Higher energy prices and the growing concern about global warming have led to a number of policy goals and targets designed to curb global warming and/or the development of alternative sources of energy. However, the Tinbergen Rule states that for each and every policy target there must be at least one policy tool. If there are fewer tools than targets, then some policy goals will not be achieved. Further complicating the public policy environment are the facts that some policy tools (...) affect more than one target, some tools help achieve more than one target, and others, while meeting one target, make meeting other targets more difficult. Also, some targets are more efficient than others. If policy makers are going to be able to effectively meet their environmental and energy goals, a series of policy tools need to be developed. (shrink)

I have before me a letter dated January 5, 2000 from Bradford Wilson, the executive director of the NAS. It begins, “I really enjoyed your contribution to the recent symposium in the January issue of First Things, so much so that I’ve also decided to invite you to join the NAS. Many of your fellow contributors including Robert George, Jeffrey Satinover, and Father Neuhaus are among our current members, and I think you’d find it well worth your while if you (...) joined ranks with us yourself.”. (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist. It challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman who believe that the essence of liberalism is that it should remain neutral concerning different ways of life and individual conceptions of what is good or valuable. Professor Galston argues that the modern liberal state is committed to a distinctive conception of the human good, and to that end has developed characteristic (...) institutions and practices - representative governments, diverse societies, market economies, and zones of private action - in the pursuit of specific public purposes that give unity to the liberal state. These purposes guide liberal public policy, shape liberal justice, require the practice of liberal virtues, and rest on a liberal public culture. Consequently the diversity characteristic of liberal societies is limited by their institutional, personal, and cultural preconditions. (shrink)

How is a legitimate state possible? Obedience, coercion and intrusion are three ideas that seem inseparable from all government and seem to render state authority presumptively illegitimate. This book exposes three fallacies inspired by these ideas and in doing so challenges assumptions shared by liberals, libertarians, cultural conservatives, moderates and Marxists. In three clear and tightly argued essays William Edmundson dispels these fallacies and shows that living in a just state remains a worthy ideal. This is an important book (...) for all philosophers, political scientists and legal theorists as well as other readers interested in the views of Rawls, Dworkin and Nozick, many of whose central ideas are subjected to rigorous critique. (shrink)

The first look at the philosophical issues behind Charlaine Harris's _New York Times_ bestsellers _The Southern Vampire Mysteries_ and the _True Blood_ television series Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, _True Blood_, the popular HBO series adapted from Charlaine Harris's bestselling _The Southern Vampire Mysteries_, has a rich collection of themes to explore, from sex and romance to bigotry and violence to death and immortality. The goings-on in the mythical town of (...) Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires satiate their blood lust and openly commingle with ordinary humans, present no shortages of juicy metaphysical morsels to sink your teeth into. Now _True Blood and Philosophy_ calls on the minds of some of history's great thinkers to perform some philosophical bloodletting on such topics as Sookie and the metaphysics of mindreading; Maryann and sacrificial religion; werewolves, shapeshifters and personal identity; vampire politics, evil, desire, and much more. The first book to explore the philosophical issues and themes behind the _True Blood_ novels and television series Adds a new dimension to your understanding of _True Blood_ characters and themes The perfect companion to the start of the third season on HBO and the release of the second season on DVD Smart and entertaining_, True Blood and Philosophy_ provides food—or blood—for thought, and a fun, new way to look at the series. (shrink)

The recent accounting scandals have raised concerns regarding the closeness of auditor–client relationships. Critics argue that as the relationship lengthens a bond develops and auditors’ professional skepticism may be replaced with trust. However, Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99 states that auditors “should conduct the engagement with a mindset that recognizes the possibility that a material misstatement due to fraud could be present, regardless of any past experience with the entity and regardless of the auditor’s belief about management’s honesty and (...) integrity” (AICPA 2002, Statement on Auditing Standards No. 99, paragraph 13, p. 10). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether auditors develop trust in a client’s management and whether this trust affects auditors’ decisions. Specifically, this study examines whether auditors’ satisfaction with a client’s management during a prior audit engagement affects auditors’ self-reported trust in that client’s management and whether that trust affects their fraud risk assessment. The decision to trust a client’s management should be an ethical decision because excessive trust may impair auditors’ skepticism, which auditors are required to maintain by their professional responsibilities. We therefore also investigate whether auditors’ trust is affected by their moral reasoning. An experimental case was completed by 89 professional auditors, all with experience assessing the risk of fraud. The results suggest auditors’ satisfaction with the client affects their trust in the client (higher satisfaction associated with higher trust and lower satisfaction associated with lower trust). Further, after an overall unsatisfying experience, auditors’ trust affects their fraud risk assessments. However, after an overall satisfying experience, their trust does not affect their fraud risk assessments. The results indicate auditors are able to maintain their professional skepticism after satisfying past experiences with the client regardless of their beliefs about the honesty and trustworthiness of the client’s management. Lastly, auditors’ moral reasoning was not related to their trust in the client’s management. (shrink)

