Soil is fragile and nonrenewable but the most basic of natural resources. It has a capacity to tolerate continuous use but only with proper management. Improper soil management and indiscriminate use of chemicals have contributed to some severe global environmental issues, e.g., volatilization losses and contamination of natural waters by sediments and agricultural fertilizers and pesticides. The increasing substitution of energy for labor and other cultural inputs in agriculture is another issue. Fertilizers and chemicals account for about 25% of the (...) production energy investment in agriculture. An additional 60% is accounted for by machinery, gasoline, electricity, and power-related inputs. Fertilizer additions to cropland are not utilized fully and significant amounts, depending on conditions, are either lost in surface runoff or leached into the ground water. The annual discharge of dissolved solids from agricultural lands to the waterways in the USA is substantial. The increasing use of herbicides in agriculture is a threat to the quality of surface and ground water, although this threat is dependent upon both the chemistry of the compound and the ecosystem in which it is used. Especially within the Third World, development of an environmental ethic and environmental laws have not kept pace with the increase in pesticide use. Above all is the severe and global problem of soil degradation currently occurring at the rate of five to seven million hectares per year. The policy and moral aspects of these issues are discussed. (shrink)

In the eighteenth century the category of the aesthetic sought to bridge the gap between the prevalent dualities of Cartesian thought: art and science, history and science, prejudice and truth. This special issue of _boundary 2_ addresses current debates about the status of art in the context of global modernity. The range of arguments represented here cover a broad historical scope—from Cartesianism to present-day global modernity—of cultural discourse on the aesthetic to bring a focus to contemporary discussions of the corollary (...) concepts of beauty, virtue, taste, and truth. These essays present a rich and provocative account of the place of the aesthetic in late-twentieth-century culture. Included in this volume are considerations of the relation between theories of art and the avant-garde; art’s relation to cognition; the aesthetic as history; the aesthetic as a unique access to modernity; and its impact on problems of identity formation, ideology, and resistances to the institutional powers inherent in dominant social formations. _Contributors. _Charles Altieri, Peter Burger, David Carroll, Anthony J. Cascardi, Howard Caygill, Allen Dunn, Eric Gans, Agnes Heller, Ronald A. T. Judy, Marie-Rose Logan, Daniel T. O’Hara, Donald E. Pease, Alan Singer. (shrink)

Given the growing public concern and attention placed on cases of research misconduct, government agencies and research institutions have increased their efforts to develop and improve ethics education programs for scientists. The present study sought to assess the impact of these increased efforts by sampling empirical studies published since the year 2000. Studies published prior to 2000 examined in other meta-analytic work were also included to provide a baseline for assessing gains in ethics training effectiveness over time. In total, this (...) quantitative review consisted of 66 empirical studies, 106 ethics courses, 150 effect sizes, and 10,069 training participants. Overall, the findings indicated that ethics instruction resulted in sizable benefits to participants and has improved considerably within the last decade. A number of specific findings also emerged regarding moderators of instructional effectiveness. Recommendations are discussed for improving the development, delivery, and evaluation of ethics instruction in the sciences. (shrink)

To contribute to the continuing challenge of explaining how managers identify stakeholders and assess their salience, in this article, we chronicle the history, assess the impact, and evaluate the possibilities opened by Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (MAW-1997). We do so through two types of qualitative analysis, and also through utilizing a quantitative network analysis tool. The first qualitative analysis categorizes the major contributions of the most influential papers succeeding MAW-1997; the second identifies and compares the relevant issues with MAW-1997 at (...) the time of initial publication and today. We apply main path analysis, a quantitative tool, to map how this scholarly domain has evolved. These three analyses robustly depict the impact of MAW-1997 and the ensuing scholarly conversation, and they enable us to illustrate the current state and trajectory of stakeholder identification and salience scholarship. We close by discussing pressing topics related to the broader body of stakeholder theory literature. (shrink)

T. J. Smiley; XII.—Entailment and Deducibility, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 233–254, https://doi.org/10.1093.

