The launch of this important book appropriately takes place near Collingwood's childhood home in the Lake District-- a book decorated by illustrations from the work of his own father who taught him so much. It is a pleasure that his daughter Teresa is here, whose own memoir 'Early Influ-ences' helped in our thinking about her father. I join the edi-tors whose skill deserves the highest praise, in expressing gratitude both for Teresa's encouragement throughout the preparation of this book and for (...) her permission to publish her father's previously unpublished papers. (shrink)

This paper examines footraces that are paced and unpaced, and runners who are pre-arranged, designated pacers and those who are not. Although pacesetting is commonplace in footraces today, the practice challenges our conception of sport competition, the nature of competitors and the meaning of records. For example, Bale calls paced races as ‘staged experiments’ to set world records and argues that pacers were crucial in the running career of Roger Bannister. In 2011, the International Association of Athletics Federation (...) banned women’s world records in mixed gender running events, like major marathons, because women were paced by male runners. By examining these cases and others, the authors here will claim paced footraces are qualitatively different than unpaced competitions, pacers introduce peculiar motives and intentions as competitors, women should not be denied opportunities to excel and perform at their very best, and the 2011 IAAF policy is unjustified. (shrink)

Research on musical chills has linked the response to multiple musical features; however, there exists no study that has attempted to manipulate musical stimuli to enable causal inferences, meaning current understanding is based mainly on correlational evidence. In the current study, participants who regularly experience chills ( N = 24) listened to an original and manipulated version of three pieces reported to elicit chills in a previous survey. Predefined chills sections were removed to create manipulated conditions. The effects of these (...) manipulations on the chills response were assessed through continuous self-reports, and skin conductance measurements. Results show that chills were significantly less frequent following stimulus manipulation across all three pieces. Continuous measurements of chills intensity were significantly higher in the chills sections compared with control sections in the pieces; similar patterns were found for phasic skin conductance, although some differences emerged. Continuous measurements also correlated with psychoacoustic features such as loudness, brightness and roughness in two of the three pieces. Findings are discussed in terms of understanding structural and acoustic features and chills experiences within their local music contexts, the necessity of experimental approaches to musical chills, and the possibility of different features activating different underlying mechanisms. (shrink)

The fact that Internet companies may record our personal data and track our online behavior for commercial or political purpose has emphasized aspects related to online privacy. This has also led to the development of search engines that promise no tracking and privacy. Search engines also have a major role in spreading low-quality health information such as that of anti-vaccine websites. This study investigates the relationship between search engines’ approach to privacy and the scientific quality of the information they return. (...) We analyzed the first 30 webpages returned searching “vaccines autism” in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. The results show that not only “alternative” search engines but also other commercial engines often return more anti-vaccine pages (10–53%) than Google (0%). Some localized versions of Google, however, returned more anti-vaccine webpages (up to 10%) than Google. Health information returned by search engines has an impact on public health and, specifically, in the acceptance of vaccines. The issue of information quality when seeking information for making health-related decisions also impact the ethical aspect represented by the right to an informed consent. Our study suggests that designing a search engine that is privacy savvy and avoids issues with filter bubbles that can result from user-tracking is necessary but insufficient; instead, mechanisms should be developed to test search engines from the perspective of information quality (particularly for health-related webpages) before they can be deemed trustworthy providers of public health information. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Part I: Ethnobiology as a Case Example Part II: Philosophical and Ethical Issues: Toward the Creation of ‘Ethical Space’.

C. Wright Mills. Letters and Autobiographical Writings. Edited by Kathryn Mills and Pamela Mills. Introduction by Dan Wakefield. xxviii 378 pp., illus., apps., bibl., index. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press,2000. $34.95.

