This is a biography of the works of Richard Price, 1723-1791, one of the leading radical intellectuals of the late-18th century. By profession a dissenting minister, he was also a mathematician, a political pamphleteer, particularly on the American and French Revolutions, and a moral philosopher.

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)

Replacing animal procedures with methods such as cells and tissues in vitro, volunteer studies, physicochemical techniques and computer modelling, is driven by legislative, scientific and moral imperatives. Non‐animal approaches are now considered as advanced methods that can overcome many of the limitations of animal experiments. In testing medicines and chemicals, in vitro assays have spared hundreds of thousands of animals. In contrast, academic animal use continues to rise and the concept of replacement seems less well accepted in university research. Even (...) so, some animal procedures have been replaced in neurological, reproductive and dentistry research and progress is being made in fields such as respiratory illnesses, pain and sepsis. Systematic reviews of the transferability of animal data to the clinical setting may encourage a fresh look for novel non‐animal methods and, as mainstream funding becomes available, more advances in replacement are expected. BioEssays 29:918–926, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In this article I suggest how we might conceptualize some kind of artificial consciousness as an ultimate development of Artificial Life. This entity will be embodied in some sort of constructed (biological or non-biological) body. The contention is that consciousness within self-organized entities is not only possible but inevitable. The basic sensory and interactive processes by which an organism operates within an environment are such as to be the basic processes that are necessary for consciousness. I then look at likely (...) criteria for consciousness, and point to an architecture of the cognitive which maps onto the physiological layer, the brain. While evolutionary algorithms and neural nets will be at the heart of the production of artificial intelligences there is a particular architectural organization that may be necessary in the production of conscious artefacts. This involves the operations of multiple layers of feedback loops in the anatomy of the brain, in the social construction of the contents of consciousness and in particular in the self-regulation necessary for the continued operation of metabolically organized systems. Finally I make some comments on the ethics of such a procedure. (shrink)

Do government policies increase the likelihood that some citizens will become persistent criminals? Using criminological concepts such as the idea of a “criminal career” and sociological concepts such as the life course, this article assesses the outcome of macro-level economic policies on individuals’ engagement in crime. Few studies in political science, sociology, or criminology directly link macroeconomic policies to individual offending. Employing individual-level longitudinal data, this article tracks a sample of Britons born in 1970 from childhood to adulthood and examines (...) their offending trajectories through the early 1980s to see the effects of economic policies on individuals’ repeated offending. A model is developed with data from the British 1970 Birth Cohort Study that incorporates individuals, families, and schools and takes account of national-level economic policies. Findings suggest that economic restructuring was a key causal factor in offending during the period. Criminologists are encouraged to draw on ideas from political science to help explain offending careers and show how political choices in the management of the economy encourage individual-level responses. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest how we might conceptualize some kind of artificial consciousness as an ultimate development of Artificial Life. This entity will be embodied in some sort of constructed (biological or non-biological) body. The contention is that consciousness within self-organized entities is not only possible but inevitable. The basic sensory and interactive processes by which an organism operates within an environment are such as to be the basic processes that are necessary for consciousness. I then look at likely (...) criteria for consciousness, and point to an architecture of the cognitive which maps onto the physiological layer, the brain. While evolutionary algorithms and neural nets will be at the heart of the production of artificial intelligences there is a particular architectural organization that may be necessary in the production of conscious artefacts. This involves the operations of multiple layers of feedback loops in the anatomy of the brain, in the social construction of the contents of consciousness and in particular in the self-regulation necessary for the continued operation of metabolically organized systems. Finally I make some comments on the ethics of such a procedure. (shrink)

Out of the ashes of the post-modern critique of metaphysics comes a series of important essays which re-think the place of metaphysics in theological and philosophical inquiry. This book ranges across a variety of philosophical and theological traditions, charting new directions for theological reflection.

SummaryAlthough desired family size is often different from actual family size, the dynamics of this difference are not well understood. This paper examines the patterns and determinants of the difference between desired and actual number of children among women aged 15–49 years using pooled data from the 1990, 1999 and 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys. The results show that more than two-thirds of the sample have unmet fertility desires. It was found that early and late childbearing increased the odds (...) of unmet fertility desires. Also, women with low levels of education, from poor households, rural residents as well as those who had experienced child death were at a higher risk of unmet fertility desires in the multivariate context. The study highlights the policy and programme implications of the findings. (shrink)

There is a series of candidates for the ground of intrinsic value. Different theories posit that the ground consists of some or all of the following: types of experiences, desire-satisfaction, virtue, meaningful relationships, true beliefs, desert-satisfaction, etc. The ground can be local or global depending on whether it grounds value of a spatial, temporal, or fact-specific part of the universe (e.g., Jones enjoying this ice cream) or all facts considered (e.g., the universe over time). In this paper, I argue (...) that the single ground of global intrinsic value is the total amount of desert-adjusted well-being. I begin by providing a sketch of moral desert. I then argue that desert-adjusted well-being alone satisfies our intuitions about global intrinsic value. (shrink)

