Studies with humans have failed to produce evidence that any direct causal relation exists between the asymmetry of one function in an individual and the asymmetry of a different function in that individual. Without such evidence, factors external to an individual's nervous system, such as social interactions, may play crucial roles in explaining the directions of all asymmetries at all levels.

ABSTRACT:The ubiquity of family dominated firms in economies worldwide suggests that inquiry into the nature of the ethical frames of these types of firms is increasingly important. In the context of a social exchange approach and the norm of reciprocity, this manuscript addresses social cohesion in a dominant family firm coalition. It is argued that the factors underlying this cohesion, direct versus indirect reciprocity, shape unique attributes of family firms such as intentions for transgenerational sustainability, the pursuit of non-economic goals, (...) and strong interpersonal ties. Exchange structures, represented by direct and indirect reciprocity, lead family and non-family firms toward development of distinctive ethical frames of reference. (shrink)

The growth of high-stakes testing in state accountability systems necessitates further examination of their impact on stakeholders. Prompted by broader state-level reform in Kentucky, this evaluation aims to provide insight into a new accountability system's effect on social studies teachers. Using a goal-free evaluation model and case study design, the researchers examined the content and instructional decisions made by a group of U.S. history teachers in response to a new end-of-course exam designed by ACT-QualityCore. The evaluation incorporated a content analysis (...) of teacher materials, observation of a professional learning community meeting, and teacher interviews. The results of this evaluation indicate that teachers generally support the changes in the new assessment system but find specific elements frustrating and hesitate to completely revamp their instructional practices. Considering these assessment system changes occurred to advance Kentucky's goal of college and career readiness for all, this evaluation provides insight into what is actually happening in classrooms and should assist teachers and administrators as they assess the impact of these reforms on classroom practice. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore alternatives to traditional philosophical writing assignments. I propose that inviting students to engage with philosophical ideas creatively can make our writing instruction more inclusive. Creative assignments, I argue, can achieve the same goals as traditional writing assignments but are able to sidestep some of the assumptions and habits that make it harder for students to experience writing as an authentic act of self-expression. I also discuss assessment strategies and provide several sample assignments including grading criteria.

In this essay, I examine how Plato’s Symposium can be helpful for teachers who are interested in encouraging introductory students to develop a sense of wonder in their early encounters with philosophical texts. Plato’s work is helpful, I argue, in two ways. First, as teachers of philosophy, the Symposium contains important pedagogical lessons for us about the roles of creativity and affectivity in philosophical pedagogy. Second, the dialogue lends itself well to the pedagogical methods that Plato’s work recommends. That is, (...) the Symposium invites students to engage with it in ways that involve them as affective and creative learners. I begin by providing the theoretical basis for my pedagogical approach, which is inspired by phenomenology. Next, I offer my interpretation of the Symposium, indicating what we can learn from the text about how to teach philosophy. And finally, I describe three classroom activities based on Plato’s text that are aimed at accomplishing the pedagogical ends I have outlined. (shrink)

The dominant unspoken philosophical basis of medical care in the United States is a form of Cartesian reductionism that views the body as a machine and medical professionals as technicians whose job is to repair that machine. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for an alternative philosophy of medicine based on the concept of healing relationships between clinicians and patients. This is accomplished first by exploring the ethical and philosophical work of Pellegrino and Thomasma and then by connecting (...) Martin Buber's philosophical work on the nature of relationships to an empirically derived model of the medical healing relationship. The Healing Relationship Model was developed by the authors through qualitative analysis of interviews of physicians and patients. Clinician-patient healing relationships are a special form of what Buber calls I-Thou relationships, characterized by dialog and mutuality, but a mutuality limited by the inherent asymmetry of the clinician-patient relationship. The Healing Relationship Model identifies three processes necessary for such relationships to develop and be sustained: Valuing, Appreciating Power and Abiding. We explore in detail how these processes, as well as other components of the model resonate with Buber's concepts of I-Thou and I-It relationships. The resulting combined conceptual model illuminates the wholeness underlying the dual roles of clinicians as healers and providers of technical biomedicine. On the basis of our analysis, we argue that health care should be focused on healing, with I-Thou relationships at its core. (shrink)