In this presentation, I will seek to put into perspective the philosophy and theology of the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure. I will argue that to understand the thought of St. Bonaventure, one has to understand his Franciscan vocation and the exemplary role of the Seraphic Father, St. Francis. This pattern becomes evident when one looks closer at St. Bonaventure’s (1) exemplary causation, (2) divine illumination theory, (3) and crown of affectivity. Throughout these three topics, it is also my goal to (...) elaborate upon St. Bonaventure’s philosophy by (1) analyzing the respective philosophers who St. Bonaventure responded to (i.e. Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas) and (2) contextualizing him among the great Christian thinkers of his time (i.e. St. Thomas and St. Albert). (shrink)

Predictive modeling in education draws on data from past courses to forecast the effectiveness of future courses. The present effort sought to identify such a model of instructional effectiveness in scientific ethics. Drawing on data from 235 courses in the responsible conduct of research, structural equation modeling techniques were used to test a predictive model of RCR course effectiveness. Fit statistics indicated the model fit the data well, with the instructional characteristics included in the model explaining approximately 85% of the (...) variance in RCR instructional effectiveness. Implications for using the model to develop and improve future RCR courses are discussed. (shrink)

Some philosophers have thought that life could only be meaningful if there is no God. For Sartre and Nagel, for example, a God of the traditional classical theistic sort would constrain our powers of self-creative autonomy in ways that would severely detract from the meaning of our lives, possibly even evacuate our lives of all meaning. Some philosophers, by contrast, have thought that life could only be meaningful if there is a God. God and the Meanings of Life is interested (...) in exploring the truth in both these schools of thought, seeking to discover what God could and couldn't do to make life meaningful (as well as what he would and wouldn't do). Mawson espouses a version of the 'amalgam' or 'pluralism' thesis about the issue of life's meaning – in essence, that there are a number of different legitimate meanings of 'meaning' (and indeed 'life') in the question of life's meaning. According to Mawson, God, were he to exist, would help make life meaningful in some of these senses and hinder in some others. He argues that whilst there could be meaning in a Godless universe, there could be other sorts of meaning in a Godly one and that these would be deeper. (shrink)

Sometimes ordinary disagreements become deep as a result of epistemic injustice. The paper explores a hitherto unnoticed connection between two phenomena that have received ample attention in recent social epistemology: deep disagreement and epistemic injustice. When epistemic injustice comes into play in a regular disagreement, this can lead to higher-order disagreement about what counts as evidence concerning the original disagreement, which deepens the disagreement. After considering a common definition of deep disagreement, it is proposed that the depth of disagreements is (...) best understood as a matter of degree. Then, a case study of real-life disagreement is introduced: the disagreement about whether racism is a significant issue in the Netherlands, illustrated by the tradition of ‘Black Pete’. It is argued that there is disagreement about what counts as evidence in the case study because of two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. Specifically, there is disagreement about epistemic principles concerning whether private first-personal experience of racism is a weighty source of evidence in this domain, whether victims of racism count as important testifiers in this domain, and how to assess testimony that is not intelligible to you because it employs concepts and terminology you are unfamiliar with. By dismissing the relevant testimony and epistemic resources, the disagreement boils down to disagreement on the level of epistemic principles concerning,, and. Introducinginjustice-based deep disagreementhighlights moral and political aspects of disagreements that might seem factual. (shrink)

How do we think about animals? How do we decide what they deserve and how we ought to treat them? Subhuman takes an interdisciplinary approach to these questions, drawing from research in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, law, history, sociology, economics, and anthropology. Subhuman argues that our attitudes to nonhuman animals, both positive and negative, largely arise from our need to compare ourselves to them.

This major addition to Ideas in Context examines the development of natural law theories in the early stages of the Enlightenment in Germany and France. T. J. Hochstrasser investigates the influence exercised by theories of natural law from Grotius to Kant, with a comparative analysis of the important intellectual innovations in ethics and political philosophy of the time. Hochstrasser includes the writings of Samuel Pufendorf and his followers who evolved a natural law theory based on human sociability and reason, fostering (...) a new methodology in German philosophy. This book assesses the first histories of political thought since ancient times, giving insights into the nature and influence of debate within eighteenth-century natural jurisprudence. Ambitious in range and conceptually sophisticated, Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment will be of great interest to scholars in history, political thought, law and philosophy. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment has been selected as the winner of the annual Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best book in intellectual history published in 2000. (shrink)

