Two principal questions are addressed: In De Finibus 3.54 what position does Cicero imagine the talus to fall and lie? How does this talus simile shed light on the problematic relationship between the Stoics’ doctrine of ‘preferred indifferents’ and their definition of the Good as virtue?

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Current COVID-19 pandemic and previous SARS/MERS outbreaks have caused a series of major crises to global public health. We must integrate the large and exponentially growing amount of heterogeneous coronavirus data to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechanisms, in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs. Ontologies have emerged to play an important role in standard knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. We have initiated the development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). (...) As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is an open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. In this article, the general architecture and the design patterns of the CIDO are introduced, CIDO representation of coronaviruses, phenotypes, anti-coronavirus drugs and medical devices (e.g. ventilators) are illustrated, and an application of CIDO implemented to identify repurposable drug candidates for effective and safe COVID-19 treatment is presented. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, William Lycan’s work on the semantics of conditionals has been distinguished by his careful attention to the connection between syntax and semantics, and more generally by his impeccable methodology. Lycan takes compositionality seriously, so he requires that the meaning of compound expressions like ‘even if’ be a combination of the constituent expressions, here ‘even’ and ‘if’. After reading his work, it’s hard to take seriously work that does not share this methodology.

This collection arose out of a conference on intuitions at the University of Notre Dame in April 1996. The papers in it mainly address two related questions: (a) How much evidential weight should be assigned to intuitions? and (b) Are concepts governed by necessary and sufficient conditions, or are they governed by ‘family resemblance’ conditions, as Wittgenstein suggested? The book includes four papers by psychologists relating and analyzing some empirical findings concerning intuitions and eleven papers by philosophers endorsing various answers (...) to these questions. (shrink)

In recent analytic literature on the Trinity we have seen a variety of "social" models of the Trinity. By contrast there are few "non-­‐social" models. One prominent "non-­‐social" view is Brian Leftow's "Latin Trinity." I argue that the name of Leftow's model is not sufficiently descriptive in light of diverse models within Latin speaking theology. Next, I develop a new "non-­‐social" model that is inspired by Richard of St. Victor's description of a person in conjunction with my appropriating insights (...) about indexicals from David Kaplan and John Perry. I point out that the copula in tokens of statements like, "I am the Father," is an ambiguous term and when used by a certain divine person a different proposition is affirmed. Central to this model is the claim that the copula bears the "is of identity" and the "is of numerical sameness without identity." Further, I show that Leftow's model employs two concepts of "person," a Lockean one and a Boethian one, and mine employs Richard of St. Victor's. I describe Leftow's model as a "hard non-­‐social" model and mine as a "soft non-­‐social" model that is nearer to some social models. I conclude that Leftow's model is not the lone candidate among "non-­‐social" models and that the variety of "non-­‐social" models has yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

*This work is no longer under development* Two major themes in the literature on indicative conditionals are that the content of indicative conditionals typically depends on what is known;1 that conditionals are intimately related to conditional probabilities.2 In possible world semantics for counterfactual conditionals, a standard assumption is that conditionals whose antecedents are metaphysically impossible are vacuously true.3 This aspect has recently been brought to the fore, and defended by Tim Williamson, who uses it in to characterize alethic necessity by (...) exploiting such equivalences as: A⇔¬A A. One might wish to postulate an analogous connection for indicative conditionals, with indicatives whose antecedents are epistemically impossible being vacuously true: and indeed, the modal account of indicative conditionals of Brian Weatherson has exactly this feature.4 This allows one to characterize an epistemic modal by the equivalence A⇔¬A→A. For simplicity, in what follows we write A as KA and think of it as expressing that subject S knows that A.5 The connection to probability has received much attention. Stalnaker suggested, as a way of articulating the ‘Ramsey Test’, the following very general schema for indicative conditionals relative to some probability function P: P = P 1For example, Nolan ; Weatherson ; Gillies. 2For example Stalnaker ; McGee ; Adams. 3Lewis. See Nolan for criticism. 4‘epistemically possible’ here means incompatible with what is known. 5This idea was suggested to me in conversation by John Hawthorne. I do not know of it being explored in print. The plausibility of this characterization will depend on the exact sense of ‘epistemically possible’ in play—if it is compatibility with what a single subject knows, then can be read ‘the relevant subject knows that p’. If it is more delicately formulated, we might be able to read as the epistemic modal ‘must’. (shrink)

This 9,000+ word entry briefly assesses five models of the Trinity, those espoused by (i) Richard Swinburne, (ii) William Lane Craig, (iii) Brian Leftow, (iv) Jeff Brower and Michael Rea, and (v) Peter van Inwagen.

