Modern professionals wield considerable power by virtue of their knowledge. However, they also feel beleaguered by the constraints they face and the public disapproval they often experience. These pressures combine to diminish the professional's sense of public responsibility and convert him or her in self-perception to a careerist.

Various laws and theories in the natural and social sciences are presented with a view to discerning the syntactic and semantic characteristics of many idealizations in science. Three different kinds of idealizations are discussed: ideal conditions, ideal cases, and idealized theories. An ideal condition is a formula in which state variables occur, whose existential closure is false, and for which there is another formula that can be constructed out of the original formula such that the existential closure of the new (...) formula is true. An ideal case is a statement which is logically equivalent to a universal conditional which has an ideal condition as its antecedent. And an idealized theory is a set of false universal conditional statements. Alternative syntactic and semantic analyses are viewed and criticized. (shrink)

The question concerning the meaning of life is important, but it immediately confronts the present authors with insurmountable obstacles from a philosophical standpoint, as it would require us to define not only what we hold to be life, but what we hold to be meaning in addition, requiring us to do both in a properly researched context. We unconditionally surrender to that challenge. Instead, we offer a vernacular, armchair approach to life’s origin and meaning, with some layman’s thoughts on the (...) meaning of origins as viewed from the biologist’s standpoint. One can observe that biologists generally approach the concept of biological meaning in the context of evolution. This is the basis for the broad resonance behind Dobzhansky’s appraisal that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Biologists try to understand living things in the historical context of how they arose, without giving much thought to the definition of what life or living things are, which for a biologist is usually not an interesting question in the practical context of daily dealings with organisms. Do humans generally understand life’s meaning in the context of history? If we consider the problem of life’s origin, the question of what constitutes a living thing becomes somewhat more acute for the biologist, though not more answerable, because it is inescapable that there was a time when there were no organisms on Earth, followed by a time when there were, the latter time having persisted in continuity to the present. This raises the question of where, in that transition, chemicals on Earth became alive, requiring, in turn, a set of premises for how life arose in order to conceptualize the problem in relation to organisms we know today, including ourselves, which brings us to the point of this paper: In the same way that cultural narratives for origins always start with a setting, scientific narratives for origins also always start with a setting, a place on Earth or elsewhere where we can imagine what happened for the sake of structuring both the problem and the narrative for its solution. This raises the question of whether scientific origins settings convey meaning to humans in that they suggest to us from what kind of place and what kinds of chemicals we are descended, that is, to which inanimate things we are most closely related. (shrink)

Two authors with decades of experience promoting human rights argue that, as the world changes around us, rights hardly imaginable today will come into being. A rights revolution is under way. Today the range of nonhuman entities thought to deserve rights is exploding-not just animals but ecosystems and even robots. Changes in norms and circumstances require the expansion of rights: What new rights, for example, are needed if we understand gender to be nonbinary? Does living in a corrupt state violate (...) our rights? And emerging technologies demand that we think about old rights in new ways: When biotechnology is used to change genetic code, whose rights might be violated? What rights, if any, protect our privacy from the intrusions of sophisticated surveillance techniques? Drawing on their vast experience as human rights advocates, William Schulz and Sushma Raman challenge us to think hard about how rights evolve with changing circumstances, and what rights will look like ten, twenty, or fifty years from now. Against those who hold that rights are static and immutable, Schulz and Raman argue that rights must adapt to new realities or risk being consigned to irrelevance. To preserve and promote the good society-one that protects its members' dignity and fosters an environment in which people will want to live-we must at times rethink the meanings of familiar rights and consider the introduction of entirely new rights. Now is one of those times. The Coming Good Society details the many frontiers of rights today and the debates surrounding them. Schulz and Raman equip us with the tools to engage the present and future of rights so that we understand their importance and know where we stand. (shrink)

