The primary responsibility of the US Food and Drug Administration is to protect public health by ensuring the safety of the food supply. To that end, it sometimes conducts risk assessments of novel food products, such as genetically modified food. The FDA describes its regulatory review of GM food as a purely scientific activity, untainted by any normative considerations. This paper provides evidence that the regulatory agency is not justified in making that claim. It (...) is argued that the FDA’s policy stance on GM food is shaped by neoliberal considerations. The agency’s review of a genetically engineered animal, the AquAdvantage salmon, is used as a case study to track the influence of neoliberalism on its regulatory review protocol. After that, an epistemic argument justifying public engagement in the risk assessment of new GM food is outlined. It is because risk evaluations involve normative judgments, in a democracy, layperson representatives of informal epistemic communities that could be affected by a new GM food should have the opportunity to decide the ethical, political or other normative questions that arise during the regulatory review of that entity. (shrink)

Nanotechnology, as with many technologies before it, places a strain on existing legislation and poses a challenge to all administrative agencies tasked with regulating technology-based products. It is easy to see how statutory schemes become outdated, as our ability to understand and affect the world progresses. In this article, we address the regulatory problems that nanotechnology posses for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) classification structure for ‘‘drugs’’ and ‘‘devices.’’ The last major modification to these terms was in (...) 1976, with the enactment of the Medical Device Amendments. There are serious practical differences for a classification as a drug or device in terms of time to market and research. Drugs are classified, primarily, as acting by ‘‘chemical action.’’ We lay out some legal, philosophic, and scientific tools that serve to provide a useful, as well as legally and scientifically faithful, distinction between drugs and devices for the purpose of regulatory classification. These issues we raise are worth the consideration of anyone who is interested in the regulation of nano-products or other novel technologies. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and criticize several historical arguments in favour of prohibition and criminalization of illicit psychoactive substances. I consider several versions of Charles Brent’s argument from drug harms and an argument from addiction based on Kantian view on autonomy. My criticism will mainly rely on empirical evidence on drugs, drug use, and addiction. I think that in light of this evidence, all of the arguments lose their cogency or can be refuted altogether. Moreover, the evidence (...) reveals an inconsistency in the international drug law framework. In conclusion, I therefore provide a general argument challenging the legitimacy of the existing distinction between licit and illicit drugs based on the inconsistency. (shrink)

We discuss the crucial, but easily missed, link between paternalism and incarceration. Legal paternalists believe law should be used to help individuals stay healthy or moral or become healthier or morally better. Criminal laws are paternalistic if they make it illegal to perform some action that would be bad for the actor to do, regardless of effects on others. Yet, one result of such laws is the punishment, including incarceration, of the very same actors—also clearly bad for them even if (...) meant to be rehabilitative. Therein lies an oddity: paternalist criminal law—and thepresumably rehabilitativepunishments that serve as responses to infringements of such laws—is meant to help the actor but in fact has the opposite effect on net. Incarceration is particularly problematic on this front as it harms the alleged criminal in ways that go beyond the harm they would have caused themselves. Incarceration also may undermine the actor’s ability to improve his decision-making abilities or his moral character. The effects of the punishment also drift to others—family and friends, as well as business associates, of the punished. Paternalists, inasmuch as they are motivated by beneficence or concern about moral character, must account for all of these costs as threats to well-being and the conditions for acting morally. Given the link between paternalism and incarceration, we propose that if we are to take seriously the problem of over-incarceration in the U.S., we must reconsider the use of paternalism in criminal law; we sketch several alternatives. We believe paternalists should support our resistance to incarceration and seriously consider these alternatives. (shrink)

There has been a growing concern over establishing norms that ensure the ethically acceptable and scientifically sound conduct of clinical trials. Among the leading norms internationally are the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki, guidelines by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, the International Conference on Harmonization's standards for industry, and the CONSORT group's reporting norms, in addition to the influential U.S. Federal Common Rule, Food and Drug Administration's body of regulations, and information sheets by the (...) Department of Health and Human Services. There are also many norms published at more local levels by official agencies and professional groups.Any account of international standards should cover both scientific and ethical norms at once – the two are conceptually intertwined. Recent sources recognize that “[s]cientifically unsound research on human subjects is unethical in that it exposes research subjects to risks without possible benefit.”. (shrink)

