A notable feature of the COVID-19 pandemic is that children are less at risk of becoming infected or, if infected, less likely to become seriously unwell, so ethical discussions have consequently focused on the adult healthcare setting. However, despite a lower risk of children becoming acutely ill with COVID-19, there nevertheless may be significant and potentially sustained effects of COVID-19 on the physical, psychological, and emotional health and well-being of children. Focusing on the context of children’s cancer care, and specifically (...) bone marrow transplant, we describe some of these effects and then address one specific ethical challenge that arises. That is the question of what and how much to tell children whose cancer treatment has been changed because of COVID-19. Drawing on our previous work on the ethical reasons for telling the truth to younger children we link different ethical reasons to the different types of information that could be given to children in this context. We argue that children should be given an explanation of the changes that they will directly experience, including some changes to the process of their actual medical treatment; but not about increased risk associated with these changes, unless they specifically ask for this information. (shrink)

Diachronic Dutch book arguments seem to support both conditionalization and Bas van Fraassen's Reflection principle. But the Reflection principle is vulnerable to numerous counterexamples. This essay addresses two questions: first, under what circumstances should an agent obey Reflection, and second, should the counterexamples to Reflection make us doubt the Dutch book for conditionalization? In response to the first question, this essay formulates a new "Qualified Reflection" principle, which states that an agent should obey Reflection only if he or she is (...) certain that he or she will conditionalize on veridical evidence in the future. Qualified Reflection follows from the probability calculus together with a few idealizing assumptions. The essay then formulates a "Distorted Reflection" principle that approximates Reflection even in cases where the agent is not quite certain that he or she will conditionalize on veridical evidence. In response to the second question, the essay argues that contrary to a common misconception, not all Dutch books dramatize incoherence—some dramatize a less blameworthy sort of epistemic frailty that the essay calls "self-doubt." The distinction between Dutch books that dramatize incoherence and those that dramatize self-doubt cross-cuts the distinction between synchronic and diachronic Dutch books. The essay explains why the Dutch book for conditionalization reveals true incoherence, whereas the Dutch book for Reflection reveals only self-doubt. (shrink)

Metaphysicians are in the business of making and defending modal claims—claims about how things must, or could or could not be. Wittgenstein’s opposition to necessity claims, along with his various negative remarks about ‘metaphysical’ uses of language, makes it seem almost a truism that Wittgenstein was opposed to metaphysics. In this paper I want to make a case for rejecting that apparent truism. My thesis is that it is illuminating to characterize what Wittgenstein and Anscombe are doing in their philosophical (...) writing as metaphysics without manufactured necessities. Doing so helps to articulate a sharper, more interesting, critique of contemporary metaphysical practices than therapeutic or linguistic framings of Wittgenstein’s method make possible. It also allows us to place Anscombe in the context of a tradition of British metaphysics that emerged in the 1940s in an attempt to reverse the devastating impact on ethics of the new ‘analytical’ philosophy. (shrink)

One of the standard approaches to the metaphysics of personal identity has some counter‐intuitive ethical consequences when combined with maximising consequentialism and a plausible (though not uncontroversial) doctrine about aggregation of consequences. This metaphysical doctrine is the so‐called ‘multiple occupancy’ approach to puzzles about fission and fusion. It gives rise to a new version of the ‘utility monster’ problem, particularly difficult problems about infinite utility, and a new version of a Parfit‐style ‘repugnant conclusion’. While the article focuses on maximising consequentialism (...) for simplicity, the problems demonstrated apply more widely to a range of ethical views, especially flavours of consequentialism. This article demonstrates how these problems arise, and discusses a number of options available in the light of these problems for a consequentialist tempted by a multiple occupancy metaphysics. (shrink)