This article gives two arguments for believing that our society is unknowingly guilty of serious, large-scale wrongdoing. First is an inductive argument: most other societies, in history and in the world today, have been unknowingly guilty of serious wrongdoing, so ours probably is too. Second is a disjunctive argument: there are a large number of distinct ways in which our practices could turn out to be horribly wrong, so even if no particular hypothesized moral mistake strikes us as very likely, (...) the disjunction of all such mistakes should receive significant credence. The article then discusses what our society should do in light of the likelihood that we are doing something seriously wrong: we should regard intellectual progress, of the sort that will allow us to find and correct our moral mistakes as soon as possible, as an urgent moral priority rather than as a mere luxury; and we should also consider it important to save resources and cultivate flexibility, so that when the time comes to change our policies we will be able to do so quickly and smoothly. (shrink)

We present Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge, which works differently from other putative counterexamples and avoids objections to which they are vulnerable. We then argue that four ways of analysing knowledge in terms of safety, including Duncan Pritchard’s, cannot withstand Backward Clock either.

In this paper, I explore a noted empirical link between regret and insomnia. Drawing on Brian O’Shaughnessy analysis of wakeful consciousness, I sketch three candidate ways of excavating a conceptual connection. Regret involves a certain kind of temporal orientation that, for O’Shaughnessy, only the state of wakefulness makes possible. Regret involves mental activity – it is productive of and precipitates patterns of counterfactual thought and imagining. Further, picking up a cue from Bernard Williams’ celebrated conception of agent-regret in (...) ‘Moral Luck’, sometimes the mental activity that occurs in regret is affective and expressive – as I argue, it is expressive of the wish that things were otherwise were satisfied now. Finally, I take up the puzzle as to why occurrent regret is not merely incompatible with sleep – insofar as it necessitates wakefulness - but may preclude falling asleep and I offer a tentative solution, focusing on the self-conscious character of occurrent regret. (shrink)

This study’s objective was to understand Colombian adolescents’ experiences and preferences regarding access to sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS), either alone or accompanied. A mixed-method approach was used, involving a survey of 812 participants aged eleven to twenty-four years old and forty-five semi-structured interviews with participants aged fourteen to twenty-three. Previous research shows that adolescents prefer privacy when accessing SRHS and often do not want their parents involved. Such findings align with the longstanding tendency to frame the ethical principle (...) of autonomy as based on independence in decision-making. However, the present study shows that such a conceptualization and application of autonomy does not adequately explain Colombian adolescent participants’ preferences regarding access to SRHS. Participants shared a variety of preferences to access SRHS, with the majority of participants attaching great importance to having their parents involved, to varying degrees. What emerges is a more complex and non-homogenous conceptualization of autonomy that is not inherently grounded in independence from parental involvement in access to care. We thus argue that when developing policies involving adolescents, policymakers and health professionals should adopt a nuanced “relational autonomy” approach to better respect the myriad of preferences that Colombian (and other) adolescents may have regarding their access to SRHS. (shrink)

The rapidly increasing wealth of genomic data has driven the development of tools to assist in the task of representing and processing information about genes, their products and their functions. One of the most important of these tools is the Gene Ontology (GO), which is being developed in tandem with work on a variety of bioinformatics databases. An examination of the structure of GO, however, reveals a number of problems, which we believe can be resolved by taking account of certain (...) organizing principles drawn from philosophical ontology. We shall explore the results of applying such principles to GO with a view to improving GO’s consistency and coherence and thus its future applicability in the automated processing of biological data. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Van Rensselaer Potter (1911-2001), le biologiste à l’origine du terme « bioéthique » dans les écrits nord-américains, considère que « real bioethics falls in the context of the ideals of […] Aldo Leopold », un forestier, philosophe et poète ayant marqué le XXe siècle. Associer Leopold à Potter a pour effet de placer la bioéthique dans la famille des éthiques de l’environnement, ce qui la différencie du sens conventionnel retenu en médecine et en recherche depuis le Rapport Belmont (1979), une (...) déclaration ayant propulsé l’institutionnalisation de la bioéthique en Amérique du Nord. Cependant, diviser la bioéthique entre le médical et l’environnemental est réducteur. Potter propose au contraire une bioéthique globale s’intéressant aux enjeux situés à leur interface, dont ceux concernant la terre, la vie sauvage, la surpopulation, la consommation, etc. Cet article vise à amorcer un nouveau chantier d’analyse de la pensée de Potter en s’appuyant sur l’héritage de Leopold en biologie. Une synthèse de cette vision potterienne est proposée de manière à considérer son œuvre comme un tout cohérent s’intégrant aux grands débats qui transcendent les XXe et XXIe siècles. Sa vision apparaît comme une sagesse collective et prospective sous la forme d’une science de la survie et d’un code de bioéthique. Dépassant l’éthique de l’environnement, son association avec Leopold offre un modèle de la complexité s’imposant comme cas indissociable du contexte qui l’englobe, en améliorant nos façons d’intervenir en pratique dans un monde en constante transformation, à titre de gouvernance adaptative et de sagesse de la responsabilité. (shrink)

