Value theory, or axiology, looks at what things are good or bad, how good or bad they are, and, most fundamentally, what it is for a thing to be good or bad. Questions about value and about what is valuable are important to moral philosophers, since most moral theories hold that we ought to promote the good. This Handbook focuses on value theory as it pertains to ethics, broadly construed, and provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary debates pertaining not only (...) to philosophy but also to other disciplines-most notably, political theory and economics.The Handbook's twenty-two newly commissioned chapters are divided into three parts. Part I: Foundations concerns fundamental and interrelated issues about the nature of value and distinctions between kinds of value. Part II: Structure concerns formal properties of value that bear on the possibilities of measuring and comparing value. Part III: Extensions, finally, considers specific topics, ranging from health to freedom, where questions of value figure prominently. (shrink)

The rapid advances in genomics over the last decade have come to fruition amid intense public discussions of justice in medicine and health care. While much emphasis has been placed on increasing diversity in genomics research participation, an overly narrow focus on recruitment eschews recognition of the disparities in health care that will ultimately shape access to the benefits of genomic medicine. In this essay, we suggest that achieving a just genomics, both now and in the future, requires an explicit (...) ELSI of translation—normative and pragmatic scholarship that embraces the interconnectedness of research and clinical care and centers the obligations of researchers, institutions, and funders to mitigate inequities throughout the translational pipeline. We propose core principles to guide an ELSI of translation and to ensure that this work balances the value of the generalizable knowledge that genomics research generates and the value of the individuals and communities who make this research possible. (shrink)

In the spirit of William James, we present a process view of human consciousness. Our approach, however, follows upon Charles Tart’s original systems theory analysis of states of consciousness, although it differs in its reliance on the modern sciences of complexity, especially dynamical systems theory and its emphasis on process and evolution. We argue that consciousness experience is constructive in the sense that it is the result of ongoing self-organizing and self-creating processes in the mind and body. These processes follow (...) a broad developmental agenda already described by psychologists such as Jean Piaget. Similar constructive transformations of consciousness appear to have occurred across the course of human history. In this sense, phylogeny indeed recapitulates ontogeny. Finally, modern developmental research suggests that the most advanced levels of human growth transform consciousness in the direction of increasing selflessness and spirituality, rather than simply toward greater intelligence. (shrink)

Consider the claim that openmindedness is an epistemic virtue, the claim that true belief is epistemically valuable, and the claim that one epistemically ought to cleave to one’s evidence. These are examples of what I’ll call “ epistemic discourse.” In this paper I’ll propose and defend a view called “convention-relativism about epistemic discourse.” In particular, I’ll argue that convention-relativismis superior to its main rival, expressivism about epistemic discourse. Expressivism and conventionalism both jibe with anti-realism about epistemic normativity, which is motivated (...) by appeal to philosophical naturalism. Convention-relativism says that epistemic discourse describes how things stands relative to a conventional set of “ epistemic ” values; such discourse is akin to normative discourse relative to the conventional rules of a club. I defend conventionalism by appeal to a “reverse open question argument,” which says, pace expressivism, that epistemic discourse leaves the relevant normative questions open. (shrink)

This article reveals a 91-year-old cognitively intact man’s lived experiences of being cared for in a geriatric context in which the majority of the patients were cognitively impaired. A narrative patient story was analysed phenomenologically. The findings indicate that this patient’s basic needs for ethical care were not met. The staff did not see him as a unique individual with his own preferences, resources and abilities to master his life. In order to survive this lack of ethical care, he played (...) the role of an ‘old cognitively impaired man’, which provided him with at least the understanding and attention the cognitively impaired patients received from the staff. The findings also indicate that ethical care is independent of whether or not older cognitively intact and impaired patients stay or live in the same unit, but it is more dependent on a caregiver’s ability to respect and confirm each and every patient for who he or she is and would like to be. (shrink)