A number of recent authors (Galles and Pearl, Found Sci 3 (1):151–182, 1998; Hiddleston, Noûs 39 (4):232–257, 2005; Halpern, J Artif Intell Res 12:317–337, 2000) advocate a causal modeling semantics for counterfactuals. But the precise logical significance of the causal modeling semantics remains murky. Particularly important, yet particularly under-explored, is its relationship to the similarity-based semantics for counterfactuals developed by Lewis (Counterfactuals. Harvard University Press, 1973b). The causal modeling semantics is both an account of the truth conditions of counterfactuals, and (...) an account of which inferences involving counterfactuals are valid. As an account of truth conditions, it is incomplete. While Lewis's similarity semantics lets us evaluate counterfactuals with arbitrarily complex antecedents and consequents, the causal modeling semantics makes it hard to ascertain the truth conditions of all but a highly restricted class of counterfactuals. I explain how to extend the causal modeling language to encompass a wider range of sentences, and provide a sound and complete axiomatization for the extended language. Extending the truth conditions for counterfactuals has serious consequences concerning valid inference. The extended language is unlike any logic of Lewis's: modus ponens is invalid, and classical logical equivalents cannot be freely substituted in the antecedents of conditionals. (shrink)

We calculate the complexity of Scott sentences of scattered linear orders. Given a countable scattered linear order L of Hausdorff rank $\alpha $ we show that it has a ${d\text {-}\Sigma _{2\alpha +1}}$ Scott sentence. It follows from results of Ash [2] that for every countable $\alpha $ there is a linear order whose optimal Scott sentence has this complexity. Therefore, our bounds are tight. We furthermore show that every Hausdorff rank 1 linear order has an optimal ${\Pi ^{\mathrm {c}}_{3}}$ (...) or ${d\text {-}\Sigma ^{\mathrm {c}}_{3}}$ Scott sentence and give a characterization of those linear orders of rank $1$ with ${\Pi ^{\mathrm {c}}_{3}}$ optimal Scott sentences. At last we show that for all countable $\alpha $ the class of Hausdorff rank $\alpha $ linear orders is $\boldsymbol {\Sigma }_{2\alpha +2}$ complete and obtain analogous results for index sets of computable linear orders. (shrink)

G. E. M. Anscombe’s Intention is a classic of twentieth-century philosophy. The work has been enormously influential despite being a dense and largely misunderstood text. It is a standard reference point for anyone engaging with philosophy of action and philosophy of psychology. In this Routledge Philosophy GuideBook, Rachael Wiseman: situates _Intention_ in relation to Anscombe’s moral philosophy and philosophy of mind considers the influence of Aquinas, Aristotle, Frege, and Wittgenstein on the method and content of _Intention_ adopts a structure (...) for assessing the text that shows how Anscombe unifies the three aspects of the concept of intention considers the influence and implications of the piece whilst distinguishing it from subsequent work in the philosophy of action Ideal for anyone wanting to understand and gain a perspective on Elizabeth Anscombe’s seminal work, this guide is an essential introduction, useful in the study of the philosophy of action, ethics, philosophy of psychology and related areas. (shrink)

Growing-Block theorists hold that past and present things are real, while future things do not yet exist. This generates a puzzle: how can Growing-Block theorists explain the fact that some sentences about the future appear to be true? Briggs and Forbes develop a modal ersatzist framework, on which the concrete actual world is associated with a branching-time structure of ersatz possible worlds. They then show how this branching structure might be used to determine the truth values of future contingents. They (...) point out three different ways of interpreting the logical connectives, which give rise to three different logics of the open future: one supervaluationist, one corresponding to Lukasiewicz's strong Kleene logic, and one intuitionist. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept of evolvability has been gaining in prominence both within evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) and the broader field of evolutionary biology. Despite this, there remains considerable disagreement about what evolvability is. This article offers a solution to this problem. I argue that, in focusing too closely on the role played by evolvability as an explanandum in evo-devo, existing philosophical attempts to clarify the evolvability concept have been overly narrow. Within evolutionary biology more broadly, evolvability offers a (...) robust explanation for the evolutionary trajectories of populations. Evolvability is an abstract, robust, dispositional property of populations, which captures the joint causal influence of their internal features on the outcomes of evolution (as opposed to the causal influence of selection, which is often characterized as external). When considering the nature of the physical basis of this disposition, it becomes clear that the many existing definitions of evolvability at play within evo-devo should be understood as capturing only aspects of a much broader phenomenon. 1 Introduction2 The Problem of Evolvability3 The Theoretical Role of Evolvability in Evolutionary Biology3.1 The explanatory targets of evolutionary biology3.2 Selection-based explanations3.3 Lineage explanations3.4 Evolvability-based explanations3.5 What properties must evolvability have?4 What Evolvability Really Is4.1 Making sense of ft4.2 Making sense of x and b5 What of the Limbs? The Power of E6 Conclusion. (shrink)