Bluffing, a common and consequential form of competitive behavior, has been comparably ignored in the management literature, even though misleading one's rivals is suggested to be an advantageous skill in a multifaceted and highly competitive environment. To address this deficiency and advance scholarship on competitive dynamics, our study investigates the moral reasoning behind competitive bluffing and, using a simulated market-entry game, examines the performance effects of bluffing. Findings suggest that decision makers' views on the ethicality of bluffing competitors differ from (...) their beliefs on the ethicality of misleading other organizational stakeholders. Analysis also indicates that decision makers who view competitor bluffing as more ethical (less unethical) are more willing to engage in competitive bluffing. Finally, while bluffing is often thought to be an effective business practice, results show that in the context of repeated interaction, bluffing is not conducive to high levels of performance and, in fact, can have undesirable consequences. (shrink)

Attention is vital to success in all aspects of life (Erickson, Thiessen, Godwin, Dickerson, & Fisher, 2015; Meck & Benson, 2002), hence it is important to identify biomarkers of later attentional problems early enough to intervene. Our objective was to determine if any of 11 genes (APOE, BDNF, HTR4, CHRNA4, COMT, DRD4, IGF2, MAOA, SLC5A7, SLC6A3, and SNAP25) predicted the trajectory of attentional development within the same group of children between infancy and childhood. We recruited followup participants from children who (...) participated as infants in visual attention studies and used a similar task at both time points. Using multilevel modeling, we associated changes in the participant’s position in the distribution of scores in infancy to his/her position in childhood with genetic markers on each of 11 genes. While all 11 genes predicted reaction time (RT) residual scores, only MAOA had a significant interaction including time point. We conclude that the MAOA SNP rs1137070 is useful in predicting which girls are likely to develop slower RTs on an attention task between infancy and childhood. This early identification is likely to be helpful in early intervention. (shrink)

Despite some improvements in access to evidence-based medications for opioid use disorder, treatment rates remain low at under a quarter of those with need. High costs for brand name products in these medication markets have limited the volume of drugs purchased, particularly through public health insurance and grant programs. Brand firm anti-competitive practices around the leading buprenorphine product Suboxone — including product hops, citizen petitions and Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy abuses — helped to maintain high prices by extending brand (...) exclusivity periods and hindering generic drug entry. Remedies to address costly anti-competitive activities include adoption of the proposed CREATES Act and modernization of the Hatch-Waxman Act by the Congress, and implementation of substantive modifications to the Food and Drug Administration citizen petition filing procedures. Given the persistence of these abuses, prescriptive changes are favorable to the procedural and clarifying steps thus far favored by the federal government. Extrapolating from the 37% price declines attributable to generic entry for buprenorphine tablets in 2011, our calculations suggest that implementing these remedies to facilitate generic competition with Suboxone film would have resulted in savings of approximately $703 million overall and $203 million to Medicaid in 2017. (shrink)

In this classic work, best-selling author Harry Frankfurt provides a compelling analysis of the question that not only lies at the heart of Descartes's Meditations, but also constitutes the central preoccupation of modern philosophy: on what basis can reason claim to provide any justification for the truth of our beliefs? Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen provides an ingenious account of Descartes's defense of reason against his own famously skeptical doubts that he might be a madman, dreaming, or, worse yet, deceived by (...) an evil demon into believing falsely.Frankfurt's masterful and imaginative reading of Descartes's seminal work not only stands the test of time; one imagines Descartes himself nodding in agreement. (shrink)

During the past decade, patient participation became an important issue in the medical field, and patient participation in biomedical research processes is increasingly called for. One of the arguments for this refers to the specific kind of knowledge, called experiential knowledge, patients could contribute. Until now, participation of patients in biomedical research has been rare, and integration of patients’ experiential knowledge with scientific knowledge—in the few cases it takes place—occurs implicitly and on an ad hoc basis. This is illustrated by (...) describing and analyzing the activities of the German patient group on retinitis pigmentosa. The authors argue that to be able to optimize the use of experiential knowledge of patients in biomedical research, a systematic approach is required. Transdisciplinary research provides such an approach, systematically, explicitly, and deliberately integrating knowledge from different scientific and nonscientific sources. In this article, the concept of transdisciplinarity is elaborated upon. The authors propose a possible procedure, identify necessary conditions and skills, and evaluate the feasibility of its implementation and institutionalization. Finally, the authors introduce a recent research project to further investigate and implement transdisciplinary research in the biomedical field. (shrink)

