Discussion in this paper focuses on how strongly we should prefer non-punishment of persons guilty of serious crimes to punishment of persons innocent of them. William Blackstone's version of that preference, expressed as a ten to one ratio, is first shown to be untenable on standard accounts of legal punishment's justifying aims. Somewhat weaker versions of that ratio also appear suspect. More to the point, Blackstone's adage obscures the crucial way in which there are risks to be assessed (...) in setting up a criminal justice system - the risk that it will not be eff ective enough at apprehending and punishing serious off enders, as well as the risk that it will expose innocent persons to harsh punishment. I urge a balancing of such risks, and argue that the salient features of many contemporary criminal justice systems can be plausibly interpreted as attempting to achieve and maintain such a balance. We do not grant criminal defendants a presumption of innocence that the state must overcome with proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to institutionally express a strong degree of preference for non-punishment of the guilty to punishment of the innocent. Instead, we do so in order to ensure that institutions of legal punishment have suffi cient scope while preserving their ability to accurately sort the guilty from the innocent. (shrink)

This volume contains all of the presidential addresses given before the American Society for Value Inquiry since its first meeting in 1970. Contributions are by Richard Brandt*, Virgil Aldrich*, John W. Davis*, the late Robert S. Hartman*, James B. Wilbur*, the late William H. Werkmeister, Robert E. Carter, the late William T. Blackstone, Gene James, Eva Hauel Cadwallader, Richard T. Hull, Norman Bowie*, Stephen White*, Burton Leiser+, Abraham Edel, Sidney Axinn, Robert Ginsberg, Patricia Werhane, Lisa M. Newton, (...) Thomas Magnell, Sander Lee, John M. Abbarno, Ruth Miller Lucier, and Tom Regan*. Autobiographical sketches* by all of the living contributors and one recently deceased, biographical statements of the remainder, together with photographic portraits of all the contributors*, make this volume a unique record of value inquiry during the past quarter century. __. (shrink)

Abortion, euthanasia, racism, sexism, pater­nalism, the rights of children, the population explosion, and the dynamics of economic growth are examined in the light of ethical principles by leading philosophers in order to suggest reasonable judgments. Originally prepared for the distinguished Wayne Leys Memorial Lecture Series at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, the essayists have addressed themselves to the most pressing ethical questions being asked today. William K. Frankena, Professor Emer­itus, University of Michigan, in “The Ethics of Respect for Life” argues for (...) a qualified view of moral respect for human personality. From his viewpoint it is always prima facie wrong to shorten or prevent human life, but not always actually wrong as other moral conditions may counter the presumed wrong. The late William T. Blackstone in “Zero Population Growth and Zero Economic Growth” contends that justice will require the production of the maximal level of goods to fulfill basic human needs com­patible with the avoidance of ecological catastrophe. Richard Wasserstrom, Professor of Phi­losophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, proposes an assimilationist ideal in “Racism, Sexism, and Preferential Treat­ment.” Gerald Dworkin, Professor of Phi­losophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, dares to ask “Is More Choice Better than Less?” Joel Feinberg, Professor of Phi­losophy at the University of Arizona, in “The Child’s Right to an Open Future,” offers a defense of “rights-in-trust” of children. Tom L. Beauchamp, Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy In­stitute-Center for Bioethics of Georgetown University, considers the paternalism used to justify social policies in the practice of medi­cine and insists that it invariably involves a conflict between the ethical principles of be­neficence and autonomy. (shrink)

In this volume, the author intends to "fill the gap" in scholarship on Francis Hutcheson, and to show the relevance of Hutcheson's theories to contemporary metaethical discussion. The book includes a short and appealing biographical study of Hutcheson, an outline and criticism of Hutcheson's theory of "moral sense" which had a profound effect on Hume, and an evaluation of Hutcheson's controversy with Richard Price and other rationalists of Hutcheson's time in light of contemporary discussions of ethical language. Finally, Mr. (...) Blackstone relates Hutcheson to such contemporary ethical theorists as Ayer and Stevenson, claiming that Hutcheson's "moral sense" theory, while an inadequate metaethic, nonetheless is the historical foundation for contemporary non-cognitive theories of ethical language. Mr. Blackstone undoubtedly makes his case for the historical importance of Hutchesons' theories, but their relevance to contemporary discussions is not so clearly demonstrated.—A. W. W. (shrink)