William Galston is a distinguished political philosopher whose work is informed by the experience of having also served from 1993–5 as President Clinton's Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy. He is thus able to speak with an authority unique amongst political theorists about the implications of advancing certain moral and political values in practice. The foundational argument of this 2002 book is that liberalism is compatible with the value pluralism first espoused by Isaiah Berlin. William Galston defends a version (...) of value pluralism - liberal pluralism - and argues, against the contentions of John Gray and others, that it undergirds a kind of liberal politics that gives weight to the ability of individuals and groups to live their lives in accordance with their deepest beliefs about what gives meaning and purpose to life. (shrink)

Emotionality is a basic feature of behavior. The argument over whether the expression of emotions is based primarily on culture (constructivism, nurture) or biology (natural forms, nature) will never be resolved because both alternatives are untenable. The evidence is overwhelming that at all ages and all levels of organization, the development of emotionality is epigenetic: The organism is an active participant in its own development. To ascribe these effects to “experience” was the best that could be done for many years. (...) With the rapid acceleration of information on how changes in organization are actually brought about, it is a good time to review, update, and revitalize our views of experience in relation to the concept of basic emotion. (shrink)

One prominent evolutionist I know confided in me that he sometimes spends only an hour perusing a book that he has to review. I doubt if Brian Charlesworth spent even that much time with my book No Free Lunch. Charlesworth is a bright guy and could have done better. But no doubt he is also a busy guy. To save time and effort, it's therefore easier to put these crazy intelligent design creationists in their place rather than actually engage the (...) merits of their arguments. Charlesworth's review is riddled with caricatures and stereotypes. The amateurs at talk.origins frankly have done a much better job trying to critique me. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to assess the presence of ethics committees in rural critical access hospitals across the United States. Several studies have investigated the presence of ethics committees in rural health care facilities. The limitation of these studies is in the definition of ‘rural hospital’ and a regional or state focus. These limitations have created large variations in the study findings. In this nation-wide study we used the criteria of a critical access hospital (CAH), as defined by (...) the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program (Flex Program, 2007), to bring consistency and clarity to the assessment of the presence of ethics committees in rural hospitals. The Flex Monitoring Team conducted a national telephone survey of 381 CAH administrators throughout the United States. The survey covered a wide variety of questions concerning hospitals’ community benefit, impact activities, and whether the hospital had a formally established an ethics committee. About 230 (60%) of the respondents indicated they had a formally established ethics committee or ethics consultation program at their CAH. The prevalence of ethics committees declined as the CAH location became increasingly rural along a rural–urban continuum. Unlike CAHs, all rural Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers have ethics committees. The results of this study provide an understanding of the limited presence of ethics committee in rural America and the need to consider new approaches for providing ethics assistance. A virtual ethics committee network may be the most efficient and effective way of providing rural hospitals access to a knowledgeable ethics committee or consultant. (shrink)

Who is to be included in a political community and on what terms? William A. Barbieri Jr. seeks answers to these questions in this exploration of the controversial concept of citizenship rights—a concept directly related to the nature of democracy, equality, and cultural identity. Through an examination of the case of Germany’s settled “guestworkers” and their families, _Ethics of Citizenship_ investigates the pressing problem of political membership in a world marked by increased migration, rising nationalist sentiment, and the ongoing (...) reorganization of states through both peaceful and violent means. Although some of Germany’s foreign workers have gradually attained a degree of social and economic legitimacy, Barbieri explains how they remain effectively excluded from true German citizenship. Describing how this exclusion has occurred and assessing current attitudes toward political membership in Germany, he argues for a just and democratic policy toward the tax-paying, migrant worker minority, one that would combine the extension of the individual rights of citizenship with the establishment of certain group rights. Through a dissection of ongoing public “membership debates” over issues such as suffrage, dual citizenship, and immigration and refugee policy, Barbieri identifies a range of competing responses to the question of who “belongs” in Germany. After critiquing these views, he proposes an alternative ethic of membership rooted in an account of domination and human rights that seeks to balance individual and group rights within the context of a commitment to democracy and equal citizenship. Indispensable for scholars of German studies, _Ethics of Citizenship_ also raises questions that will attract moral philosophers, constitutional scholars, and those interested in the continuing, global problems associated with migration. (shrink)