We improve on and generalize a 1960 result of Maltsev. For a field F, we denote by $H(F)$ the Heisenberg group with entries in F. Maltsev showed that there is a copy of F defined in $H(F)$, using existential formulas with an arbitrary non-commuting pair of elements as parameters. We show that F is interpreted in $H(F)$ using computable $\Sigma _1$ formulas with no parameters. We give two proofs. The first is an existence proof, relying on a result of Harrison-Trainor, (...) Melnikov, R. Miller, and Montalbán. This proof allows the possibility that the elements of F are represented by tuples in $H(F)$ of no fixed arity. The second proof is direct, giving explicit finitary existential formulas that define the interpretation, with elements of F represented by triples in $H(F)$. Looking at what was used to arrive at this parameter-free interpretation of F in $H(F)$, we give general conditions sufficient to eliminate parameters from interpretations. (shrink)

Back in October 2015 I had the opportunity to chair the book launch for all three works discussed in this review essay. At the event, Shirley Anne Tate said, “Black feminist theory is the theory”. The comment referred to how it is not ‘just’ that Black feminist theory is typically marginalised within institutional contexts and academic scholarship, ‘even’ within critical, feminist and poststructural work, but also to highlight the capacity of Black feminist scholarship to unpick and destabilise the known and (...) knowable in ways that are profoundly ontological, and which offer potential routes to meaningful social change through the hard task of working across difference. The three books reviewed here by Shirley Anne Tate, Suryia Nayak and Shona Hunter are theoretically rich and complex in breadth, scope and range, drawing on extensive Black feminist scholarship, as well as critical race, critical feminist, psychosocial, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, decolonial and poststructural approaches. Each book is embedded in everyday practices and social processes, offering multi-layered movement across different spatial-social and affective scales in ways that allow ‘big’ insights to emerge from the locatedness and particularity of human experience. They are reviewed in turn and some concluding comments identify important commonalities across the texts. (shrink)

There is a growing body of evidence that points to an important role for modification of lifestyle factors and promotion of health-related quality of life in the secondary prevention of disease progression in multiple sclerosis ( D’Hooghe et al., 2010 ; Weiland et al., 2014 ; Hadgkiss et al., 2015 ). As a clinical psychologist diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2012 I have gained a unique insight into ways in which people living with MS and clinicians can usefully integrate evidence-based (...) lifestyle modifications that enhance self-efficacy and self-management to improve wider psychological and physical health. The framework presented here enables clinicians to engage in salutogenic health promotion by placing value upon the importance of healthy, evidence-based behavior change. Furthermore, the framework provides a structure which can empower and provide guidance for people living with MS on what and how to implement and sustain behavior change and emotional wellbeing in the face of this life-changing diagnosis. (shrink)

The 1945 discovery of ancient documents at Nag Hammadi in Egypt would have great significance for New Testament scholars. But it would take decades, and one woman, to unleash their meaning to the public. In the 1960s, Elaine Pagels was part of a team at Harvard University, studying the Nag Hammadi scrolls; in 1979 her slim bookThe Gnostic Gospels put the formerly suppressed writings of early Christians into the hands of ordinary people.

A recent report by Blumenthal et al.1 provides convincing evidence that at least 15% of Caenorhabditis elegans genes are co‐transcribed within over a thousand operons. Polycistronic transcription of gene clusters is very rare in eukaryotes. The widespread occurrence of operons in C. elegans thus raises some interesting questions about the origin and function of these multigenic transcriptional units. BioEssays 24:983–987, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc.