This essay dwells in the interstitial space between human and nonhuman species attributions to consider the dense political and theoretical activity that the domain capacitates. It begins by discussing the bifurcated funding work of the Arcus Foundation – LGBT rights and great ape conservation – as a means of examining how currently prevailing species divisions that putatively work through expansive notions of embodiment in actuality deploy the same logics present in colonial schemes of bodily division. It then relatedly considers an (...) intimate transspecies relationship between a human, Sandra Herold, and a chimpanzee, Travis, which ended tragically. The essay then puts the concepts of trans* and animacy into productive tension to explore how life and liveness become contingently associated with certain bodies through shifting processes of racial and sexual division. Building from these conceptual framings, it preliminarily introduces a new analytic tool, trans*plant, to facilitate more comprehensive analyses of how bodies move across media, and what those movements facilitate in terms of reproducing or disrupting embodiment categories that rely on naturalized understandings of bodily difference. (shrink)

There is an immense amount of conceptual confusion on the notions of equality and human rights not only among lay people but also among contemporary philosophers and political and legal theorists. There is reason for this. These concepts have been used in a multiplicity of ways in the history of thought. Furthermore they constitute a substratum from which we somehow deduce norms which constitute part of our moral and political frameworks, norms about which all of us feel strongly one way (...) or another; and for this reason more heat than light is often the result of talk about these concepts. Clarity on these concepts is badly needed, and not simply for the sake of conceptual clarity, though that by itself is desirable. But it is plain to me that lack of clarity about these concepts could be in part responsible for what some of us, at least, would characterize as morally reprehensible behavior on the part of some quite well-intentioned human beings. This I will try to show later in this paper. My primary concern, however, is to make our ideas of these concepts clearer, as Peirce would put it. I do not pretend that the analysis which I offer is adequate, but I do hope that the distinctions introduced take us a few steps along the way. I will also consider the issue of the justification of equality and human rights as norms. My paper, then, will include both conceptual and metaethical elements as well as normative ones. The former I regard as a necessary preliminary to the latter. (shrink)

Early in the 20th century, Charles Manning Child attributed organismal gradients in metabolism to interactions among groups of cells. Metabolic gradients are now firmly grounded in redox chemistry, yet modern work on metabolic signaling has consistently focused on the cellular level. Multicellular redox regulation, however, may occur when redox state is determined by the behavior of a group of cells. For instance, typically an abundance of substrate will shift the redox state of mitochondria in the direction of reduction, leading to (...) increased reactive oxygen species (ROS). These ROS, in turn, may modify the conformation and activity of proteins involved in signaling pathways, resulting in phenotypic changes. In contrast, if substrate triggers the contractions of a muscular structure comprising mitochondrion‐rich cells, the resulting metabolic demand may shift the redox state in the direction of oxidation, with a corresponding decrease of ROS and different phenotypic effects. Indeed, colonial hydroids exemplify this process. Parallel examples may occur whenever mitochondria are concentrated in cells of structures that can respond to environmental perturbations with increased metabolic demand. In these circumstances, predicting the direction of metabolic signaling may require an understanding of events at the organismal level. BioEssays 28:72–77, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

To date no one has identified or described the population of incapacitated patients being treated in an inpatient setting who lack proxy decision-makers. Nor, despite repeated calls for protocols to be developed for decision-making, has any institution reported on the utilization of such a protocol. In 2005, our urban tertiary care hospital instituted a protocol utilizing community members of the ethics committee to meet with the medical providers and engage in shared decision-making for patients without proxies. We conducted a retrospective (...) chart review and in this paper describe nearly 200 patients who were identified and treated according to the protocol over a 12 year period. After an aggressive search, family members were located for a surprising number of patients, leaving 80 patients who needed decisions to be made utilizing the PWP committee. We review the decisions required, the results of the shared decision-making meetings, and the patient outcomes. Our experience has shown that a protocol involving community volunteers to make decisions for PWPs in a timely manner is feasible and ethically defensible. The protocol has been accepted by physicians and utilized with increasing frequency. Because it was possible to gather at least minimal information on most patients, a standard of “informed best interest” was used to make decisions. PWP committee recommendations varied, but in all cases agreement was reached with the attending physicians. (shrink)

Many working women will experience sexual harassment at some point in their careers. While some report this harassment, many leave their jobs to escape the harassing environment. This mixed-methods study examines whether sexual harassment and subsequent career disruption affect women’s careers. Using in-depth interviews and longitudinal survey data from the Youth Development Study, we examine the effect of sexual harassment for women in the early career. We find that sexual harassment increases financial stress, largely by precipitating job change, and can (...) significantly alter women’s career attainment. (shrink)

Conference held Feb. 18-20, 1971; sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Georgia and the Danforth fund. Includes bibliographical references.

