in American universities. It examines the prevalent myths that are regularly used to justify the inclusion of intercollegiate athletics, and all of the abuses and scandals it has brought to university campuses, from a moral perspective.

Answering Beate Hofmann's article on mothers’ recuperation in Germany, this response uses the results of two Sweden-based research projects on the changed role of the Church of Sweden and seven more West-European majority churches in welfare society. Special attention is given to the interdependence of national welfare system and theology and to current changes in European welfare systems.

It may seem that there is no need to review such a well-known book. This is the second edition of Peter Singer's text, Practical Ethics. The first edition has been widely used and influential; indeed for many it defines the field of applied ethics. The field is lucky; rarely is such popular work so carefully argued, so factually well informed and so well written. In addition, it is unusual for the author of a basic text to be so daring. (...) Peter Singer deserves credit for placing the interests of animals and famine victims on the agenda of applied ethics, and for making that agenda so prominent in public fora. But it behooves us to scrutinize carefully the power of definitive works as well. What sets the agenda is, for that very reason, more difficult to assess critically. (shrink)

We discuss two inconsistencies between Levelt et al.'s model and existing theory about, and data from, picture-word experiments. These inconsistencies show that the empirical support for WEAVER ++ is much weaker than Levelt et al. suggest. We close with a discussion of the proposed explanation for phonological coactivation of near synonyms of a target word.