We offer an account of the generic use of the term “porn”, as seen in recent usages such as “food porn” and “real estate porn”. We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content. We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic (...) porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one’s empirical and moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized. (shrink)

This chapter defends the account of metaphysical indeterminacy of Barnes and Williams against Eklund's objections.

Understanding the relationship between wilderness outings and the resulting experience has been a central theme in resource-based, outdoor recreation research for nearly 50 years. The authors provide a review and synthesis of literature that examines how people, over time, build relationships with wilderness places and express their identities as consequences of multiple, ongoing wilderness engagements (i.e., continued participation). The paper reviews studies of everyday places and those specifically protected for wilderness and backcountry qualities. Beginning with early origins and working through (...) contemporary research the authors synthesize what diverse social scientists have learned about the long-term and continual nature of wilderness participation and its impact on the formation of identity. The thrust of the paper points researchers, planners, and managers in non-traditional directions and reframes goals and objectives for visitor planning and management in wilderness and other protected areas. (shrink)

In "The Compatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (Dec. 2003) , Brian Holtz offers two objections to my argument in "The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism" (in Naturalism: A Critical Appraisal , edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Routledge, 2000). His responses are: (1) my argument can be deflected by adopting a pragmatic or empiricist "definition" of "truth", and (2) the extra-spatiotemporal cause of the simplicity of the laws need not be God, or any other (...) personal being. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider what the growing evidence in parapsychology can tell us about the nature of consciousness. Parapsychology remains controversial because it implies deviations from the understanding that many scientists and philosophers hold about the nature of reality. However, given the difficulties in explaining consciousness, a growing number of philosophers have called for new, possibly radical explanations, which include versions of dualism or panpsychism. In this spirit, I briefly review the evidence on psi to see what explanation of (...) consciousness might best be supported. After a brief survey of the evidence, I conclude that the best explanation would probably be neutral monism. I then explore a framework for neutral monism, using well-known features of quantum mechanics, to develop a ground or bridge between consciousness and matter. This framework, which I believe helps explain the psi evidence, suggests that a non-local proto-conscious field of potential or seed stuff underlies both matter and consciousness. (shrink)

For Van Rensselaer Potter (1911–2001), Global Bio-Ethics is about building on the legacy of Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), one of the most notable forest managers of the twentieth century who brought to light the importance of pragmatism in the sciences and showed us a new way to proceed with environmental ethics. Following Richard Huxtable and Jonathan Ives's methodological 'Framework for Empirical Bioethics Research Projects' called 'Mapping, framing, shaping,' published in BMC Medicine Ethics (2019)), we propose operationalizing a framework for Global Bio-Ethics (...) by hybridizing approaches in empirical bioethics and ecosystem management. We explain this framework using the metaphor of forest management. This mixed approach is articulated through three phases: (1) mapping the “landscape” to build a working theory, (2) framing the “scene” to prepare the fieldwork, and (3) shaping bioethics “tools” to stimulate cooperation. Applying this methodology, an adaptive management cycle is outlined to help ensure that political processes are sustainable and socially acceptable, still based on strategic and ethical thinking, but also capable of reshaping failing policies. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that moral deference is prima facie obligatory in cases in which the testifier is a member of a marginalized social group that the receiver is not and testifies about their marginalized experience. We distinguish between two types of deference: epistemic deference, which refers to believing p in virtue of trusting the testifier, and actional deference, which involves acting appropriately in response to the testimony given. The prima facie duty we propose applies to both epistemic and (...) actional deference, though defeaters may quash either or both obligations. Even if one fails to epistemically defer to the marginalized testifier, we argue that they may still be ethically obligated to act in accordance with their testimony. (shrink)