Can the issue of how important it is whether or not there is a God be decided prior to deciding whether or not there is a God? In this paper, I explore some difficulties that stand in the way of answering this question in the affirmative and some of the implications of these difficulties for that part of the Philosophy of Religion which concerns itself with assessing arguments for and against the existence of God, the implications for how its importance (...) may best be defended within secular academe. (shrink)

Recent advances in synthetic biology have made it possible to revive extinct species of animals, a process known as ‘de-extinction’. This paper examines two reasons for supporting de-extinction: the potential for de-extinct species to play useful roles in ecosystems; and human valuing of certain de-extinct species. I focus on the particular case of passenger pigeons to argue that the most critical challenge for de-extinction is that it entails significant suffering for sentient individual animals. I also provide reasons to take existence (...) value, or valuing the mere the fact that a species exists, into consideration in debates over de-extinction. (shrink)

Recent highly publicized privacy breaches in health care and genomics research have led many to question whether current standards of data protection are adequate. Improvements in de-identification techniques, combined with pervasive data sharing, have increased the likelihood that external parties can track individuals across multiple databases. This paper focuses on the communication of identifiability risks in the process of obtaining consent for donation and research. Most ethical discussions of identifiability risks have focused on the severity of the risk and how (...) it might be mitigated, and what precisely is at stake in pervasive data sharing. However, there has been little discussion of whether and how to communicate the risk to potential donors. We review the ethical arguments behind favoring different types of risk communication in the consent process, and outline how identifiability concerns can be incorporated into either a detailed or simplified method of communicating risks during the consent process. (shrink)

Background Biobank participants often do not understand much of the information they are provided as part of the informed consent process, despite numerous attempts at simplifying consent forms and improving their readability. We report the first assessment of biobank enrollees’ comprehension under an "integrated consent” process, where patients were asked to enroll in a research biobank as part of their normal healthcare experience. A number of healthcare systems have implemented similar integrated consent processes for biobanking, but it is unknown how (...) much patients understand after enrolling under these conditions. Methods: We recruited patients who enrolled in a biobank while in a healthcare setting when receiving ordinary care. We assessed knowledge of consent materials using 11 true/false questions drawn from a well-known biobank knowledge test. After reviewing the results from 114 participants, we revised the consent form and repeated the knowledge assessment with 144 different participants. Results: Participants scored poorly on the knowledge test in both rounds, with no significant differences in overall scores or individual items between the rounds. In Phase 1, participants answered 53% of the questions correctly, 25% incorrectly, and 22% “I don’t know.” In Phase 2, participants answered 53% of questions correctly, 24% incorrectly, and 23% “I don’t know.” Participants scored particularly poorly on questions about data sharing and accessing medical records. Conclusions: Enrollees under an integrated consent model had significant misunderstandings that persisted despite an attempt to improve information specifically about those topics in a consent form. These results raise challenges for current approaches that attribute misunderstanding to overly complex consent forms. They also suggest that the pressures of the clinic may compound other problems with patient understanding of biobank consent. As health systems increasingly blend research and care, they may need to rethink their approach to educating patients about participation in a biobank. (shrink)