Palawan is a land of promise, and of paradox. On maps, it appears on the edge of the Philippines, isolated. Indeed, it is a kind of last frontier. Its population remained tiny for centuries, the government offering homestead land in the 1950s practically for free to attract migrants from outside. The Palawan State University was established by law in 1965, but did not become operational until 1972. A commercial airport did not exist until the 1980s, and for many years, flights (...) were limited. Yet Palawan is one of the oldest sites of human habitation in the Philippines with the famous Tabon Cave human fossils. The oldest bone fragment here has been dated to be about 47,000 years. We know, too, that trade with China goes back several centuries. Today, Palawan seems to be making up for lost time with new commercial investments pouring in at breakneck speed. In particular, outsiders have rediscovered its potentials around logging, mining, fisheries, and tourism. This has caused concern among individuals and civil society organizations who want sustainable development, and see the commercial developments mainly as extractive, not just of natural resources but of the human. There’s very cheap labor available. And when potential investors marvel about cheap land, they’re actually talking about displacing earlier settlers, including indigenous people, from their lands. A subtle but still insidious aspect of the exploitation of human resources is a transformation of the very concept of human development. Using the rhetoric of modernity, residents in Palawan are reorienting the way they view themselves as well as their families and friends. The value of a human being now hinges on how they look, and the desired appearance is defined from the outside, as we see in this anthology of research reports coming from the Chemical Youth project of the University of Amsterdam and the University of the Philippines Diliman. We read about the importance of fair skin as a projection of cleanliness, of high social status (meaning someone not engaged in manual labor and therefore not exposed to the sun). We read of how “femininity” is defined around body contours, and cosmetics, and how hormones are used by male-to-female transgenders. We go beyond the visual, reading about the importance of controlling or enhancing body odors among tour guides, who interestingly are especially concerned about the bad odor management of their foreign customers, using car perfumes to keep their work manageable and we learn how difficult it is for security guards to stay alert during their long shifts. Energy drinks and cigarettes help them perform their duties. All these transformations through what the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault has called “technologies of the self” are as paradoxical as Palawan. On the surface, the products—which are technologies—seem to be mainly in the realm of the self but are, in reality, pushed, through marketing, from the outside, in contexts of inequality and exploitative labour relations. Personal aspirations are not personal but are for predefined standards of modernity, related to work-related demands and expectations. The self must be made presentable to the tourist, to the customers in malls, and to those who may threaten the properties that young people protect. It is not surprising that these transformations become problematic for the “self.” The skin whiteners, the hormones, the body deodorants, and the energy drinks are expensive and can distort budgetary priorities. The money for tonic drinks, for example, could well go into more nutritious food. The tragedy, too, many of the products used are of doubtful safety and efficacy. Even the energy drinks have much too high levels of caffeine that can cause cardiac palpitations. Cosmetics and the skin whiteners imported from China and unregistered with the Food and Drug Administration may contain toxic chemicals like mercury. But even registered skin whiteners can be problematic, their so-called “skin-whitening effect” coming about because they take away the upper layers of the skin, leaving behind a red glow (seen as “whitening”) which is actually inflammation. The whitened skin fails to protect against the sun, leading to adverse effects such as black spots. Ultimately though, the problems come with the very definition of the self. As the reports show, young people use the chemicals with some ambivalence, knowing how expensive they are and experiencing some of the undesirable side effects. There is, too, doubt about whether what they’re doing is indeed “good,” captured by how IP women will put on cosmetics only when they’re away from home and about to go to work. The cosmetics have to be removed before they return home because they are not socially acceptable. The research reports are not for Palawan alone. It must make us more critical and discerning as we revisit concepts of development and exploitation, modernity and tradition, self and community. The chemicals, in many ways, are like the products used in precolonial barter trade. For the Chinese, the beeswax and the sea cucumbers, for the inhabitants of Palawan the ceramics, represented faraway lands. To have those products gave prestige. Today, the skin whiteners and tonic drinks and other chemicals described in this anthology represent modernity with promises of not just of a more attractive self, but of better jobs, a better life. We are proud to have worked with the Palawan State University, and the people of Palawan, to gather powerful narratives that will now challenge the outside, the purveyors of modernity, to be more critical and discerning, the chemicals now to be seen not just as stuff applied to the biological body, but as powerful shapers of social bodies. (shrink)