Background: Despite procedural innovations and increasing numbers of uterus transplant attempts worldwide, the perspectives of uterus transplant (UTx) trial participants are lacking. Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study with women with absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI). Participants included women who had previously contacted the Cleveland Clinic regarding the Uterine Transplant Trial and met the initial eligibility criteria for participation. In-depth interviews were conducted in conjunction with FertiQoL, a validated and widely used tool to measure the impact of infertility on the (...) quality of life of infertility patients. Results: All (n = 19) rated their overall health as good; some experienced grief and social isolation. AUFI is a life-framing experience that influences acceptance by family, partners, peers, and one’s self. UTx is a means to gain control of reproductive autonomy. UTx allows family-building and the ability to play an active role in prenatal health and well-being. Establishing and maintaining a supportive relationship is a key issue of AUFI and when considering UTx. Risks of UTx are perceived relative to risks to self/child/family posed by adoption/surrogacy. Participants had no overall preference regarding living or deceased donor. Conclusions: The ways in which women with AUFI conceptualize this condition in their lives and choices around UTx and participating in a study of the procedure are multifaceted and textured. These perspectives are critical to understanding its ethical, legal, and social implications. (shrink)

Using a sample of 652 college students, we examined several implications of the hypothesis that the shape of the human penis evolved to enable males to substitute their semen for those of their rivals. The incidence of double mating by females appears sufficient to make semen displacement adaptive (e.g., one in four females acknowledge infidelity, one in eight admit having sex with two or more males in a 24-hour period, and one in 12 report involvement in one or more sexual (...) threesomes with two males). We also document several changes in post-ejaculatory behavior (e.g., reduced thrusting, penis withdrawal, loss of an erection) which may have evolved to minimize displacement of the male’s own semen. Consistent with predictions derived from a theoretical model (Gallup and Burch 2006), we discovered that most females report waiting at least 48 hours following an instance of infidelity before resuming sex with their in-pair partners. (shrink)

In a dynamic term of the United States Supreme Court in 2021-2022 a series of critical cases raise manifold changes and impacts on individual and communal health through 10 key areas ranging from abortions to vaccinations.

The ability to understand the mental states of others has sometimes been attributed to a domain‐specific mechanism which privileges the processing of these states over similar but nonmental representations. If correct, then others’ beliefs should be processed more efficiently than similar information contained within nonmental states. We tested this by examining whether adults would be faster to process others’ false beliefs than equivalent “false” photos. Additionally, we tested whether they would be faster to process others’ true beliefs about something than (...) their own (matched) personal knowledge about the same event. Across four experiments, we found a small but reliable effect in favor of the first prediction, but no evidence for the second. Results are consistent with accounts positing specialized processes for (false) mental states. The size of the effect does, however, suggest that alternative explanations such as practice effects cannot be ruled out. (shrink)

Demonstrates the fertility of the phenomenological tradition of philosophy for intergenerational justice and climate ethics.--In the face of the current environmental crisis, relations with future people—overlapping generations and more distant ones—have moved to the top of political and scholarly agendas. The anthology proposed here seeks to demonstrate the enormous fertility of philosophical phenomenology in accounting for relations among different generations. This is due to phenomenology’s rich reflections on the role of time in the constitution of the social-historical world and its (...) relation to the environment. The volume will boast 11 chapters from different authors across the spectrum of phenomenological currents and subfields, from Husserl and Heidegger to Jonas, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas. A connecting thread will be the relations among mortality, natality, and generativity in connecting as well as separating generations. Authors will reflect on the social-ontological and normative significance of these connections, paying particular attention to political and environmental obligations to people living in the future. (shrink)

The resurgence of tuberculosis in the United States is due, in part, to the dismantling of large-scale treatment systems that were a critical part of the disease control effort for the better part of the twentieth century. As the number of cases grows, clinicians, politicians, public health officials and community advocates have grappled with the difficult problem of building systems to care for infected people that are consonant with current knowledge and beliefs about quality care. As an example, the United (...) Hospital Fund’s 1992 report, The Tuberculosis Revival: Individual and Societal Obligations in a Time of AIDS, discussed policies to guarantee adequate treatment that protects patients’ civil rights, needs for special facilities for care of TB patients, and the special problems faced by infected prisoners. This thoughtful report highlighted many areas of social policy that require further examination. (shrink)

Whitehouse's model explains when people engage in self-sacrifice, but not who is most likely to do so. We propose incorporating individual differences, such as cognitive style (one's inclination toward intuition versus deliberation), and argue that individuals who rely on intuition may be more likely to (1) develop group identity fusion after an emotional experience and (2) engage in pro-social self-sacrifice.