It is not intended as some sort of revelation on my part that Greenberg's cultural theory was originally Marxist in its stresses and, indeed in its attitude to what constituted explanation in such matters. I point out the Marxist and historical mode of proceeding as emphatically as I do partly because it may make my own procedure later in this paper seem a little less arbitrary. For I shall fall to arguing in the end with these essay's Marxism and their (...) history, and I want it understood that I think that to do so is to take issue with their strengths and their main drift.But I have to admit there are difficulties here. The essays in question ["Avant-Garde and Kitsch" and "Towards a Newer Lacoön"] are quite brief. They are, I think, extremely well written: it was not for nothing the Partisan Review described Clement Greenberg, when he first contributed to the journal early in 1939, as "a young writer who works in the New York customs house"—fine, redolent avant-garde pedigree, that! The language of these articles is forceful and easy, always straightforward, blessedly free from Marxist conundrums. Yet the price paid for such lucidity, here as so often, is a degree of inexplicitness—certain amount of elegant skirting round the difficult issues, where one might otherwise be obliged to call out the ponderous armory of Marx's concepts and somewhat spoil the low of the prose from one firm statement to another. The Marxism, in other words, is quite largely implicit; it is stated on occasion, with brittle and pugnacious finality, as the essay's frame of reference, but it remains to the reader to determine just how it works in the history and theory presented—what that history and theory depend on, in the way of Marxist assumptions about class and capital or even abase and superstructure. That is what I intend to do in this paper: to interpret and extrapolate from the texts, even at the risk of making their Marxism declare itself more stridently than the "young writer" seems to have wished. And I should admit straight away that there are several point in what follows where I am genuinely uncertain as to whether I am diverging from Greenberg's argument or explaining it more fully. This does not worry me overmuch, as long as we are alerted to the special danger in this case, dealing with such transparent yet guarded prose, and as long as we can agree that the project in general—pressing home a Marxist reading of texts which situate themselves within the Marxist tradition—is a reasonable one.22. This carelessness distinguishes the present paper from two recent studies of Greenberg's early writings, Serge Guilbaut's "The New Adventures of the Avant-Garde in America," October 15 , and Fred Orton and Griselda Pollock's "Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed," Art History 3 I am indebted to both these essays and am sure that their strictures on the superficiality—not to say the opportunism–of Greenberg's Marxism are largely right. But I am nonetheless interested in the challenge offered to most Marxist, and non-Marxist, accounts of modern history by what I take to be a justified though extreme, pessimism as t the nature of established culture since 1870. That pessimism is characteristic, I suppose, of what Marxists call an ultraleftist point of view. I believe, as I say, that a version of some such view is correct and would therefore with to treat Greenberg's theory as if it were a decently elaborated Marxism of an ultraleftist kind, on which issues in certain mistaken views but which need not so issue and which might still provide, cleansed of those errors, a good vantage for a history of our culture.T. J. Clark, professor of fine arts at Harvard University, is the author of The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848-1851 and Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. His book on impressionist painting and Paris is forthcoming. (shrink)

Darwinian Evolution and Classical Liberalism brings together a collection of new essays that examine the multifaceted ferment between Darwinian biology and classical liberalism.

The application of in vivo genetic lineage tracing has advanced our understanding of cellular mechanisms for tissue renewal in organs with slow turnover, like the lung. These studies have identified an adult stem cell with very different properties than classically understood ones that maintain continuously cycling tissues such as the intestine. A portrait has emerged of an ensemble of cellular programs that replenish the cells that line the gas exchange (alveolar) surface, enabling a response tailored to the extent of cell (...) loss. A capacity for differentiated cells to undergo direct lineage transitions allows for local restoration of proper cell balance at sites of injury. We present these recent findings as a paradigm for how a relatively quiescent tissue compartment can maintain homeostasis throughout a lifetime punctuated by injuries ranging from mild to life‐threatening, and discuss how dysfunction or insufficiency of alveolar repair programs produce serious health consequences like cancer and fibrosis. (shrink)

Much of the importance of innovation stems from its capacity to spread via social learning, affecting multiple individuals, thus generating evolutionary and ecological consequences. We advocate a broader taxonomic focus in the field of behavioral innovation, as well as the use of comparative field research, and discuss the unique conservation implications of animal innovations and traditions.

‘The Meaning of Life’ and ‘The Philosophy of Religion’ have meant different things to different people, and so I do well to alert my reader to what these phrases mean to me and thus to the subject area of this review of recent work on their intersection. First, ‘The Meaning of Life’: within the analytic tradition, an idea has gained widespread assent; whatever the vague and enigmatic nature of the phrase ‘the meaning of life’, we may sensibly speak of meaningfulness (...) in a life as a particular, positive, normative feature that some individuals’ lives may well have, and this feature is to be distinguished from, though closely related to, other positive features – satisfaction, wellbeing, virtue and so forth. There has been much work done on these assumptions in recent years. An excellent summary of this work up to its date of publication is given by Thaddeus Metz (in his 2007 a). Many – though by no means all – philosophers retain an instinctive scepticism toward the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ and a reluctance to engage with it, for it seems to connote vague and/or impossible-to-fulfil cosmic expectations. (See Thomson , chapter 11 and Seachris 2009 for attempts to engage with it nonetheless.) But philosophers are not generally now so sceptical about talk of meaningfulness in life and thus not so sceptical about the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ if it is taken to be referring merely to this. And that is how I shall be taking it. Secondly, ‘The Philosophy of Religion’: in the analytic tradition, this has usually been taken to be philosophical reflection on the rational acceptability or otherwise of classical theism and on what God's existence, should He exist, entails ontologically, metaphysically, metaethically and so forth. Therefore, I shall be talking about recent reflection in the analytic tradition on the relationship between the God of classical theism's existence (or lack of it) and meaningfulness (or lack of it) in human lives. (shrink)