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a form of life support for cardiac and/or pulmonary failure with unique ethical challenges compared to other forms of life support. Ethical challenges with ECMO exist when conventional standards of care apply, and are exacerbated during periods of absolute ECMO scarcity when “crisis standards of care” are instituted. When conventional standards of care apply, we propose that it is ethically permissible to withhold placing patients on ECMO for reasons of technical futility or when patients have (...) terminal, short-term prognoses that are untreatable by ECMO. Under crisis standards of care, it is ethically permissible to broaden exclusionary criteria to also withhold ECMO from patients who have a low likelihood of recovery, to maximize the overall number of lives saved. Unilateral withdrawal of ECMO against a patient’s preferences is unethical under conventional standards of care, but is ethical under crisis standards of care to increase access to ECMO to others in society. ECMO should only be rationed when true scarcity exists, and allocation protocols should be transparent to the public. When rationing must occur under crisis standards of care, it is imperative that oversight bodies assess for inequities in the allocation of ECMO and make frequent changes to improve any inequities. (shrink)

For much of 2021, allocating the scarce supply of Covid‐19 vaccines was the world's most pressing bioethical challenge, and similar challenges may recur for novel therapies and future vaccines. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) identified three fundamental ethical principles to guide the process: maximize benefits, promote justice, and mitigate health inequities. We argue that critical components of the recommended protocol were internally inconsistent with these principles. Specifically, the ACIP (...) violated its principles by recommending overly broad health care worker priority in phase 1a, using being at least seventy‐five years of age as the only criterion to identify individuals at high risk of death from Covid‐19 during phase 1b, failing to recommend place‐based vaccine distribution, and implicitly endorsing first‐come, first‐served allocation. More rigorous empirical work and the development of a complete ethical framework that recognizes trade‐offs between principles may have prevented these mistakes and saved lives. (shrink)

William F. May, a leading expert on medical ethics, here explores two of today's most crucial tests of the traditional covenant between physicians and patients--active euthanasia and health care reform.

A recent study(1) of sequence data from many different proteins has suggested that contemporary prokaryotes and eukaryotes may have shared a common ancestor as recently as 2 billion years ago (the molecular clock). Strong evidence from the geological record, however, indicates that oxygen‐producing microorganisms, perhaps similar to modern cyanobacteria, existed 3.5 billion years ago. The fossil evidence, therefore, suggests that any common ancestor of prokaryotes and eukaryotes must have existed at least 1.5 billion years earlier than suggested by the molecular (...) clock evidence. The discrepancy between molecular and geological evidence for the age of modern cells is considered here, as are aspects of gene descent in the tree of life that might help to account for it. (shrink)

This book is intended to help transform epistemology - the traditional study of knowledge - into a rigorous discipline by removing conceptual roadblocks and developing formal tools required for a fully naturalized epistemology. The evolutionary approach which Harms favours begins with the common observation that if our senses and reasoning were not reliable, then natural selection would have eliminated them long ago. The challenge for some time has been how to transform these informal musings about evolutionary epistemology into a rigorous (...) theoretical discipline capable of complementing current scientific studies of the evolution of cognition with a philosophically defensible account of meaning and justification. (shrink)

The ability to predict the actions of other agents is vital for joint action tasks. Recent theory suggests that action prediction relies on an emulator system that permits observers to use information about their own motor dynamics to predict the actions of other agents. If this is the case, then predictions for self-generated actions should be more accurate than predictions for other-generated actions. We tested this hypothesis by employing a self/other synchronization paradigm where prediction accuracy for recording of self-generated movements (...) was compared with prediction accuracy for other-generated movements. As expected, predictions were more accurate when the observer’s movement dynamics matched the movement dynamics of the recording. This is consistent with that idea that the observer’s movement dynamics influence the predictions they generate. (shrink)