I defend a novel view of how social kinds (e.g., money, women, permanent residents) depend on our mental states. In particular, I argue that social kinds depend on our mental states in the following sense: it is essential to them that they exist (partially) because certain mental states exist. This analysis is meant to capture the very general way in which all social kinds depend on our mental states. However, my view is that particular social kinds also depend on our (...) mental states in more specific ways—some of them causal, others metaphysical. I defend a minimal but metaphysically important notion of essence—one that takes as primary that the essential properties of a kind constitute its identity—and argue that this minimal notion of essence is all that is needed to vindicate my claim that social kinds are essentially mind-dependent. (shrink)

The view that social kinds (e.g., money, migrant, marriage) are mind-dependent is a prominent one in the social ontology literature. However, in addition to the claim that social kinds are mind-dependent, it is often asserted that social kinds are not real because they are mind-dependent. Call this view social kind anti-realism. To defend their view, social kind anti-realists must accomplish two tasks. First, they must identify a dependence relation that obtains between social kinds and our mental states. Call this the (...) Dependence Task. Second, they must show that social kinds are not real because they are mind-dependent. Call this the Anti-Realist Task. In this paper, I consider several different ways of defining the relation that is supposed to obtain between social kinds and our mental states. With respect to each relation, I argue that either it fails to accomplish the Dependence Task, or it fails to accomplish the Anti-Realist Task. As such, anyone who wishes to defend social kind anti-realism must provide an alternative explanation of how social kinds depend on our mental states in a way that impugns their reality. In the absence of such an explanation, there is no reason to endorse social kind anti-realism. (shrink)

Although informed consent is important in clinical research, questions persist regarding when it is necessary, what it requires, and how it should be obtained. The standard view in research ethics is that the function of informed consent is to respect individual autonomy. However, consent processes are multidimensional and serve other ethical functions as well. These functions deserve particular attention when barriers to consent exist. We argue that consent serves seven ethically important and conceptually distinct functions. The first four functions pertain (...) principally to individual participants: (1) providing transparency; (2) allowing control and authorization; (3) promoting concordance with participants' values; and (4) protecting and promoting welfare interests. Three other functions are systemic or policy focused: (5) promoting trust; (6) satisfying regulatory requirements; and (7) promoting integrity in research. Reframing consent around these functions can guide approaches to consent that are context sensitive and that maximize achievable goals. (shrink)

Different types of consent are used to obtain human biospecimens for future research. This variation has resulted in confusion regarding what research is permitted, inadvertent constraints on future research, and research proceeding without consent. The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center's Department of Bioethics held a workshop to consider the ethical acceptability of addressing these concerns by using broad consent for future research on stored biospecimens. Multiple bioethics scholars, who have written on these issues, discussed the reasons for consent, the (...) range of consent strategies, and gaps in our understanding, and concluded with a proposal for broad initial consent coupled with oversight and, when feasible, ongoing provision of information to donors. This article describes areas of agreement and areas that need more research and dialogue. Given recent proposed changes to the Common Rule, and new guidance regarding storing and sharing data and samples, this is an important and tim.. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate the connection between forms of sustainability and masculinity through a study of everyday life in a Danish alternative slaughterhouse. In contrast to the predominant form of slaughterhouses today in Western contexts, the ‘alternative’ slaughterhouse is characterized as non-industrial in scale and articulating some form of a sustainability orientation. Acknowledging the variability of the term, we firstly explore how ‘sustainability’ is understood and practiced in this place. We then illuminate the situated manifestations of masculinities, which appear (...) predominantly- though not exclusively- hegemonic in nature. We next reflect on how the situated and particular sustainability of this site come to bear on a workplace long characterized as a masculinized site of, e.g., violence and repression, showing how the sustainability of the alternative slaughterhouse has potential to nourish alternative masculinities. We finally call for more attention at this nexus of sustainability and masculinities studies, to examine how the broad sustainability turn in food systems needs to be further examined in relation to what masculinities it perpetuates, as well as how a focus on masculinities may enhance our understanding of varying forms of sustainability, especially their potential for ecologically and socially just food systems. (shrink)