As scientific and engineering efforts become increasingly global in nature, the need to understand differences in perceptions of research ethics issues across countries and cultures is imperative. However, investigations into the connection between nationality and ethical decision-making in the sciences have largely generated mixed results. In Study 1 of this paper, a measure of biases and compensatory strategies that could influence ethical decisions was administered. Results from this study indicated that graduate students from the United States and international graduate students (...) studying in the US are prone to different biases. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for developing ethics education interventions to target these decision-making biases. In Study 2, we employed an ethics training intervention based on ethical sensemaking and used a well-established measure of ethical decision-making that more fully captures the content of ethical judgment. Similar to Study 1, the results obtained in this study suggest differences do exist between graduate students from the US and international graduate students in ethical decision-making prior to taking the research ethics training. However, similar effects were observed for both groups following the completion of the ethics training intervention. (shrink)

Genetic information is widely thought to pose unique risks of reidentifying individuals. Genetic data reveals a great deal about who we are and, the standard view holds, should consequently be treated differently from other types of data. Contrary to this view, we argue that the dangers of reidentification for genetic and nongenetic data—including health, financial, and consumer information—are more similar than has been recognized. Before different requirements are imposed around sharing genetic information, proponents of the standard view must show that (...) they are in fact necessary. We further argue that the similarities between genetic and nongenetic information have important implications for communicating risks during consent for health care and research. While patients and research participants need to be more aware of pervasive data‐sharing practices, consent forms are the wrong place to provide this education. Instead, health systems should engage with patients throughout patient care to educate them about data‐sharing practices. (shrink)

This careful and engaging introduction to Aristotle equips readers of ancient philosophy and classics with an intellectual map that will guide their further exploration within the terrains of Aristotelian philosophy and logic. The book does not seek to provide a verdict or to persuade the reader of the usefulness of Aristotle's ideas. Instead it offers a comprehensive introduction to key philosophical areas while situating the reader within the ongoing intellectual debates on Aristotle's significance and relevance. Crowley's book allows an overview (...) of Aristotle's contributions and includes discussions on the Organon, the epitome of his logical treatises, his works on biology, nature and causation, metaphysics, citizenship, ethics and eudaimonia. The book is a valuable tool for readers interested in becoming acquainted with the work of Aristotle but most importantly for those who are keen to understand his many interpretations. (shrink)

In the study of education, as in many more travelled regions of Classical scholarship, democratic Athens is something of a special case. The cautions formulation is appropriate: in the case of education, surprisingly few studies have sought to establish quite how special Athens was, and those which have, have often raised more questions than they answered. The subject itself is partly to blame. The history of education invites comparison with the present day, while those planning the future of education rarely (...) fail to invoke the past. The place of Classical Athens in European culture has ensured a place for Athenian education in almost every debate from the relation between education and democracy to the value of educationversustraining, and as the original champion of causes as varied as mass education, co-education, and the national curriculum. Desirable as it is to be in demand, such treatment is not calculated to produce the most circumspect account of the subject. The study of education is further hampered by the fact that our knowledge of Athenian culture is so vibrant and diverse in some ways and so partial in others. Plato and Aristophanes present a vivid fictional picture of education in the late fifth century. If we add a few passages from Xenophon and Aristotle, a large number of vases depicting men, women, and children reading, playing the lyre, and doing athletics, and one or two archaeological finds of an educational appearance, it is tempting to take the result as a clear portrait of a society at school. (shrink)