A rational person doesn’t believe just anything. There are limits on what it is rational to believe. How wide are these limits? That’s the main question that interests me here. But a secondary question immediately arises: What factors impose these limits? A first stab is to say that one’s evidence determines what it is epistemically permissible for one to believe. Many will claim that there are further, non-evidentiary factors relevant to the epistemic rationality of belief. I will be ignoring the (...) details of alternative answers in order to focus on the question of what kind of rational constraints one’s evidence puts on belief. Our main question concerns how far epistemic permission and obligation can come apart.1 Suppose I am epistemically permitted to believe P, i.e., it would not be irrational for me to believe it. Am I thereby obliged to believe P, or are other options rationally available to me?2 Might I be equally rational in remaining agnostic about P, or even believing not-P? Or could even a slightly stronger or weaker degree of confidence be just as reasonable? (shrink)

This theoretical paper argues for prioritarianism as an ethical underpinning for digital health in contexts of extreme disadvantage. In support of this claim, the paper develops three prioritarian principles for making ethical decisions for digital health programme design, grounded in the normative position that the greater the need, the stronger the moral claim. The principles are positioned as an alternative view to the prevailing utilitarian approach to digital health, which the paper argues is not sufficient to address the needs of (...) the worst off. As researchers of digital health, we must ensure that the most globally marginalised are not overlooked by overtly technocentric implementation practices. Consequently, the paper concludes by advocating for use of the three principles to support stronger critical reflection on the ethics involved in the design and implementation of digital health programmes. (shrink)

Background Ensuring individual free and informed decision‐making for research participation is challenging. It is thought that preliminarily informing communities through ‘community sensitization’ procedures may improve individual decision‐making. This study set out to assess the relevance of community sensitization for individual decision‐making in research participation in rural Gambia. Methods This anthropological mixed‐methods study triangulated qualitative methods and quantitative survey methods in the context of an observational study and a clinical trial on malaria carried out by the Medical Research Council Unit Gambia. (...) Results/discussion Although 38.7% of the respondents were present during sensitization sessions, 91.1% of the respondents were inclined to participate in the trial when surveyed after the sensitization and prior to the informed consent process. This difference can be explained by the informal transmission of information within the community after the community sensitization, expectations such as the benefits of participation based on previous research experiences, and the positive reputation of the research institute. Commonly mentioned barriers to participation were blood sampling and the potential disapproval of the household head. Conclusion Community sensitization is effective in providing first‐hand, reliable information to communities as the information is cascaded to those who could not attend the sessions. However, further research is needed to assess how the informal spread of information further shapes people's expectations, how the process engages with existing social relations and hierarchies (e.g. local political power structures; permissions of heads of households) and how this influences or changes individual consent. (shrink)

ports the thesis that there exist very many universes. The view has found favor with a number of philosophers such as Derek Parfit ~1998!, J. J. C. Smart ~1989! and Peter van Inwagen ~1993!.1 My purpose is to argue that this is a mistake. First let me set out the issue in more detail.

It is notoriously difficult to spell out the norms of inductive reasoning in a neat set of rules. I explore the idea that explanatory considerations are the key to sorting out the good inductive inferences from the bad. After defending the crucial explanatory virtue of stability, I apply this approach to a range of inductive inferences, puzzles, and principles such as the Raven and Grue problems, and the significance of varied data and random sampling.

critical analyses of the arguments and attitudes favoring the various popular datings of the inception of a human being's life.

Offers an in-depth exposition of the Confucian conception of persons as the starting point of Confucian ethics.

According to the thesis of Strong Predictionism, we typically have stronger evidence for a theory if it was used to predict certain data, than if it was deliberately constructed to accommodate those same data, even if we fully grasp the theory and all the evidence on which it was based. This thesis faces powerful objections and the existing arguments in support of it are seriously flawed. I offer a new defence of Strong Predictionism which overcomes the objections and provides a (...) deeper understanding of the epistemic importance of prediction. I conclude by applying this account to strategies for defending scientific realism. (shrink)