Research-oriented universities are known for prolific research activity that is often supported by students in faculty-guided research. To maintain ethical standards, universities require on-going training of both faculty and students to ensure Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). However, previous research has indicated RCR-based training is insufficient to address the ethical dilemmas that are prevalent within academic settings: navigating issues of authorship, modeling relationships between faculty and students, minimization of risk, and adequate informed consent. U.S. universities must explore ways to identify (...) and improve RCR concerns for current (faculty) and future researchers (students). This article reports the findings of a self-study (_N_ = 50) of research stakeholders (students and faculty) at a top tier research institution. First, we report on their perceived importance of applying RCR principles. Second, we explore relationships between stakeholder backgrounds (e.g., prior training, field, and position) and how they ranked the degree of ethical concerns in fictitious vignettes that presented different unethical issues university students could encounter when conducting research. Vignette rankings suggested concerns of inappropriate relationships, predatory authorship and IRB violations which were judged as most unethical, which was dissimilar to what sampled researchers reported in practice as the most important RCR elements to understand and adhere to for successful research. Regression models indicated there was no significant relationship between individuals’ vignette ethics scores and backgrounds, affirming previous literature suggesting that training can be ineffectual in shifting researcher judgments of ethical dilemmas. Recommendations for training are discussed. (shrink)

Élégamment écrit, l’ouvrage de Barbara Reeves-Ellington raconte une histoire de rencontres improbables entre protestantes américaines et habitant.e.s des Balkans ottomans au xixe siècle. À partir d’une série d’études de cas centrées sur la Bulgarie, avec un dernier chapitre où l’action se situe à Constantinople, l’historienne détaille le rôle des femmes dans l’action missionnaire et l’impact de leur action tant dans les Balkans qu’au sein du mouvement missionnaire aux États-Unis. Puisant dans...

The Fundamentals of Care Framework is an evidence‐based, theory‐informed framework that conceptualises high‐quality fundamental care. The Framework places the nurse–patient relationship at the centre of care provision and outlines the nurse behaviours required for relationship development. Numerous instruments exist to measure behavioural aspects of the nurse–patient relationship; however, the literature offers little guidance on which instruments are psychometrically sound and best measure the core relationship elements of the Fundamentals of Care Framework. This study evaluated the quality of nurse–patient relationship instruments (...) by (1) assessing their content development and measurement properties (e.g. dimensionality, targeting, reliability, validity) and (2) mapping instrument content to the Framework's core relationship elements: trust, focus, anticipate, know, and evaluate. Twenty‐seven instruments were evaluated. Findings demonstrated that patients and nurses were rarely involved in item development. Most instruments exhibited poor measurement properties, with only one instrument having complete information on all quality indicators. Instrument content focused primarily on nurses getting to know patients and earning their trust, with only 54, 18, and 1 item(s), respectively, measuring ‘focus’, ‘anticipate’ and ‘evaluate’. Hence, there does not appear to be a robust instrument measuring behavioural aspects of nurse–patient relationships, nor one capturing the relationship elements of the Fundamentals of Care Framework. (shrink)

Should monkeys be used in painful and often deadly infectious disease research that may save many human lives? This is the challenging question that Anne Barnhill, Steven Joffe, and Franklin G. Miller take on in their carefully argued and compelling article “The Ethics of Infection Challenges in Primates.” The authors offer a nuanced and even-handed position that takes philosophical worries about nonhuman primate moral status seriously and still appreciates the very real value of such research for human welfare. Overall, they (...) argue for an extension and revision of the recommendations regarding chimpanzee research offered by the Institute of Medicine in 2011; the practical upshot of their argument would allow for infection challenge research for promising interventions for Ebola and Marburg virus diseases but not for smallpox or the common cold. The IOM recommendations regarding chimpanzee research put in motion an exceptionalist policy for this great ape population. Barnhill and colleagues’ proposal would enlarge the scope of that exceptionalism to embrace NHPs other than great apes. But is such exceptionalism warranted? It is not obvious to me either that the more sophisticated capacities of a species as a whole give it greater ethical protections or that less intellectually or socially sophisticated animals ought to therefore receive less protection when it comes to painful experimental interventions. (shrink)