The cognitive science of science studies the cognitive processes involved in carrying out science: How do scientists reason? How do scientists develop new theories? How do scientists deal with data that are inconsistent with their theories? How do scientists choose between competing theories? Research on these issues has been carried out by investigators in a number of cognitive science disciplines, particularly psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. More detailed accounts of work in this area can be found in two recent conference (...) volumes. (shrink)

The germ theory of disease famously brought a new notion of specificity into concepts of disease. At the same time, the work of Pasteur, Koch and their colleagues was developed during the same decades as Charles Darwin's theories of evolutionary biology challenged traditional notions of the essentialism of biological species. This essay examines some of the ways in which Darwin's work was invoked by British doctors seeking to explain clinical or epidemiological anomalies, in which infectious diseases did not appear to (...) breed true. (shrink)

A growing body of literature places blame for accounting frauds on the failure of educators to implement ethics training in accounting curriculums in higher educational institutions. Although, the professional accountancy bodies in the UK espouse high ethical standards, others suggest that these bodies are failing to cover ethics in any meaningful way. This study surveys faculty about what is being taught and how much time is dedicated to ethics training. This is the first study to examine whether content suggested by (...) the Ethics Education Framework has been implemented in curriculums in the UK. In addition, we look to determine if there is a notable difference between what is covered in both pre-1992 and post-1992 UK universities. Although we find that post-1992 institutions have implemented the EEF suggestions more than pre-1992 UK universities, current ethics training is insufficient and has not changed much over the last two decades. (shrink)

Pigs have long held great symbolic import for the people of Vanuatu, a sprawling archipelago 1,000 miles northeast of Australia. In most of the indigenous, small-scale communities which comprised traditional Vanuatu society, pig ownership and pig killing conveyed status, wealth, and informal power. Such rituals were the sole measure of social standing and political rank. In this study, I show how the cultural valuation of an animal, in this case the pig, can evolve as a society undergoes socio-economic development, and (...) also how it can be used to foster nationalistic, partisan. and other political ends. I show how competing nationalist leaders used pig symbolism in their struggle to create a unified national identit_v,for-varying island groups, and how even today, local leaders derive their legitimacy through the manipulation of traditional animal rites. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a psychological account of the nature and development of explanation. We propose that an explanation is an account that provides a conceptual framework for a phenomenon that leads to a feeling of understanding in the reader/hearer. The explanatory conceptual framework goes beyond the original phenomenon, integrates diverse aspects of the world, and shows how the original phenomenon follows from the framework. We propose that explanations in everyday life are judged on the criteria of empirical accuracy, (...) scope, consistency, simplicity, and plausibility. We conclude that explanations in science are evaluated by the same criteria, plus those of precision, formalisms, and fruitfulness. We discuss several types of explanation that are used in everyday life – causal/mechanical, functional, and intentional. We present evidence to show that young children produce explanations that have the same essential form as those used by adults. We also provide evidence that children use the same evaluation criteria as adults, but may not apply those additional criteria for the evaluation of explanations that are used by scientists. (shrink)

William F. Doverspike, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who holds a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology (ABPP) and he is also board certified in Neuropsychology (ABPN). He is an Associate Faculty member of the Georgia School of Professional Psychology, where he teaches graduate courses in professional ethics. As an independent practitioner, he maintains privileges at several local hospitals. He is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Georgia Psychological Association. Dr. Doverspike is Editor of the Georgia Psychologist magazine and (...) has authored over 50 articles and chapters. He conducts seminars on ethics, risk management, and diagnostic consultation. (shrink)

This paper was first presented as a plenary lecture to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in August, 1985. The author, who is the Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University, discusses the intellectual, moral, and organizational marks of the professional that led reformers at the beginning of the twentieth century to locate professional training in the university. That discussion is followed by consideration of the moral consequences of university education for professionals, and (...) how journalists and all other professionals are, at base, teachers. The third part of the paper reflects upon the peculiarities of journalism as aprofession, and concludes with considerations of the special mission of journalism. (shrink)