Most studies into the performance of socially responsible investment vehicles have focused on the performance of sustainable or socially responsible mutual funds. This research has been complemented recently by a number of studies that have examined the performance of sustainable investment indices. In both cases, the majority of studies have concluded that the returns of socially responsible investment vehicles have either underperformed, or failed to outperform, comparable market indices. Although the impact of sustainable indices to date has been limited, the (...) recent launch of sustainable indices by Dow Jones and FTSE suggests that more attention is being paid to the subject by financial markets, investors, and companies. This development raises a number of important issues which are reviewed in this article: (a) the performance of indices compared with their benchmark indices; (b) the methodologies employed in compiling the indices; and (c) the impact of the indices on companies and the investment community. The article concludes with a number of suggestions for areas that merit future research. (shrink)

Interest is growing in the relocalization of staple crops, including wheat, in western Washington (WWA), a nontraditional wheat-growing area. Commercial bakers are potentially important food chain intermediaries in the case of relocalized wheat production. We conducted a mail survey of commercial bakers in WWA to assess their interest in sourcing wheat/flour from WWA, identify the characteristics of bakeries most likely to purchase wheat/flour from WWA, understand the factors important to bakers in purchasing regionally produced wheat/flour, and identify perceived barriers to (...) making such purchases. Sixty-one percent of survey respondents were interested in purchasing WWA wheat/flour. Bakers who used retail strategies to market their products were more likely to be interested in WWA wheat/flour compared to those not using retail methods. Bakers’ current purchases of Washington wheat/flour were not related to their interest in purchasing WWA flour. The most important factors bakers would consider in purchasing regionally produced wheat/flour were consistency of flour quality, quality of flour, and reliability of supply. Cost was the most frequently mentioned barrier to the purchase of regionally produced wheat/flour. Our results are relevant for other areas attempting to reconnect grain producers, commercial bakers, and consumers in mutually beneficial ways. (shrink)

Jones's system of constraints promises interesting insights into the typology of kin term systems. Three problems arise: (1) the conflation of categories with algorithms that assign them threatens to weaken the typological predictions; (2) OT-type constraints have little psychological plausibility; (3) the conflation of kin-term systems and kinship systems may underplay the “utility function” character of real kinship in action.

Durkheim's The Rules of Sociological Method has never enjoyed the same reputation as his major books, in part because the book is uncongenial to standard interpretations of Durkheim. In particular, its attacks on teleology do not fit his reputation as a functionalist The papers in this special issue address the work historically. Both Porter and Stedman Jones deal with aspects of the context in which Durkheim worked and transformed. Schmaus and Nemedi deal with problems of interpreting Durkheim's development, and (...) Platt discusses the reception of The Rules. The papers shed light on such important questions as the meaning of Durkheim's slogan “society is made of representations.” Durkheim, it appears, was not only what would now be called a constructionist, he went on to ask whether the fact that constructions are real in their consequences did not imply the reality causal reality of constructions and, therefore, a specific kind of “social realism.” The problem The Rules poses, of what is the fundamental stuff of society, is “classic” in significance, and Durkheim's answer is classically radical. (shrink)

The choice of emphasis in kinship studies has often resulted in incompatible theoretical models of kinship that are mutually undermining and contradictory. Jones' attempts to reconcile disparate approaches to kinship using OT is useful, however; seeing kinship as a specialized system for representing genealogy may be unwarranted in the light of recent advances in mathematical approaches to kinship terminologies.

A dazzling insight into what gives meaning to our life and to us as a species. What makes us human? From Professor Brian Cox on the particles of dust that make us, to Caitlin Moran on the joy of Friday nights, and A C Grayling on how we express ourselves through culture: this illuminating book shares over 100 mind-expanding answers to that question. We all want to understand our place in the universe and find a sense of purpose in the (...) life. This book will help the reader navigate that journey with the help of leading names from the worlds of literature, history, philosophy, politics, sport, comedy and popular culture. Originally broadcast as a popular feature on the Jeremy Vine Show, What Makes Us Human? includes short essays from: Andrew Marr, Carlo Rovelli, Justin Welby, Marian Keyes, Alain de Botton, Robert Webb, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, and many more"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