Reinterpreting Galileo on the basis of his Latin manuscripts / William A. Wallace -- Aristotle, Galileo, and "mixed sciences" / James G. Lennox -- Galileo and the Oxford Calculatores : analytical languages and the mean-speed theorem for accelerated motion / Edith Dudley Sylla -- Galileo's astronomy / Owen Gingerich -- Galileo and scientific instrumentation / Silvio A. Bedini -- Reexamining Galileo's Dialogue / Stillman Drake -- The rhetoric of proof in Galileo's writings on the Copernical system / Jean Dietz (...) Moss -- Campanella's defense of Galileo / Bernardino M. Bonansea -- The methodological background to Galileo's trial / Maurice A. Finocchiaro. (shrink)

Predicates are supposed to slice reality neatly in two halves, one for which the predicate holds, the other for which it fails. Yet far from being razors, predicates tend to be dull knives that mangle reality. If reality is a tomato and predicates are knives, then when these knives divide the tomato, plenty of mush remains unaccounted for. Of course some knives are sharper than others, just as some predicates are less vague than others. “x is water” is certainly sharper (...) than “x is beautiful.” But perfect sharpness, perfect boundaries, and perfect separation seem only to obtain in mathematics. The vagueness inherent in many predicates became particularly evident in the twentieth century. Quantum mechanics, the revival of certain ancient paradoxes, and the philosophy of science all contributed to a growing awareness that vagueness was ineliminable from many predicates. Quantum mechanical superposition seems to allow mutually exclusive simultaneous states. In searching for plausible interpretations of quantum mechanics, some researchers attempted to do away with classical bivalent logic. In its place they substituted multivalent quantum logics. Any logic with more than two values forces its predicates to slice reality into more than two parts. Ancient paradoxes involving heaps and baldness also pointed up the 1 Random Predicate Logic 2.. (shrink)

A principal theme of our article is that emotions, including what are called basic emotions, cannot be exhaustively categorized as “innate” or “acquired.” Instead, we argue that basic emotions are more realistically viewed as emergent phenomena, the result of complex interrelations of environmental and organismic factors at all levels of organization. While the commentators apparently accepted the proposed developmental paradigm, they took exception to aspects of our treatment of basic emotions and made a number of helpful comments, to which we (...) respond below. (shrink)

In this book, first published in 2004, William Dembski, Michael Ruse, and other prominent philosophers provide a comprehensive balanced overview of the debate concerning biological origins - a controversial dialectic since Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. Invariably, the source of controversy has been 'design'. Is the appearance of design in organisms the result of purely natural forces acting without prevision or teleology? Or, does the appearance of design signify genuine prevision and teleology, and, if so, is (...) that design empirically detectable and thus open to scientific inquiry? Four main positions have emerged in response to these questions: Darwinism, self-organisation, theistic evolution, and intelligent design. The contributors to this volume define their respective positions in an accessible style, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions. Two introductory essays furnish a historical overview of the debate. (shrink)

It is commonly supposed that citizens of a reasonably just state have a prima facie duty to obey its laws. In recent years, however, a number of influential political philosophers have concluded that there is no such duty. But how can the state be a legitimate authority if there is no general duty to obey its laws? This article is an attempt to explain how we can make sense of the idea of legitimate political authority without positing the existence of (...) a general duty to obey the law. The explanation makes use of a distinction between laws of general application, on one hand, and on the other the particularized, directed efforts by state officials to channel and resolve disputes (including those arising from violations of the law). A state's legitimate authority entails a general duty to cooperate in the latter type of effort, rather than upon a dubious general duty to obey the law. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to report some little-known aspects of sixteenth-century physics as these relate to the development of mechanics in the seventeenth century. The research herein reported grew out of a study on the mechanics of Domingo de Soto, a sixteenth-century Spanish scholastic,1 which has been concerned, in part, with examining critically Pierre Duhem's thesis that the English “Calculatores” of the fourteenth century were a primary source for Galileo's science.2 The conclusion to which this has come, thus (...) far, is that Duhem had important insights into the late medieval preparation for the modern science of mechanics, but that he left out many of the steps. And the steps are important, whether one holds for a continuity theory or a discontinuity theory vis-à-vis the connection between late medieval and early modern science. (shrink)