Evidence exists that the UK National Health Service has had, over many years, persistent problems of negative and intimidating behaviour towards staff from other employees. The evidence also suggests the organisational responses to negative behaviour can be inadequate. A conceptual model of organisational dysfunction was proposed to assist in explaining those responses and the overall culture in the NHS. Through research this model has been tested. Based upon the findings, an extended and developed model of organisational dysfunction is presented. A (...) qualitative approach was taken to research the organisational responses to negative behaviour, and the reasons and motivations for those responses. Forty-three interviews and six focus groups were conducted. There seem to be “islands” and “pockets” with a positive culture; however, the generalised evidence suggests the NHS is systemically and institutionally deaf, bullying, defensive and dishonest, exhibiting a resistance to ‘knowing’, denial and “wilful blindness”; a dysfunctional, perverse and troubled organisation. Totalitarian and Kafkaesque characteristics are identified. The NHS could also be described as a coercive bureaucracy and under certain definitions, a corrupt entity. The NHS appears to be an organisation with a heart of darkness; a “self perpetuating dysfunctional system”. There may be widespread “learned helplessness”. It seems to be a “good news factory”, rejecting and hiding any “bad news”; retreating from reality. The NHS appears to have “lost its way” and its focus/purpose as an institution. The dysfunctional organisational behaviours manifest in the NHS need to be addressed urgently as there is a detrimental, sometimes devastating, impact on the wellbeing of both staff and patients. The NHS needs to embrace an identity of being a listening, learning and honest organisation, with a culture of respect. (shrink)

Risk-weighted expected utility theory permits preferences which violate the Sure-Thing Principle. But preferences that violate the STP can lead to bad decisions in sequential choice problems. In particular, they can lead decision-makers to adopt a strategy that is dominated – i.e. a strategy such that some available alternative leads to a better outcome in every possible state of the world.

There is a deep connection between Anscombe’s argument that ‘I’ is not a referring expression and Intention’s account of practical knowledge and knowledge without observation. The assumption that the so-called “no-reference thesis” can be resisted while the account of action set out in her book INTENTION is embraced is based on a misunderstanding of the argument of “The First Person” and the status of its conclusion; removing that misunderstanding helps to illuminate the concept of practical knowledge and brings into view (...) a novel account of the relation between self-consciousness, agency, and first-person thought. (shrink)

Sidney Shoemaker credits Wittgenstein’s Blue Book with identifying a special kind of immunity to error that is characteristic of ‘I’ in its “use as subject”. This immunity to error is thought by Shoemaker, and by many following him, to be central to the meaning of ‘I’ and thus to the topics of self-knowledge, self-consciousness and personal memory. This paper argues that Wittgenstein’s work does not contain the thesis, nor any version of the thesis, that there is a use of ‘I’—‘use (...) as subject’—which is ‘immune to error through misidentification’. It offers an interpretative corrective and shows that the passage in question is part of a deep challenge to IEM and to accounts of first-person thought that begin with the idea that there are two uses of the word ‘I’. With the corrective in place novel perspectives on the relation between self-consciousness and subjectivity become visible. (shrink)

I propose an account truthmaking that provides truthmakers for negative truths. The account replaces Truthmaker Necessitarianism with a "Duplication Principle", according to which a suitable entity T is a truthmaker for a proposition P just in case the existence of an appropriate counterpart of T entails the truth of P, where the counterpart relation is cashed out in terms of qualitative duplication. My account captures an intuitive notion of truthmakers as "things the way they are", validates two appealing principles about (...) entailment and containment proposed by David Armstrong, and invalidates the controversial Disjunction Thesis. (shrink)