Our culture is conflicted about morally judging and condemning. We can't avoid it altogether, yet many layfolk today are loathe to do it for reasons neither they nor philosophers well understand. Their resistance is often confused (by themselves and by theorists) with some species of antiobjectivism. But unlike a nonobjectivist, most people think that (a) for us to judge and condemn is generally (objectively) morally wrong , yet (b) for God to do so is (objectively) proper, and (c) so too (...) for certain persons in certain relations (e.g., self-condemnation, parental child rearing.) Certainly, religious (e.g., Christian) critics of judging and condemning without doubting the objective truth of their tradition's core moral teachings. Most puzzling is that (a) merely judging and condemning in one's heart may be improper, and (b) someone else with no more evidence or expertise might properly judge and condemn the same action. The answer is in condemning's complex structure of presuppostions. Condemning and judging are acts, and attitudes initiated by the act. Condemnation is motivated by two judgments presumed to justify it, a criticism of a target, and a judgment that the criticism justifies some negative response toward the target. Unlike nonpunitive penalties, punishments are motivated and explained by condemnation. Condemnation is an act of a hostile will, wishing some evil for its target, not (just) as a means to some good. Its root is in damning, an act akin to cursing. It declares a degraded status. The hostility makes it harder to justify condemnation than criticism, and punishment than nonpunitive penalties. Condemning claims objectivity and authority. It involves reflexive evaluation, regarding itself justified, approving its hostile feelings toward the target. Condemners presume themselves entitled to sit in judgment, pass judgment, and cast the condemned down. Those presumptions inhere in sitting in judgment, assuming jurisdiction. Unlike mathematical or scientific judgments, passing moral judgment seems to be a political act subject to extraepistemic constraints. "Who are you to judge?" may properly challenge your right to pass judgment. (shrink)

This paper examines the growing number of publications on multinational enterprise management of sustainability issues. Based on an integrative literature review and thematic analysis, the paper analyses and synthesises the current state of knowledge about main issues arising. Key issues identified include the following: choice of sustainability strategies; management of the views of headquarters towards sustainability; local cultural sustainability perspectives in developed and developing host countries; MNEs with home in developing/emerging countries; and resource availability for implementing sustainability initiatives. Findings indicate (...) that although the literature is tending towards growing acceptance about sustainability and its challenges most researchers have focused on corporate social responsibility and investigate their own niche problem, industry, and country, using their own chosen theory and do not consider the need for consolidation and integration of social, environmental and economic performance. Avenues for future research are identified which will provide a means for the ethical foundations of theory and practice to be improved. (shrink)

This paper concerns the problem of moral luck—the fact that our moral judgements appear to depend, perhaps unjustifiably, on matters of luck. The history and scope of the problem are discussed. It is suggested that our result-sensitive sentiments have their origin in views about moral pollution we might now wish to reject in favour of a volitionalist ethics.

Introduction -- The mathematical roots of the concept of analogy -- Aristotle : the uses of analogy -- Aristotle : analogy and language -- Thomas Aquinas -- Immanuel Kant -- Karl Barth -- Final reflections.

This disagreement extends to the fundamental details of physical and biochemical theories. On the other hand, (2) There is almostuniversal agreementthatlife did notfirstcome aboutmerely by chance. This is not to say that all scientists think that life’s existence was inevitable. The common view is that given a fuller understanding of the physical and biological conditions and processes involved, the emergence of life should be seen to be quite likely, or at least not very surprising. The view which is almost universally (...) rejected by researchers in the field is that the numerous and prima facie improbable physical and biological requirements for life all fell together just by a fluke, like so many dice tumbling out of a bag and landing all sixes. Most importantly, for the purposes of the following discussion, (3) The conviction that life did not arise largely by chance is treated as epistem- ically prior to the development of alternative theories. C 2007, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation C 2007, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. (shrink)

In "Egalitarianism Defended," Larry Temkin attempted to rebut criticisms of egalitarianism I had made in my article, "Equality, Priority, and Compassion." Temkin's response is interesting and illuminating, but, in this article, I shall claim that his arguments miss their target and that the failure of egalitarianism may have implications more serious than some have thought.

Critique of prevailing textbook conception of sufficient conditions and necessary conditions as a truth functional relation of material implication (p->q)/(~q->~p). Explanation of common sense conception of condition as correlative of consequence, involving dependence. Utility of this conception exhibited in resolving puzzles regarding ontology, truth, and fatalism.