Background: Nonhuman animals are regularly enhanced genomically with CRISPR and other gene editing tools as scientists aim at better models for biomedical research, more tractable agricultural animals, or animals that are otherwise well suited to a defined purpose. This study investigated how genome editors and policymakers perceived ethical or policy benefits and drawbacks for animal enhancement and how perceived benefits and drawbacks are alike, or differ from, those for human genome editing. Methods: We identified scientists through relevant literature searches as (...) well as conference presentations. Policymakers were identified through rosters of genome editing oversight groups (e.g., International Commission on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing, World Health Organization) or efforts aimed at influencing policy (e.g., deliberative democracy groups). Interviews covered participants’ views on ethical differences between interventions affecting somatic or germline cells and distinctions between using gene editing for disease treatment, prevention, and enhancement purposes. Results: Of the 92 participants interviewed, 81 were genome editing scientists, and 33 were policymakers, with 22 interviewees being both scientists and policymakers. Multiple areas were identified in which the ethical implications of genomic enhancements for nonhuman animals differ from those for human animals including with respect to experiential welfare; germline edits; environmental sustainability; and justice. Conclusions: Overall, respondents viewed that animal enhancement is unburdened by the ethical complexities of human enhancement. These views may be related to participant perceptions of animals’ lesser moral status and because germline editing in animals is common practice. (shrink)

A 2011 National Academies of Sciences report called for an “Information Commons” and a “Knowledge Network” to revolutionize biomedical research and clinical care. We interviewed 41 expert stakeholders to examine governance, access, data collection, and privacy in the context of a medical information commons. Stakeholders' attitudes about MICs align with the NAS vision of an Information Commons; however, differences of opinion regarding clinical use and access warrant further research to explore policy and technological solutions.

Marine interstitial environments are teeming with an extraordinary diversity of coexisting microeukaryotic lineages collectively called “meiofauna.” Interstitial habitats are broadly distributed across the planet, and the complex physical features of these environments have persisted, much like they exist today, throughout the history of eukaryotes, if not longer. Although our general understanding of the biological diversity in these environments is relatively poor, compelling examples of developmental heterochrony (e.g., pedomorphosis) and convergent evolution appear to be widespread among meiofauna. Therefore, an improved understanding (...) of meiofaunal biodiversity is expected to provide some of the deepest insights into the following themes in evolutionary biology: (i) the origins of novel body plans, (ii) macroevolutionary patterns of miniaturization, and (iii) the intersection of evolution and community assembly – e.g., “community convergence” involving distantly related lineages that span the tree of eukaryotes. (shrink)

Nanomedicine is yielding new and improved treatments and diagnostics for a range of diseases and disorders. Nanomedicine applications incorporate materials and components with nanoscale dimensions where novel physiochemical properties emerge as a result of size-dependent phenomena and high surface-to-mass ratio. Nanotherapeutics and in vivo nanodiagnostics are a subset of nanomedicine products that enter the human body. These include drugs, biological products, implantable medical devices, and combination products that are designed to function in the body in ways unachievable at larger scales. (...) Nanotherapeutics andin vivonanodiagnostics incorporate materials that are engineered at the nanoscale to express novel properties that are medicinally useful. These nanomedicine applications can also contain nanomaterials that are biologically active, producing interactions that depend on biological triggers. Examples include nanoscale formulations of insoluble drugs to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetics, drugs encapsulated in hollow nanoparticles with the ability to target and cross cellular and tissue membranes and to release their payload at a specific time or location, imaging agents that demonstrate novel optical properties to aid in locating micrometastases, and antimicrobial and drug-eluting components or coatings of implantable medical devices such as stents. (shrink)