Successful behavior requires actively acquiring and representing information about the environment and people, and manipulating and using those acquired representations flexibly to optimally act in and on the world. The frontal lobes have figured prominently in most accounts of flexible or goal-directed behavior, as evidenced by often-reported behavioral inflexibility in individuals with frontal lobe dysfunction. Here, we propose that the hippocampus also plays a critical role by forming and reconstructing relational memory representations that underlie flexible cognition and social behavior. There (...) is mounting evidence that damage to the hippocampus can produce inflexible and maladaptive behavior when such behavior places high demands on the generation, recombination, and flexible use of information. This is seen in abilities as diverse as memory, navigation, exploration, imagination, creativity, decision-making, character judgments, establishing and maintaining social bonds, empathy, social discourse, and language use. Thus, the hippocampus, together with its extensive interconnections with other neural systems, supports the flexible use of information in general. Further, we suggest that this understanding has important clinical implications. Hippocampal abnormalities can produce profound deficits in real-world situations, which typically place high demands on the flexible use of information, but are not always obvious on diagnostic tools tuned to frontal lobe function. This review documents the role of the hippocampus in supporting flexible representations and aims to expand our understanding of the dynamic networks that operate as we move through and create meaning of our world. (shrink)

Tracking accounts of knowledge formulated in terms of counterfactuals suffer from well known problems. Examples are provided, and it is shown that moving to a dispositional tracking theory of knowledge avoids three of these problems.

I consider an old problem for preference satisfaction theories of wellbeing: that they have trouble answering questions about interpersonal comparisons, such as whether I am better off than you are, or whether a particular policy benefits me more than it benefits you. I argue that a similar problem arises for intrapersonal comparisons in cases of transformative experience. I survey possible solutions to the problem, and point out some subtle disanalogies between the problem involving interpersonal comparisons and the problem involving transformative (...) experience. (shrink)

In ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ Anscombe writes: ‘It is not profitable at present for us to do moral philosophy. It should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking’. In consideration of this Anscombe appeals to the relation of ‘brute-relative-to’ which holds between facts and descriptions of human affairs. This paper describes the reorientation in philosophy of action that this relation aims to effect and examines the claim that this (...) reorientation makes possible the sort of philosophy of psychology that can provide a starting point for ethics. (shrink)

Face perception is a highly conserved process that directs our attention from infancy and is supported by specialized neural circuitry. Oxytocin can increase accuracy and detection of emotional faces, but these effects are mediated by valence, individual differences, and context. We investigated the temporal dynamics of oxytocin’s influence on the neural substrates of face perception using event related potentials (ERP). In a double blind, placebo controlled within-subject design, 21 healthy male adults inhaled oxytocin or placebo and underwent ERP imaging during (...) two face processing tasks. Experiment 1 investigated effects of oxytocin on neural correlates of fearful versus neutral facial expressions, and Experiment 2 manipulated point-of-gaze to neutral faces. In Experiment 1, we found that oxytocin reduced N170 latency to fearful faces. In Experiment 2, N170 latency was decreased when participant gaze was directed to the eyes of neutral faces; however, there were no oxytocin-associated effects in response to different facial features. Findings suggest oxytocin modulates early stages of social perception for socially complex information such as emotional faces relative to neutral. These results are consistent with models suggesting oxytocin impacts the salience of socially informative cues during processing, which leads to downstream effects in behavior. Future work should examine how oxytocin affects neural processes underlying basic components of social behavior (such as, face perception) while varying emotional expression of stimuli or comparing different characteristics of participants (e.g., gender, personality traits). (shrink)

Bilingualism is a valuable tool that enriches and facilitates cultural, social and lived experiences for autistic and non-autistic people alike. Research consistently finds no negative effects of bilingualism and highlights the potential for positive effects across cognitive and socio-cultural domains for autistic and non-autistic children. Yet parents of autistic children remain concerned that bilingualism will cause delays in both cognitive and language development and are still frequently advised by practitioners to raise their child monolingually. Evidently, findings from research are not (...) reflected in practice or subsequent advice, and it is essential to identify ways to ensure equal access to additional language learning. We briefly summarise the existing literature on bilingualism and autism, considering perspectives from the bilingual autistic community, and experimental research. We identify the most pertinent barriers to participation for autistic bilingual children in terms of familial, clinical and educational perspectives. We propose novel solutions to promote additional language learning and suggest changes to practice that will contribute to an evidence base for families and practitioners. This commentary makes innovative recommendations at both the individual and societal level to ensure that autistic bilingual people have equal rights and opportunities to language learning and are optimally supported in accessing them. (shrink)