"Nothing Better Than Death" is a comprehensive analysis of the near-death experiences profiled on my website at www.near-death.com. This book provides complete NDE testimonials, summaries of various NDEs, NDE research conclusions, a question and answer section, an analysis of NDEs and Christian doctrines, famous quotations about life and death, a NDE bibliography, book notes, a list of NDE resources on the Internet, and a list of NDE support groups associated with IANDS.org - the International Association for Near-Death Studies. -/- The (...) unusual title of this book, "Nothing Better Than Death," was inspired by NDE experiencer Dr. Dianne Morrissey who once said, "If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there's not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing." -/- Having read every NDE book I could get my hands on, I didn't want to create just another NDE book. My motivation was to give readers a large variety of information about NDEs challenging both the seasoned NDE enthusiast as well as the novice. This book gives readers the means to understand the NDE phenomenon from the perspective of a large number of some of the most profound NDEs ever documented. My hope is that you will enjoy this book, my labor of love, and that you will be truly blessed by the heavenly insights within it. (shrink)

Anarchism is by far the least broadly understood ideology and the least studied academically. Though highly influential, both historically and in terms of recent social movements, anarchism is regularly dismissed. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach is a welcome addition to this growing field, which is widely debated but poorly understood. Occupying a distinctive position in the study of anarchist ideology, this volume, authored by a handpicked group of established and rising scholars, investigates how anarchists often seek to sharpen their message and (...) struggle to determine what ideas and actions are central to their identity. Moving beyond defining anarchism as simply an ideology or political theory, this book examines the meanings of its key concepts, which have been divided into three categories: Core, Adjacent, and Peripheral concepts. Each chapter focuses on one important concept, shows how anarchists have understood the concept, and highlights its relationships to other concepts. Although anarchism is often thought of as a political topic, the interdisciplinary nature of Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach makes it of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences, liberal arts, and the humanities. (shrink)

We explain and explore class-theoretic potentialism—the view that one can always individuate more classes over a set-theoretic universe. We examine some motivations for class-theoretic potentialism, before proving some results concerning the relevant potentialist systems (in particular exhibiting failures of the $\mathsf {.2}$ and $\mathsf {.3}$ axioms). We then discuss the significance of these results for the different kinds of class-theoretic potentialists.

Surveillance programs supporting the management of One Health issues such as antibiotic resistance are complex systems in themselves. Designing ethical surveillance systems is thus a complex task (retroactive and iterative), yet one that is also complicated to implement and evaluate (e.g., sharing, collaboration, and governance). The governance of health surveillance requires attention to ethical concerns about data and knowledge (e.g., performance, trust, accountability, and transparency) and empowerment ethics, also referred to as a form of responsible self-governance. Ethics in reflexive governance (...) operates as a systematic critical-thinking procedure that aims to define its value: What are the “right” criteria to justify how to govern “good” actions for a “better” future? The objective is to lay the foundations for a methodological framework in empirical bioethics, the rudiments of which have been applied to a case study to building reflexive governance in One Health. This ongoing critical thinking process involves “mapping, framing, and shaping” the dynamics of interests and perspectives that could jeopardize a “better” future. This paper proposes to hybridize methods to combine insights from collective deliberation and expert evaluation through a reflexive governance functioning as a community-based action-ethics methodology. The intention is to empower individuals and associations in a dialogue with society, which operation is carried out using a case study approach on data sharing systems. We based our reasoning on a feasibility study conducted in Québec, Canada (2018–2021), envisioning an antibiotic use surveillance program in animal health for 2023. Using the adaptive cycle and governance techniques and perspectives, we synthesize an alternative governance model rooted in the value of empowerment. The framework, depicted as a new “research and design (R&D)” practice, is linking operation and innovation by bridging the gap between Reflexive, Evaluative, and Deliberative reasonings and by intellectualizing the management of democratizing critical thinking locally (collective ethics) by recognizing its context (social ethics). Drawing on the literature in One Health and sustainable development studies, this article describes how a communitarian and pragmatic approach can broaden the vision of feasibility studies to ease collaboration through public-private-academic partnerships. The result is a process that “reassembles” the One Health paradigm under the perspective of global bioethics to create bridges between the person and the ecosystem through pragmatic ethics. (shrink)