If we think about comedy in terms of stock characters, Shakespeare provides some startling examples. Here, for instance, are two hypothetical casts: A jealous husband, a chaste wife, an irascible father, a clever malicious servant, a gullible friend, a bawdy witty maid; A pair of lovers, their irascible fathers, a bawdy serving woman, a witty friend, a malicious friend, a kindly foolish priest. Both of these groups represent recognizable comic configurations, though in fact they are also the casts of Othello (...) and Romeo and Juliet. Being able to see them in this light, I think, reveals something important about how both these tragedies work. Much of their dramatic force derives from the way they continually tempt us with comic possibilities. We are told in a prologue that Romeo and Juliet are star-crossed, but if inevitability is a requisite of tragedy, neither play will qualify for the genre: they are the most iffy dramas in the Shakespearean canon. At innumerable points in both plays, had anything happened differently, the tragic catastrophe would have been averted. Othello particularly teases the audience in this way—as the famous story about the man who leapt from his seat, furious at the impending murder of Desdemona, and shouted "You fool, can't you see she's innocent?" reveals. The story is no doubt apocryphal , but the point is that it is unique to this play: there are no similar tales of spectators leaping up to rescue Cordelia, to save Gloucester from blinding, to dash the asp from Cleopatra's hand. Stephen Orgel, professor of English at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of The Jonsonian Masque, The Illusion of Power, and the coauthor of Inigo Jones. The editor of Jonson's Complete Masques and of Jonson's Selected Masques , he is currently writing a book on the idea of theatrical genres in the Renaissance. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Beginning Lives, by Rosalind Hursthouse. On Moral Medicine:Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, edited by Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey. Quantitative Risk Assessment, edited by James M. Humber and Robert F. A Theory of Value and Obligation, by Robin Attfield. Ethical Issues at the Outset of Life, edited by William B. Weil Jr. and Martin Benjamin. Legal Frontiers of Death and Dying by Norman L. Cantor Having Your Baby By Donor Insemination:A Complete Resource Guide, (...) by Elizabeth Noble. (shrink)

The starting-point of this paper is one of the most disastrous pieces of advocacy in modern legal history. In October 1960, Penguin Books were prosecuted under Section 2 of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act for publishing an unexpurgated edition ofLady Chatterley's Lover.On the first day of the trial, Mr. Mervyn Griffith-Jones, Senior Treasury Counsel, did his best to wreck his case on the strength of one remark. He had previously tried to show that he was himself a man of (...) the world: ‘Let me emphasize this on behalf of the prosecution: do not approach this matter in any priggish, high-minded, super-correct, mid-Victorian manner’. He now proceeded to work this out in practice: ‘Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it even a book that you would wish your wife or your servants to read?’. (shrink)