Modern literature has always been obsessed by music. It cannot seem to think about itself without obsessing about music. And music has returned the favour. The Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature addresses this relationship as a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of word and music studies. The 37 chapters within consider the partnership through four lenses-the universal, opera and literature, musical and literary forms, and popular music and literature-and touch upon diverse and pertinent themes for our modern (...) times, ranging from misogyny to queerness, racial inequality to the claimed universality of whiteness. This Companion therefore offers an essential resource for all who try to decode the musico-literary exchange. (shrink)

Currently there are several psychotherapy modalities utilising theory and research from neuroscience in treatment frameworks for mental health and recovery from trauma. In Australia this includes: the Conversational Model of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, a contemporary psychodynamic approach used for treating Borderline Personality Disorder and other trauma-related disorders; Electroencephalogram Neurofeedback, a brain training therapy which has been used as an adjunct to counselling/psychotherapy in traumatic stress and developmental trauma; and Somatic Experiencing, an integrative mind-body approach based on body responses to threat and (...) fear, especially thwarted attempts to enact fight or flight in the face of threat. These modalities have a promising but still-limited evidence base. This paper explores the role of different types of evidence to frame a descriptive review of the current evidence base available for clinicians practicing in these three modalities. While large clinical trials can provide evidence of comparative effectiveness, case studies, observational, qualitative and practice-based enquiry can assist in discovering other aspects of therapy important for individual clients and practitioners. Existing frameworks of evidence- and ethics-informed health and clinical decision-making suggest an ethical approach can incorporate new, developing and evidence-building therapies. Recommendations include careful consideration of informed consent for therapy including disclosure of efficacy and safety, and specific to psychotherapies incorporating neuroscience, a need for practitioners to reflectively assess their own knowledge, competence, heuristic approaches and biases. (shrink)

Theistic cosmologies have inspired many religious communities to alienate transgender individuals. While the growth in tolerance among congregations and institutions is important, there remains a pressing need to address the cosmologies at the root of intolerance. A re-examination of theological conceptions of God and the human person reveal not only acceptability, but significance, in the trans experience itself. Synthesizing gender studies with theology, this interdisciplinary article argues that God’s nature as deeply personal Love implies a sacredness in gender authenticity. The (...) human person is part of an evolution toward deeply personalized consciousness. Gender, when freed from rigid constraints, is a social expression of this personalized self in a common cultural language. As infinite Love, God actualizes in the universe in deeply personal love. Therefore, by personalizing knowledge of one another and enabling deeper love between human persons, gender authenticity, in its fluidity, ambiguity, and continuous newness, deepens God’s existence. Ultimately, I argue, expressing one’s authentic gender is a sacred act. (shrink)

This paper examines the context in which Anscombe wrote Intention—focusing on the years 1956–1958. At this time Anscombe was engaged in a number of battles against her university, her colleagues, and, ultimately, “the spirit of the age,” which included her public opposition to Oxford University’s decision to award Harry Truman an honorary degree. Intention, I show, must be understood as a product of the explicitly ethical and political debates in which Anscombe was involved. Understanding the intention with which she wrote (...) Intention suggests that we need radically to rethink its nature and character, and that the consequences of the book for work in ethics—consequences Anscombe foresaw and intended—are yet to be understood. (shrink)

Interest in universal basic income has risen recently as an alternative to existing exchequer-sourced social security methods, such as conditional cash transfers. This article presents a survey of multiple experiments investigating the impact of basic income cash transfers on recipients while presenting a meta-analysis of the results across nine categories. Many findings indicate successful outcomes across financial security, health, and educational dimensions. Children were amongst the strongest beneficiaries of the trials and observed a 4.5 % reduction in obesity, a 19.5 (...) % increase in their normal weight-for-age, a 30 % increase in female secondary school attendance, and an increase in the educational attainment of one year in response to the cash transfers. (shrink)