The concept of hierarchical organization is commonplace in science. Subatomic particles compose atoms, which compose molecules; cells compose tissues, which compose organs, which compose organisms; etc. Hierarchical organization is particularly prominent in ecology, a field of research explicitly arranged around levels of ecological organization. The concept of levels of organization is also central to a variety of debates in philosophy of science. Yet many difficulties plague the concept of discrete hierarchical levels. In this paper, we show how these difficulties undermine (...) various implications ascribed to hierarchical organization, and we suggest the concept of scale as a promising alternative to levels. Investigating causal processes at different scales offers a way to retain a notion of quasi-levels that avoids the difficulties inherent in the classic concept of hierarchical levels of organization. Throughout, our focus is on ecology, but the results generalize to other invocations of hierarchy in science and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires (...) rejecting other aspects of the standard logic of counterfactuals, or else our intuitive picture of semifactuals. (shrink)

ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understoodfirstas related to the quality of the underlying scienceand thenin terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the (...) minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity. (shrink)

Promotion of prescription drugs may appear to be severely limited in some jurisdictions due to restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising. However, in most jurisdictions, strategies exist to raise consumer awareness about prescription drugs, notably through the deployment of direct-to-consumer information campaigns that encourage patients to seek help for particular medical conditions. In Canada, DTCI is presented by industry and regulated by Health Canada as being purely informational activities, but their design and integration in broader promotional campaigns raise very similar ethical concerns (...) as those associated with DTCA. Specifically, DTCI can be an effective means of familiarizing the public with the scope and benefits of a particular prescription drug and so, like DTCA, can promote increased patient-consumer demand and thus a problematic rise in the prescribing and use of medications that may be neither the most appropriate nor the most cost-effective. Yet, with DTCI the industry is playing within the existing rules and regulations set by health regulators. To respond appropriately to this regulatory incoherence, we argue that DTCI should be regulated as a type of direct-to-consumer indirect advertising. Even if the case and specific regulations presented here are Canadian, the implications extend to every country that has a partial or total prohibition on DTCA. (shrink)

The similarities between the philosophical debates surrounding assessment sensitivity and moral luck run so deep that one can easily adapt almost any argument from one debate, change some terms, adapt the examples, and end up with an argument relevant to the other. This article takes Brian Rosebury's strategy for resisting moral luck in “Moral Responsibility and ‘Moral Luck' ” (1995) and turns it into a strategy for resisting assessment sensitivity. The article shows that one of Bernard Williams's examples (...) motivating moral luck is very similar to one of the examples John MacFarlane uses to motivate the assessment sensitivity of epistemic modals, and in particular the assessment sensitivity of the auxiliary verb “might.” This means that, if Rosebury is right and we do not actually need moral luck to explain Williams's example, we may not need assessment sensitivity to account for the semantic behaviour of the epistemic modal verb “might” either. (shrink)

Nanotechnology research is beginning to see widespread coverage in the media and popular science literatures, but discussions of hopes and fears about nanotechnology have already become polarised into utopian and dystopian visions. More moderate discussions focus on the near-term applications of nanotechnologies, and on potential benefits and harms. However, in exploring the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology, important lessons should be learned from experiences in other fields. In particular, studies of the ethical, legal, and social issues of genetics research (...) have successfully mapped out many of the issues that arise when new technologies are deployed. It is our contention that, for the most part, the ethical and social issues arising in nanomedicine are not altogether new, and thus do not require novel ethical principles or frameworks, nor a massive investment in ‘NELSI’ research. Instead, what is needed is support for the development of a culture of ethics amongst scientists and clinicians, basic scientific and medical knowledge for bioethicists, and a social competency for citizens to participate actively in debates about the implications of new technologies in general. (shrink)

Suppose that you're certain that a certain sentence, e.g. "Frida is tall", lacks a determinate truth value. What cognitive attitude should you take towards it—reject it, suspend judgment, or what else? We show that, by adopting a seemingly plausible principle connecting credence in A and Determinately A, we can prove a very implausible answer to this question: i.e., all indeterminate claims should be assigned credence zero. The result is striking similar to so-called triviality results in the literature on modals and (...) conditionals. (shrink)