Given the wide the range of legally available options for end-of-life care in recent decades: from aggressive, even experimental, treatment to active euthanasia, our ethical analysis struggles to keep pace with technology and law. In this essay I show that the principle of double effect (PDE) remains, and will continue to be, a useful tool for ethical analysis of end-of-life care. According to PDE, an agent may ethically perform an act that s/he foresees will have a significant bad effect (e.g., (...) death) in addition to a good effect (e.g., pain relief) only if s/he does not intend the bad effect, the act is not bad for reasons other than its causing the bad effect, and there is a proportionately serious reason to act. Following a brief explanation of PDE and preliminary considerations in favor of counting death as a bad effect, I analyze several end-of-life options in terms of the principle. I begin with those that enjoy significant consensus among proponents of PDE: active euthanasia, “passive euthanasia,” and palliative care. Then I consider the less-straightforward cases of drug provision, refusing food and water, and terminal sedation, arguing that participation in such actions is justifiable via PDE only under very limited conditions. (shrink)

In many jurisdictions, an offender’s remorse is considered to be a relevant factor to take into account in mitigation at sentencing. The growing philosophical interest in the use of neurointerventions in criminal justice raises an important question about such remorse-based mitigation: to what extent should technologically facilitated remorse be honoured such that it is permitted the same penal significance as standard instances of remorse? To motivate this question, we begin by sketching a tripartite account of remorse that distinguishes cognitive, affective (...) and motivational elements of remorse. We then describe a number of neurointerventions that might plausibly be used to enhance abilities that are relevant to these different elements of remorse. Having described what we term the ‘moral value’ view of the justification of remorse-based mitigation, we then consider whether using neurointerventions to facilitate remorse would undermine its moral value, and thus make it inappropriate to honour such remorse in the criminal justice system. We respond to this question by claiming that the form of moral understanding that is incorporated into a genuinely remorseful response grounds remorse’s moral value. In view of this claim, we conclude by arguing that neurointerventions need not undermine remorse’s moral value on this approach, and that the remorse that such interventions might facilitate could also be authentic to the recipient of the neurointerventions that we discuss. (shrink)

There is an old and powerful argument for the claim that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. A recent response to this argument, sometimes called the “dependence response,” centers around the claim that God’s relevant past beliefs depend on the relevant agent’s current or future behavior in a certain way. This paper offers a new argument for the dependence response, one that revolves around different cases of time travel. Somewhat serendipitously, the argument also paves the way (...) for a new reply to a compelling objection to the dependence response, the challenge from prepunishment. But perhaps not so serendipitously, the argument also renders the dependence response incompatible with certain views of providence. (shrink)

The authors of the scientific monograph have come to the conclusion that ensuring food security during martial law requires the use of mechanisms to support agricultural exports, diversify logistics routes, ensure environmental safety, provide financial and marketing support. Basic research focuses on assessment the state of agricultural producers, analysing the financial and accounting system, logistics activities, ensuring competitiveness, and environmental pollution. The research results have been implemented in the different decision-making models during martial law, international logistics management, digital audit, (...) agricultural lending, integrated marketing system, risk management and diversification of Ukrainian agricultural exports. The results of the study can be used in the developing of food security policies, programmes and strategies, agricultural production development, decision-making at the level of ministries and agencies that regulate food security management processes. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in the educational process and conducting scientific research on food security during martial law and Ukraine’s recovery economy after the victory. (shrink)