Among the works of Aelius Aristides is preserved an address to an unnamed ‘king’. The prevailing view in this century has been that it is addressed to a third-century emperor, and was attributed to Aristides in error. In an article published in 1972 , 134–52), I argued that the speech was genuine, and was delivered by Aristides in 144 before Antoninus Pius. In a recent article in this journal , 172–97), Stephen A. Stertz has undertaken to rebut this view, (...) and advances a novel one: the speech is a school exercise written in the third or perhaps the fourth century, and does not refer to any particular ‘king’, not even necessarily a Roman emperor. Rather than attempt to answer all of Stertz's arguments, I have selected as samples one each from several diverse fields. Manuscript tradition. In his first paragraph, Stertz suggests that the manuscript tradition of the Eis basilea itself impugns its authenticity. ‘The oration is entitled єς βασιλέα in three manuscripts and єς τόν ατοκρτορα in another. It has been pointed out that in the former group of manuscripts the title is not preceded by the words ριστεδου λόγος, thus casting doubt on Aristidean authorship' . The accompanying footnote refers to Keil's apparatus ad loc, and the reader might infer that this argument is borrowed from Aristides’ foremost editor. What Keil said was: ‘Titulus ες βασιλα STC : єς τòν ατοκρτορα U et in indice D m recentiss.’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:324 BOOK REVIEWS Reading in Communion: Scripture & Ethics in Christian Life. By STEPHEN E. FowL & L. GREGORY JONES. Series: Biblical Foundations in Theology. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1991. Pp. ix + 166. $13.95 (paper). This book represents the collaborative attempt of a biblical scholar and an ethicist to determine the precise sense in which scriptural texts can be taken as normative for (...) the Christian moral life. The collabora· tion is a fruitful one, its results illuminating not only the problem of method in ethics, but issues of biblical hermeneutics as well. This re· sult is not serendipitous; for the authors, the question of how one ought to live the Christian life and the question of how one ought to interpret Scripture are inextricably linked. Indeed, perhaps it would be more accurate to suggest that, on the account that Fowl and Jones supply, these are different formulations of the very same question. There is no rigid demarcation here between the hermeneutical and the ethical realm, no rigorous sorting out of issues appropriate to each field of inquiry. The authors make good on their introductory promise "to write a single text " rather than simply to generate a series of " alternating perspectives " (p. 3). In the very first chapter of the book, certain typical, even dominant, ways of construing the relationship between Scripture and ethics are briefly reviewed and then rejected. Ethics is commonly perceived as being primarily "concerned with right actions and decisions," the authors contend, while the Bible is viewed as a moral guide for the " particular decisions made by isolated individuals " (p. 5). In contrast, Fowl and Jones argue that " Scripture is primarily addressed not to individuals but to specific communities called into being by God " (p. 8). Moreover, our ethical deliberations ought not to be focused on particular decisions and the formulation of moral principles that bear on those decisions, but rather, on " issues of character and the formation of character in and through socially-embodied traditions" (p. 9). The consequences of such a general position are carefully and sen· sitively explored in this first and in subsequent chapters. The authors reject the assumption that one such consequence must be the conclusion that moral behavior is not, after all, ruled behavior, that one cannot formulate and articulate the principles that govern much of what we do. Their position entails the conclusion, rather, that such principles cannot be meaningfully detached from the communally embodied traditions that engender them. Indeed, they have meaning at all only in· sofar as the individuals describing, interpreting and employing these BOOK REVIEWS 325 principles possess the peculiar habits and beliefs characteristic of the :members of a specific community. In the analysis of any given moral situation, then, the discussion of principles will necessarily presuppose.a discussion of character, of the sorts of persons involved in the situation, their moral beliefs and capabilities. It is important to note that this discussion will often take a narrative form, precisely because the delineation of character is most readily accomplished by telling stories about persons, about their communities, their politics and practices, their interests and aspirations. Thus, moral capabilities are formed in " the friendships and prac-.tices " that constitute communal life. In asserting this, the authors defend an important but not terribly controversial claim. What is especially intriguing and insightful about their account, however, is the reIated claim that moral capabilities are also hermeneutical capabilities, that some of the patterns and habits of action acquired by living in a·Community also function as habits of interpretation. "Well-formed·character," Fowl and Jones explain, is crucial not only to "Christians'.ability to live faithfully in the various contexts within which they find themselves," but also to their " ability to read, speak and perform the word of the Lord " (p. 85). Moral virtue is, on their account, a kind of interpretive skill. (If not identical, character and interpretive skill.are, at the very least, formed in the same process, inextricably linked ;together as aspects of "practical wisdom." See page 31.) This result is especially meaningful once it becomes clear that the authors are employing a usefully broadened concept of " interpreta· tion." To interpret a scriptural text can and often... (shrink)

Presents close analysis of eight of Francis Bacon's texts in order to investigate the relation of his religious views to his instauration. Attempts to correct the persistent misconception of Bacon as a secular modern who dismissed religion in order to promote the human advancement of knowledge"--Provided by publisher.

In Human Presence Erickson offers a thoughtful study of some fundamental features of human nature central to a theoretical and therapeutic understanding of human existence. Though the language employed is largely philosophical, interfaces with psychoanalysis and religion are made in order to stimulate dialogue that reaches beyond the traditional boundaries of discipline. It is toward more such dialogue that Human Presence serves as preparation. The author provides a probing contrast between traditional psychoanalysis and existential conceptions of time consciousness and he (...) articulates the issues involved in experience or lived time in their centrality to human self-understanding. The author suggests how both conceptions, the existential and the psychoanalytic, enlarge yet limit awareness and insight. In a revealing way, Human Presence raises deep and unavoidable issues regarding the human in us all. Stephen A. Erickson is Professor of Philosophy, Pomona College and Claremont Graduate School, and is a guest faculty member of the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. (shrink)

In this response to the commentary by Michael and Christensen, we first explain how minimal mindreading is compatible with the development of increasingly sophisticated mindreading behaviours that involve both executive functions and general knowledge, and then sketch one approach to a minimal account of goal ascription.

Sensitivity to others’ actions is essential for social animals like humans and a fundamental requirement for any kind of social cognition. Unsurprisingly, it is present in humans from early in the first year of life. But what processes underpin infants’ sensitivity to others’ actions? Any attempt to answer this question must solve twin puzzles about the development of goal tracking. Why does some, but not all, of infants’ goal tracking appear to be limited by their abilities to represent the observed (...) action motorically at the time it occurs? And why does their sensitivity to action sometimes manifest itself differently in dishabituation, pupil dilation and anticipatory looking? Solving these twin puzzles is critical for understanding humans’ earliest sensitivity to others’ actions. After introducing the puzzles, this paper argues that solving them may require identifying multiple, distinct processes for tracking the targets and goals of actions. (shrink)

Drawing on Protestant scholasticism, Puritan "precisionism," and virtue ethics, "Virtue Reformed" offers a comprehensive rereading of the ethical position of ...