While there has been significant discussion in the health sciences and ethics literatures about problems associated with publication practices (e.g., ghost- and gift-authorship, conflicts of interest), there has been relatively little practical guidance developed to help researchers determine how they should fairly allocate credit for multi-authored publications. Fair allocation of credit requires that participating authors be acknowledged for their contribution and responsibilities, but it is not obvious what contributions should warrant authorship, nor who should be responsible for the quality and (...) content of the scientific research findings presented in a publication. In this paper, we review arguments presented in the ethics and health science literatures, and the policies or guidelines proposed by learned societies and journals, in order to explore the link between author contribution and responsibility in multi-author multidisciplinary health science publications. We then critically examine the various procedures used in the field to help researchers fairly allocate authorship. (shrink)

The case study presented by Winch and Sinnott (2011) shows not only how difficult it is for clinicians and researchers to identify conflicts of interest (COI), but also how damaging it can be when there are unin- formed and uncoordinated policy responses by senior administrators.

Evil is the opposite of good. This phenomenon has unleashed serious threat to human existence. The problem is that it is difficult to understand and even to deal with. Evil is a subject that hasdefied solution politically, socially or religiously. This paper examined the issue of the origin,effect and ways of dealing with evil for a better society. The research adopted the historical andliterary methods of research. Various views are examined. Findings affirmed that God createdevil as well as good. However, (...) this view challenged the omnipotence and the goodness of God. The research identified bloodshed, corruption, demonic activities, human trafficking, child abuseand child dumping/abuse and many others as social vices associated with evil. This researchrecommends that man should learn to live with it, overcome it with good, while religious groupsshould lead in the campaign to end evil and/or reduce its effect on society. (shrink)

Lee (2017) calls for greater attention to the shared epistemological and normative grounds of both public health ethics and environmental ethics, and to Potter’s original conception of bioethics, which, as she rightly observes, has been largely disregarded in contemporary North American bioethics scholarship and practice. In a previous publication we also argued in favor of reviving the Potterian approach to bioethics; we built a case grounded in “the relatively new field of molecular epigenetics [that] provides novel information that should serve (...) as additional justification for expanding the scope of bioethics to include environmental and public health concerns.”. (shrink)

Existing metasemantic projects presuppose that word- (or sentence-) types are part of the non-semantic base. We propose a new strategy: an endogenous account of word types, that is, one where word types are fixed as part of the metasemantics. On this view, it is the conventions of truthfulness and trust that ground not only the meaning of the words (meaning by convention) but also what the word type is of each particular token utterance (words by convention). The same treatment extends (...) to identifying the populations through which the conventions prevail. We consider whether this proposal leads to new underdetermination challenges for metasemantics, and make a case that it does not. (shrink)

We can use radically different reference‐schemes to generate the same truth‐conditions for the sentences of a language. In this paper, we do three things. (1) Distinguish two arguments that deploy this observation to derive different conclusions. The first argues that reference is radically indeterminate: there is no fact of the matter what ordinary terms refer to. This threat is taken seriously and most contemporary metasemantic theories come with resources intended to rebut it. The second argues for radical parochialism about reference: (...) it's a reflection of our parochial interests, rather than the nature of the subject matter, that our theorizing about language appeals to reference rather than another relation that generates the same truth‐conditions. Rebuttals of the first argument cut no ice against the second, because radical parochialism is compatible with reference being determinate. (2) Argue that radical parochialism, like radical indeterminacy, would be shocking if true. (3) Argue that the case for radical parochialism turns on the explanatory purposes of “reference”‐talk: on relatively “thin” conceptions, the argument goes through, and radical parochialism is (shockingly!) true; on richer conceptions, the argument can be blocked. We conclude that non‐revisionists must endorse, and justify, a relatively rich conception of the explanatory purposes of “reference”‐talk. (shrink)

There is a widely acknowledged shortage of and an increasing demand for transplantable human organs and tissues (e.g., kidney, heart, lung, liver, cornea) in developed and developing countries around the world. In response to this need, Lott and Savulescu (2007) propose the creation of a human embryonic stem (hESC) bank to facilitate the equitable and efficient dissemination of human leukocyte anti- gen (HLA) matched tissues and organs to patients in need of replacement. Although not an unreasonable proposal, the authors go (...) on to make a much stronger claim. They argue that hESCs are such important tools for addressing the massive unmet global need for organs that it is ethically justified to require mandatory banking of spare embryos, and they argue for the use of financial (or other) inducements to procure embryos for the derivation of hESCs. (shrink)