Evolutionary theory is formulated in terms of individuals that carry heritable information and are subject to selective pressures. However, individuality itself is a trait that had to evolve - an individual is not an indivisible entity, but a result of evolutionary processes that necessarily begin at the lower level of hierarchical organisation. Traditional approaches to biological individuality focus on cooperation and relatedness within a group, division of labour, policing mechanisms and strong selection at the higher level. Nevertheless, despite considerable theoretical (...) progress in these areas, a full dynamical first-principles account of how new types of individuals arise is missing. To the extent that individuality is an emergent trait, the problem can be approached by recognising the importance of individuating mechanisms that are present from the very beginning of the transition, when only lower-level selection is acting. Here we review some of the most influential theoretical work on the role of individuating mechanisms in these transitions, and demonstrate how a lower-level, bottom-up evolutionary framework can be used to understand biological complexity involved in the origin of cellular life, early eukaryotic evolution, sexual life cycles and multicellular development. Some of these mechanisms inevitably stem from environmental constraints, population structure and ancestral life cycles. Others are unique to specific transitions - features of the natural history and biochemistry that are co-opted into conflict mediation. Identifying mechanisms of individuation that provide a coarse-grained description of the system's evolutionary dynamics is an important step towards understanding how biological complexity and hierarchical organisation evolves. In this way, individuality can be reconceptualised as an approximate model that with varying degrees of precision applies to a wide range of biological systems. (shrink)

The attempt to utilize the methods of science to justify one ethical code as opposed to another has the advantage of avoiding the dogmatism and question-begging techniques characteristic of many traditional ethical theories. However, such attempts are invariably involved in value reductionism, leaving normative terms bereft of their normative import. Science is related to ethics in a number of important ways, but not in the sense that inductive evidence can justify one standard of right conduct as opposed to others.

This book is for people who are interested in nondual spiritual awakening. It can help people make sense of the various, conflicting theories about nonduality that are currently available to the spiritual seeker and it provides effective practices for recognizing, embodying and stabilizing in nondual realization in one's daily life.

"This book is designed for those who have this concern and puzzlement (though, of course, it offers no guarantee of resolving such puzzlement). It is not designed to be a highly specialized and technical treatise in philosophy of religion but one which can be read and appreciated by students and educated laymen. It has two specific purposes, that of providing a clear picture of development in contemporary philosophy and the impact of these developments in philosophy of religion, and that of (...) systematically exploring the question, "Is there religious knowledge?" Contemporary philosophy is used as a point of reference for devising a framework within which this question can be answered. Space limitations have forced an all-to-brief treatment of some positions. Such brevity tends to distort but I have made efforts to avoid such distortion." -Author's Preface. (shrink)

The science of ecology has sensitized us to the intricate causal chains in nature and to the threat to the life system posed by environmental misuse. Responding to the data provided by environmental science, some philosophers have called for fundamentally new ethical principles—a recognition of nonhuman values and an extension of rights not only to animals but to inanimate parts of nature. These attempts to develop an ecological ethic call for radical conceptual revision of the way in which most persons (...) perceive man and the world. This paper explicates those revisions and points to some philosophical difficulties which confront them. (shrink)

Coral bleaching has attracted considerable study, yet one central question remains unanswered: given that corals and their Symbiodinium symbionts have co‐evolved for millions of years, why does this clearly maladaptive process occur? Bleaching may result from evolutionary conflict between the host corals and their symbionts. Selection at the level of the individual symbiont favors using the products of photosynthesis for selfish replication, while selection at the higher level favors using these products for growth of the entire host/symbiont community. To hold (...) the selfish lower‐level units in check, mechanisms of conflict mediation must evolve. Fundamental features of photosynthesis have been co‐opted into conflict mediation so that symbionts that fail to export these products produce high levels of reactive oxygen species and undergo programmed cell death. These mechanisms function very well under most environmental conditions, but under conditions particularly detrimental to photosynthesis, it is these mechanisms of conflict mediation that trigger bleaching. (shrink)

In 1989, Susan Wolf convincingly warned of a troublesome consequence that should discourage any movement in American society towards physician-assisted death—a legal backlash against the gains made for limiting life-sustaining treatment. The authors demonstrate that this dire consequence did not come to pass. As physician-assisted suicide gains a foothold in USA and elsewhere, many other slippery slope arguments are being put forward. Although many of these speculations should be taken seriously, they do not justify halting the new practice. Instead, our (...) courts, regulatory agencies, journalists, professional organisations and researchers should carefully monitor and study it as it unfolds, allowing continuous improvement just as our society has done in implementing the practice of limiting life-sustaining treatment. (shrink)