The central challenges for moral fictionalism are twofold: first, to explain how its recommendation that we abandon moral belief and assertion can be reconciled with its rationale of preserving the motivational efficacy of moral thought and discourse; second, to explain what the point is of replacing moral belief and assertion to begin with. This chapter clarifies these challenges and argues that Richard Joyce’s recent “metaphorist” version of fictionalism fares no better with respect to them than his earlier “narrationist” version. Just (...) like its narrationist predecessor, metaphorist fictionalism fails to secure the motivational efficacy of moral thought and talk. The authors also find faults with yet more recent attempts at answering the above challenges for moral fictionalism, leaving the conservationist recommendation a more attractive alternative. This conclusion could be overturned if the conservationist proposal were sufficiently problematic in other respects, but the authors argue that it isn’t. (shrink)

PURPOSE: The conventional wisdom in dental and medical education is that dental and medical students experience "ethical erosion" over the duration of dental and medical school. There is some evidence for this claim, but in the case of dental education this evidence consists entirely of survey research, which doesn't measure behavior. The purpose of this study was to measure the altruistic behavior of dental students, in order to fill the significant gap in knowledge of how students are disposed to behave, (...) rather than how they are disposed to think. -/- METHODS: To test the altruistic behavior of dental students, we conducted a field experiment using the Ultimatum Game, which is a game commonly used in economics to observe social behavior. Students from each of the four years of dental school played the game in standardized conditions with real money. -/- RESULTS: Students exhibited greater levels of altruism than the general population typically does. Students' altruism peaked in year four. Students' altruism was associated with the socioeconomic status of responder. -/- CONCLUSION: The results suggest that that dental students are more altruistic than the population average and that altruism increases during their education. Thus, if a decreasing ability to behave altruistically is observed during dental school, it is not likely due to a general disposition of students, but rather some factor specific to the educational environment in which the decrease is observed. (shrink)

In this paper we comment on the changes in the provision of fertility care in Australia, New Zealand and the UK to illustrate how different funding arrangements of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) shape the delivery of patient care and the position of fertility nursing. We suggest that the routinisation of in vitro fertilisation technology has introduced a new way of managing the fertility patient at a distance, the distal fertility patient. This has resulted in new forms of organisational routines in (...) ART which challenge both traditional forms of nursing and advanced nursing roles. We discuss the consequences of this increasingly globalised approach to infertility through the lens of three national contexts, Australia, New Zealand and the UK to unpack the position of nursing within the new forms of organisational routines. (shrink)