Elsevier, the world's leading provider of science and health information, published an academic/scientific textbook about a new mathematical discovery discovered in a near-death experience (NDE) that matches the dynamics of living and life-like (social) systems and has applications in general systems theory, universal systems modelling, human clinical molecular genetics modelling, medical informatics, astrobiology, education and other areas of study. This article is about Lynnclaire Dennis and how she brought back perhaps the greatest scientific discovery ever from a NDE. The Mereon (...) Matrix's sequential process generates a coherent link to living and non-living systems whether they are physical, mathematical, philosophical, or social. (shrink)

Truth is undefined for imperative statements. However, if imperatives implicitly reference a fact, they can be rephrased as truth­-valuable declaratives explicitly referencing that fact. But are there such facts? Kenny held that any imperative references a set of wishes held by its imperator. I extend his thesis by proposing that imperator wishes are facts implicitly referenced by imperatives and explicitly referencing them yields semantically isomorphic declaratives. I implement this thesis with modal operators for wants and cause with which declarative schemata (...) are formed to automate translation of imperatives into semantically isomorphic declaratives called proxy-­imperatives. The proxy-­imperatives match imperative behavior and provide semantic validation of imperative arguments thereby integrating imperative reasoning into classic truth­-valuable logic. (shrink)

Background There has been debate on whether a global or unified field of bioethics exists. If bioethics is a unified global field, or at the very least a closely shared way of thinking, then we should expect bioethicists to behave the same way in their academic activities anywhere in the world. This paper investigates whether there is a 'global bioethics' in the sense of a unified academic community. Methods To address this question, we study the web-linking patterns of bioethics institutions, (...) the citation patterns of bioethics papers and the buying patterns of bioethics books. Results All three analyses indicate that there are geographical and institutional differences in the academic behavior of bioethicists and bioethics institutions. Conclusion These exploratory studies support the position that there is no unified global field of bioethics. This is a problem if the only reason is parochialism. But these regional differences are probably of less concern if one notices that bioethics comes in many not always mutually understandable dialects. (shrink)

The concept of moral wrongness, many think, has a distinctive kind of referential stability, brought out by moral twin earth cases. This article offers a new account of the source of this stability, deriving it from a metaphysics of content: “substantive” radical interpretation, and first-order normative assumptions. This story is distinguished from extant “reference magnetic” explanations of the phenomenon, and objections and replies are considered.

Revisionary theories of logic or truth require revisionary theories of mind. This essay outlines nonclassically based theories of rational belief, desire, and decision making, singling out the supervaluational family for special attention. To see these nonclassical theories of mind in action, this essay examines a debate between David Lewis and Derek Parfit over what matters in survival. Lewis argued that indeterminacy in personal identity allows caring about psychological connectedness and caring about personal identity to amount to the same thing. The (...) essay argues that Lewis's treatment of two of Parfit's puzzle cases—degreed survival and fission—presuppose different nonclassical treatments of belief and desire. (shrink)

In this chapter, we compare Kant and James’ accounts of freedom. Despite both thinkers’ rejecting compatibilism for the sake of practical reason, there are two striking differences in their stances. The first concerns whether or not freedom requires the possibility of an open future. James holds that morality hinges on the real possibility that the future can be affected by our actions. Kant, on the other hand, seems to maintain that we can still be free in the crucial sense, even (...) if none of our actions can have any effect on the future. The second difference between them is related, and concerns the location of freedom. Kant views experience as determined by natural necessity, and locates freedom outside of it, in things-in-themselves. James, on the other hand, has a richer conception of experience than Kant, and holds that we can locate our freedom within experience alone. In the end, we contend that James has a better account of how freedom relates to our experience, but this comes at a cost. For while Kant's account struggles with the relationship between freedom and experience, it has the advantage of insulating our freedom from potential empirical challenges. (shrink)