Ch. G. Bardili (1761-1808) ist der Begrunder des rationalen Realismus mit dem Ziel eines von der Materialitat ausgehenden Gottesbeweises. Heute nur noch als von den Zeitgenossen fast einhellig abgelehnter Denker bekannt, bietet sein Schaffen in der enormen Spannbreite von Wissenschaftsreflexionen, Ethik, Philosophiegeschichte und Logik doch ein interessantes, facettenreiches und in seiner Radikalitat anregendes Gesamtkonzept. Dieses Werk erstmals in vollem Umfang zu erschliessen, das ganze System Bardilis in seiner Entwicklung und seinen Inhalten nachzuzeichnen sowie in seinen Grundzugen, die fur die Debatten (...) der Zeit, etwa mit Fichte, Schelling und Reinhold, bedeutsam sind, aufzuweisen, ist die Absicht des vorliegenden Bandes.'Bislang liegt uber Bardili keine nennenswerte Literatur vor. [.] Diese Lucke schliesst nun die vorgelegte Monographie, [.] um so ein Werk vorzustellen, das zwar heute weitgehend in den Hintergrund geruckt oder oft schlicht vergessen ist, das es gleichwohl - wie die Vf. uberzeugend zu zeigen vermag - verdient hat, wieder starkere Beachtung zu finden, weil es zu zentralen Fragestellungen, wie sie im Bereich der klassischen deutschen Philosophie wichtig und bestimmend geworden sind, eine haufig zweifellos eigenwillige, aber trotzdem wegen seines hohen Grades an Originalitat und seiner radikalen, wenn auch bisweilen exzentrisch anmutenden, Alternativstellung bedenkenswerte Anstosse bietet. [.] Insgesamt leistet die Vf. mit ihrer Monographie Hervorragendes und Vorbildliches: Sie zeichnet den Denkweg und das System Bardilis in ihrer Entwicklung und ihren Inhalten nach. Die wesentlichen Grundzuge, die sich fur die Debatten, Streitgesprache und [.] philosophischen Konstellationen der Zeit als so bedeutsam erwiesen, werden pragnant aufgewiesen und mit denkerisch hochster Souveranitat durchdrungen.' Dirk Cursgen, Philosophische Rundschau. (shrink)

Julian Nida-Rümelin’s philosophical approach to rationality is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions exist which are carried out in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions that are oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational just because no underlying maximizing heuristics are found. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form (...) of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still situated within the realm of cost-benefit reasoning. The idea of social preferences (e.g. Rabin, Fehr and Schmidt) or meta-preferences (Sen) is insufficient to reflect the plurality of human actions. According to Nida-Rümelin, those concepts ignore the plurality of reasons which drive agency. Hence, they try to fit agency into a theory which undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges daily patterns of interaction and meaning. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant offers a revolutionary approach to cognition, wherein cognition can be understood as an action carried out by a cognitive agent. But giving the subject such an active role raises questions about Kant’s ability to account for objective cognition. In this paper, I will argue that the cognitive autonomy thesis central to Kant’s model renders it unable to account for the normativity required for objective cognition, and that G.W.F. Hegel makes just this criticism (...) in the Desire section of his Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel proposes an alternative: some basic intersubjective structure must be built into cognition on a fundamental level. For Hegel, the possibility of disagreement is an a priori requirement for objective cognition in general. (shrink)

Michael Nair-Collins and Franklin G. Miller argue in an extended essay that the dominant view in medical ethics of patients who are brain dead but sustained on mechanical ventilation is false. According to this view, these unfortunate patients are biologically dead, yet appear to be alive as a result of the fact that mechanical ventilation ensures that their heart continues to beat, that their skin remains warm, that their wounds continue to heal, that their body does not decay, and that (...) they continue to breathe. This view was defended by the U.S. President’s Commission in 1981, and again by the President’s Council in 2008. That brain-dead, mechanically ventilated patients are biologically dead—rather than dead merely in a social or legal sense—is seen by defenders of this view as important. The President’s Council explicitly rejected the idea that death is anything other than a fact of biology. The significance of this move is explained by Nair-Collins and Miller as follows: > Getting this biological conception right is critically important: responsible moral and policy deliberation begins with an unbiased assessment of relevant factual questions. One cannot address the difficult normative questions surrounding organ retrieval, just use of resources, withdrawal of mechanical support and so on, without first addressing the biological question: what is the vital status of this organism? Essentially, working with a biological conception of death makes certain decisions much less ethically murky than they would be in the absence of such a conception. The ‘dead donor rule’, for example, prohibits causing death to a patient by removing their organs. If it is a fact of biology that brain-dead, mechanically ventilated patients are dead, then removing their organs for donation clearly does not fall foul of the dead donor rule. If, on the other hand, the …. (shrink)