In one of its versions, the principle of sufficient reason maintains that every true proposition has a sufficient reason for its truth. Recently, a number of philosophers have argued against the principle on the ground that there are propositions such as the conjunction of all truths that are ‘too big’ to have a sufficient reason. The task of this article is to show that such maximal propositions pose no threat to the principle. According to what is perhaps the most ‘popular’ (...) version of the principle to sufficient reason (PSR), every true proposition has a sufficient reason why it is true. Peter van Inwagen formulates the principle as follows: ‘for every truth, for everything that is so, there is a sufficient reason for its being true or being so.’ Like many contemporary philosophers, however, he rejects the principle. My purpose here is to show that the main philosophical argument against PSR rests on a mistaken assumption. There is also a ‘scientific’ argument against PSR that turns on considerations of quantum indeterminacy; but that argument lies beyond the scope of this discussion. (shrink)

Dreyfus and Rubin's commentary on Division II of Being and Time raises three closely related puzzles about the possibility of authenticity: how could Dasein ever choose to become authentic, how could authentic Dasein ever choose to take up any particular possibility, and how could anything matter to authentic Dasein? They argue that Heidegger has a convincing answer to the first two puzzles, but they find his answer to the third "indirect and not totally convincing". I argue that they should find (...) Heidegger's answer to the third puzzle far worse than "not totally convincing", given their interpretation of his account of anxiety, and that the answers they claim he has in response to the first two puzzles are not supported by the text. I then show that the puzzles arise from distortions in Dreyfus and Rubin's interpretation of Heidegger's account of anxiety. The puzzles dissolve once the distortions are identified. (shrink)

Felice argues that individual human rights, which have proven to be of enormous value in the twentieth century, must be extended to communities ranging from the family unit to the entire human community.

La enseñanza moral católica afirma que es necesario el consentimiento de los pacientes para autorizar las intervenciones sanitariasque les afectan, pero no especifica las condiciones para obtener dicho consentimiento o evaluar la capacidad de decisión. Aquí se presentan los artículos recogidos en este número que los autores han desarrollado a partir de las presentaciones que hicieron durante un coloquio reciente de la Asociación Internacional de Bioética Católica (IACB) celebrado en Quebec, Canadá. Contribuyen a promover el pensamiento ético sobre la capacidad (...) de toma dedecisiones y el consentimiento. De diversas formas, piden que se respete la dignidad de todos los pacientes y que se promueva su participación tanto como sea posible en la toma de decisiones sobre su salud. Consideran que la toma de decisiones es relacional y abarca una variedad de capacidades. Examinan el papel de los miembros de la familia y de otros partidarios de la toma de decisiones en la promoción de las capacidades de los pacientes, cuya condición de salud mental o discapacidad les impide a menudo cumplir con los estándares clínicos y legales típicos para la capacidad de toma de decisiones. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory offers the possibility of building an epistemology that requires neither a theory of truth nor a definition of knowledge, thus bypassing some of the more notable difficulties with standard approaches to epistemology. Following a critique of one of the most popular approaches to thinking about cultural evolution I argue for a frequentist approach to evolutionary epistemology, and that cultural transmission should be understood as coordinated phenotypic variability within groups of closely related organisms. I construct a formal system which (...) allows the analysis of the evolution of networks of multiple interacting populations. Of particular epistemological interest is the relationship between genetic evolution and the evolution of cultural entities. The information-theoretic notion of "mutual information" is employed to quantify the transfer of information from the environment as it determines genetic fitnesses into the distribution of acquired traits Two simple models are constructed and analyzed. A two-level model of the navigation of a colony of bacteria demonstrates how selection on inherited traits affects the acquisition of information on the level of transient behavioral traits. A three-level model of bumblebee foraging shows how information about the environment is caught up in distributions of acquired foraging preferences--a bee-analog of human cognitive states. The Appendix contains an analytic proof of information gain under selection. (shrink)