Objective Our study sought to (1) describe the practices and preferences of Colombian adolescents in accessing sexual and reproductive health services: accompanied versus alone; (2) compare actual practices with stated preferences; and (3) determine age and gender differences regarding the practice and these stated preferences. -/- Methods 812 participants aged 11–24 years old answered a survey in two Profamilia clinics in the cities of Medellin and Cali in Colombia. A cross-sectional analysis was performed to compare participants’ answers based on the (...) variables of gender and age. -/- Results A quarter of participants visited the clinic alone (25.4%). Females were more likely to go alone in comparison to males (26.3% vs 14.1%; p = 0.031), and older participants went alone more often than younger participants (p < 0.001). Most participants – 72.7% (95 %CI: 69.3–75.9) – expressed a preference in being accompanied to the clinic, and more than 90% had their preferences met. The preferences of older participants were, however, less likely to be met than those of younger participants (p < 0.001), notably, because they predominantly wanted to be accompanied. -/- Conclusion Contemporary public health and bioethics literature advocates in favor of developing health services that better meet the preferences of adolescents. The present research highlights an apparent blind spot related to the role that others (e.g., parents, friends, partners) can or should play in accompanying adolescent patients when they access sexual and reproductive health services. Respecting adolescents’ preferences, and hence their autonomy, is not simply a matter of ensuring freedom from constraints (e.g., their right and ability to go alone). Rather, it should also consider the liberty to choose whether to be accompanied when accessing SHRS and by whom. (shrink)

The movement of people from one country to another in search of greener pasture, peaceful settlement and so on, has become very rampant in the world today. These same reasons have triggered internal migrations as well. Lives have been lost in the bid to circumvent immigration laws of countries by immigrants. The current spate of wars, political crises, natural disasters and hunger has led to increase in illegal migration in the world. Nigeria is not left out. We hear of boundary (...) clashes and insurgencies, which have resulted in illegal emigration to other countries basically in search of job opportunities and better living conditions. Nigerians have severally been repatriated from foreign lands. Recently, over five thousand Nigerians were repatriated from Libya. Nigeria has also played host to migrants from neighbouring countries, and has experienced internal migration in several parts of the country. The frequently asked questions are: “what role can religion play in curbing the spate of illegal migration and refugee crises in Cross River State, Nigeria? The research discovered that religion can be a veritable partner to government in resolving this ever-increasing menace that has become an embarrassment to the state and nation. This work adopted qualitative or explorative research method. It employed the content analysis approach in examining available printed materials on the subject matter. In view of its peculiarity, oral interviews were conducted on specific groups and individuals. This work proposes the involvement of religious organisations in preaching and teaching on the dangers of illegal migration, the provision of vocational training for our teaming youth population to reduce emigration, and the provision of counselling and resettlement programmes for the repatriated and those in refugee camps across the country. The work also encourages the government to evolve modalities to curb the spate of violence and bloodshed that has fuelled refugee crises in Cross River State and Nigeria in general. (shrink)

Depuis 2020, le monde a connu une situation sanitaire exceptionnelle à la suite de la pandémie de Covid-19, faisant face à une incertitude dans le monde médical clinique, de la recherche et dans l’ensemble des domaines connexes en santé publique. Le caractère imprévisible et l’absence de données fiables en lien avec ce virus ont fait émerger une quantité d’enjeux éthiques concrets, cela a donc révélé un domaine particulier, la bioéthique, et plus particulièrement une profession, les bioéthiciens. Les « bioéthiciens » (...) se sont fait connaître du grand public en se dressant parfois comme des garde-fous contre des dérives sanitaires, à d’autres moments comme des lanceurs d’alertes face à des injustices naissantes, ou comme critiques, polémistes et parfois même militants dans les médias ou en tant qu’acteurs de première ligne dans les systèmes politico-sanitaires. Ces divers rôles et pratiques illustrent bien la diversité et l’hétérogénéité du domaine de la bioéthique. Toutefois, l’absence de professionnalisation traditionnelle et formelle de la bioéthique complexifie la compréhension de ce champ disciplinaire. Même en Amérique du Nord, où la pratique de la bioéthique est professionnalisée, il ne s’agit toujours pas d’une profession officiellement reconnue et le terme « bioéthicien » lui-même peut être controversé. La forte présence de cette profession durant la pandémie de Covid-19 a révélé l’importance de décrire ce qu’est un bioéthicien, les fonctions qu’il occupe et en quoi consistent ses interventions. Nous apportons cette clarification nécessaire en expliquant la nature de la bioéthique contemporaine dans toute sa diversité. Comme nous l’a démontré la pandémie de Covid-19, les bioéthiciens représentant un soutien et un guide indispensable de nos jours menés par leur esprit critique et leur réflexivité permanente. (shrink)