It is not unusual to speculate on the contrary-to-fact implications of political assassinations. Lincoln's is the classic case in point, but we need only think of Julius Caesar, Gandhi, or John Kennedy, if we require further examples. One totally neglected case in this context is that of Moritz Schlick. One of the remote consequences of his murder, on June 22, 1936, which was most definitely a political assassination, is that today's academic world may well have been an entirely different one (...) if he had gone on to lead the Vienna Circle into exile. That group of young philosophers of science had formed as he assumed the University of Vienna's chair of natural philosophy in 1922. A quarter of a century later, the entire English-speaking world (and Scandinavia) was in thrall to “logical positivism,” a caricature of scientific philosophy as the circle conceived it but an incredibly powerful intellectual standpoint, for all that. The view that all genuine knowledge can be quantified not only dominated philosophy but transformed the nature of universities to the point of threatening the very existence of the humanities, which could scarcely meet this demand. The polemical and oversimplified view of Rudolf Carnap's strong program for scientific philosophy simply found no place for disciplines based on mere description (ethnology) or on understanding complex interlinked constellations of events as they develop over time (history and its myriad allied disciplines).The die was cast, and the humanities became saddled with an inferiority complex that, even today, they have only partially shaken off. Only disciplines that employed mathematical methods in aid of rigorous explanation, working collectively in networks like those of physics or chemistry, were worthy of being institutionalized at universities. Since the humanities were, for the most part, embodied in individual researchers burning the Midnight Oil as they pondered the Eternal Verities, they were disqualified as sciences. They would have to reform themselves radically or disappear. The battle commenced, and sensitive observers can attest that, administrative rhetoric to the contrary, it still goes on. Had Schlick lived on, the pluralism and tolerance that was part of his view of the world might well have carried more influence than the more radical elements in the group ultimately did, and so the humanities might well have fared better in a more secure environment than they have done.Edmonds's The Murder of Professor Schlick does not venture into such speculations. Instead, it offers us a vibrant, suspense-filled narrative replete with as much information as the reader can digest (and more). Briefly, Edmonds presents a fully detailed, complex version of the high drama of the rise and decline of logical positivism in both its philosophical and its political dimensions, complete with vivid portraits of the characters whose thought and personalities supplied that movement with its dazzling dynamism. They include such characters as Schlick himself; the irrepressible Otto Neurath, who had been a minister in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic; Rudolf Carnap, the circle's standard-bearer; Ludwig Wittgenstein, its unwilling ideal; Bertrand Russell, its Promethean inspiration; the eccentric Kurt Gödel; the rabbi Josef Schächter; the clever Englishman A. J. Ayer; America's rising star, W. V. Quine; the perennial contrarian, Karl Popper; the unfortunate Friedrich Waismann, doomed to failure in all his efforts; the tragic Edgar Zilsel, who committed suicide in American exile; and several frequently neglected women, such as Rose Rand, Olga Hahn, Marie Reidemeister, and Olga Taussky. In addition, the strong Jewish presence in the circle and the surrounding anti-Semitism that was a continuing stumbling block to it are clearly and powerfully described.These are but highlights of Edmond's narrative, but they are proof positive that his study is where to begin an encounter with the Vienna Circle and thus with the philosophical view that, more than any other, has conferred its character on modern thought and deeply molded people who have never heard of it. (shrink)

The present paper examines certain salient features of the his tory-memory-identity relation. The common feature underpinning most contemporary manifestations of the memory craze seems to be an insecurity about identity, an insecurity that generates an excessive pre occupation with 'memory'. In the face of memory's valorization, what should be the attitude of the historian? At the present moment there is a pathetic and sometimes tragic conflict between what 'memory' expresses and confirms, namely, the demands made by subjectivities, and the demand, (...) essential to any scientific discipline, for proof. The paper explores this conflict and argues that neither term can be reduced to the other. It suggests that one needs to conceptualize the field of history as involving inevitable limits to historical knowledge, such that both history and memory are seen as inadequate. In this way one avoids both the arrogance of a would-be definitive history and the 'arrogance of authenticity' that all too often accompanies claims for memory. (shrink)

A fundamental question facing the cognitive sciences is why it is so difficult for us to look at the world in new ways. Experts, in particular, appear to have extreme difficulty in questioning the foundations for their belief. This I argue is because we can only view our world through mental paradigms. Such paradigms, our mindsets, have evolved so that we can respond automatically to things of importance but, by having mindsets, we are intrinsically prejudiced. I suggest that infantile autism (...) provides valuable insight into what a mind would be like if it were not to have paradigms. Because we are constrained to look at the world through our mindsets, the only way to see more is to acquire more mindsets. But, to actually be original, it is also necessary to subvert conventional wisdom and this would appear to be culturally dependent. Accordingly, understanding creativity necessitates examining the collective perspectives of diverse disciplines, encompassing abnormal minds as well as the historical transformations of different cultures. (shrink)

Modern critics often regard Goya's etchings and black paintings as satirical observations on the social and political conditions of his times. In a study of Goya first published in 1950, which seldom receives the attention it merits, the French author and art theorist André Malraux contends that these works have a much deeper significance. The etchings and black paintings, Malraux argues, represent a fundamental challenge to the humanist artistic tradition that began with the Renaissance - a tradition founded on the (...) pursuit of a transcendent world of nobility, harmony and beauty. Following an illness that left him deaf for life, Goya developed an art of a fundamentally different kind - an art, Malraux writes, ruled by ‘the unity of the prison house’ which replaced transcendence with a pervasive feeling of dependence and from which all trace of humanism has been erased. Foreshadowing modern art's abandonment of the Renaissance ideal, the etchings and black paintings are the first announcement of the death of beauty in Western art. (shrink)

Whitehead’s process metaphysics, as developed in Process and Reality, is harmed by the incoherence of his notion of eternal objects as timeless and essentially unrelated entities, which therefore need a primordial agent as their ontological ground and the source of their relatedness and relevance. Such nontemporal entities undermine what is supposed to be a thoroughly temporalist metaphysics. Eternal objects can be understood solely as functions of Creativity, however, as features of a purely temporal process. A notion of God is not (...) required. Whitehead’s Categoreal Obligations specify the necessary conditions for this process, including how the novelty is possible that is needed to account for temporal change and the increased complexity that value enhancement presupposes and makes possible. Adventures of Ideas, especially through the notions of Art and Peace, develops at the level of human civilization this same secular interpretation of the capacity of entities to fashion novel and progressive outcomes. (shrink)

In this paper the author re‐examines Hart's famous description of “The Minimum Content of Natural Law” and defends its extremely limited ambit against the attempted inflation of Richard Epstein.

AN OBVIOUS FEATURE OF OUR EXPERIENCE is the constant perishing of what we value. Persons we love, objects we treasure, ideals we revere, desires that enthrall us, groups to which we pledge allegiance, projects in which we are engaged, systems that command our respect, accomplishments before which we stand in awe, memories we cherish, hopes to which we cling—they all are eventually lost to us. They abate, explode, crumble, die, erode, fade; they are deformed, eviscerated, torn apart, vanquished, made to (...) disappear. They gang always, not merely aft, a-gley. The perishing may be cataclysmic or gradual, the devastation wreaked by hurricane-force winds and pandemic plagues or the unnoticed pressures by which tectonic plates shift and species adapt. So pervasive are these perishings that folk wisdom assigns as deepest truth the observation that of anything it can be said: “this too shall pass away.”. (shrink)

This article explores aggravated and exemplary damages in terms of their structure. It argues that the awards are distinguishable and once they have been appropriately analysed it can be seen that aggravated damages have a secure foundation in the private law and are importantly different from other compensatory awards. The article then argues that many of the reasons given in favour of exemplary damages are not consistent with the structure of that award. The article concludes by insisting that exemplary damages (...) should be abolished as they are in serious tension with the nature of civil liability. (shrink)

Modern philosophy in the West has been haunted since Descartes by his ontological dichotomy between extended unthinking substances and thinking unextended substances, which leads to the epistemological problem of whether perceptions by the mind can be judged as truly representing objects external to it. The typical solution has been to reduce one kind of substance to the other: to fashion some version of either idealism or materialism. Attempts at a solution that affirms real differences between physical bodies and conscious minds (...) but allows for their interaction, for each to have an effect on the other, are a characteristic strategy of analytic philosophers. However, Professor Hedrick finds their proposed... (shrink)

Trends in thought about consciousness, the mind, and the brain at the turn of the century were surprisingly similar to major trends in thinking about these topics today. For instance, some psychiatrists as well as physiologists considered all actions of the human mind, as well as all behaviours, entirely the product of the electrochemical actions of nerve cells, while others emphasized the importance of consciousness, free will, and even the soul. The action of nerve cells, and thus the brain itself, (...) was understood largely in terms of electrical activity, energy, and resistances, all leading to views of mental health and pathology based on energy and the loss of energy. Modern metaphors for understanding the brain, and along with them mental health and illness, emphasize information processing and neurochemistry. Such differences are reflected in the differences between typical treatments at the turn of the century and today. (shrink)