Let (leeway) incompatibilism be the thesis that causal determinism is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. Several prominent authors have claimed that incompatibilism alone can capture, or at least best captures, the intuitive appeal behind Jorge Luis Borges's famous “Garden of Forking Paths” metaphor. The thought, briefly, is this: the “single path” leading up to one's present decision represents the past; the forking paths that one must decide between represent those possible futures consistent with the past and the laws (...) of nature. But if determinism is true, there is only one possible future consistent with the past and the laws and, hence, only one path to choose from. That is, if determinism is true, then we are not free to do otherwise. In this paper, I argue that this understanding of the Garden of Forking Paths faces a number of problems and ought to be rejected even by incompatibilists. I then present an alternative understanding that not only avoids these problems but still supports incompatibilism. Finally, I consider how various versions of (leeway) compatibilism fit with the Garden of Forking Paths as well as the broader question of whether metaphors, however intuitive, have any dialectical force in the debates over freedom. (shrink)

Gerald Dworkin provides an insightful starting point for determining acceptable paternalism through his commitment to protecting our future autonomy and health from lasting damage. Dworkin grounds his argument in an appeal to inherent goods, which this paper argues is best considered as a commitment to human flourishing. However, socialconnectedness is also fundamental to human flourishing and an important consideration when determining the just limits of paternalistic drug controls, a point missing from Dworkin’ essay. For British philosopher Thomas Hill Green, (...) regulation of alcohol sales emerged from the social ideal. Green argued that policy interventions, including restricted opening hours and locations, improved the conditions for humans to flourish. Green offers a compelling political vision but fails to account for the fact pleasure is also an inherent good. He focused excessively on our social nature, excluding our more pleasure-seeking and egoistic characteristics. In contrast, a more realistic and complete vision of human flourishing can be found in an amended version of Gerald’s Dworkin’s arguments. In conclusion, this paper argues drug policy makers should remain committed to the harm principle as applied to criminal law whereby a person should never be criminalized for self-harm. Such a limit on paternalistic interventions is deemed necessary when eudaimonia is the end of government action. In practical terms, this means that the criminalization of drug use, as opposed to drug production, is always unjust. (shrink)

Recently, several authors have utilized the notion of dependence to respond to the traditional argument for the incompatibility of freedom and divine foreknowledge. However, proponents of this response have not always been so clear in specifying where the incompatibility argument goes wrong, which has led to some unfounded objections to the response. We remedy this dialectical confusion by clarifying both the dependence response itself and its interaction with the standard incompatibility argument. Once these clarifications are made, it becomes clear both (...) (1.) that the dependence response does not beg the question against the proponent of the incompatibility argument and (2.) that the dependence response advances the dialectic whether it is developed as a version of Ockhamism or as a version of multiple-pasts compatibilism. (shrink)

Purdue Pharma was being investigated by United States Civil and Criminal compliance agencies for many years and a conclusion has now been reached. Although successful , this author feels that such extremely serious corporate frauds must also punish senior individual executives with long jail sentences -in this case-corporate manslaughter.

Suppose Molinism is true and God placed Adam in the garden because God knew Adam would freely eat of the fruit. Suppose further that, had it not been true that Adam would freely eat of the fruit, were he placed in the garden, God would have placed someone else there instead. When Adam freely eats of the fruit, is he free to do otherwise? This paper argues that there is a strong case for both a positive and a negative answer. (...) Assuming such cases are possible under Molinism, we are left with a puzzling question: if Molinism is true, what can you do? (shrink)

Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

Libertarian views of freedom claim that, although determinism would rule out our freedom, we are nevertheless free on some occasions. An odd implication of such views (to put it mildly) seems to be that indeterminism somehow enhances or contributes to our agency. But how could that be? What does indeterminism have to offer agency? This paper develops a novel answer, one that is centred around the notion of explanation. In short, it is argued that, if indeterminism holds in the right (...) places, then the best explanation of the history of the world necessarily cites facts about our agency. Along the way, alternative proposals regarding the significance of indeterminism are considered and, ultimately, rejected in favour of the one developed in this paper. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited to bring them up to date (2017). The copyright page has the date of the edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and (...) manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., of human ecology and psychology to actually give them some control over themselves), maybe civilization would have a chance. As things are however the leaders of society have no more grasp of things than their constituents and so collapse into anarchy is inevitable. The first group of articles attempts to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of the theoretical delusions that are universal. In the next group, I show how these insights apply by reviewing some books in philosophy and psychology. Next I review books on science and religion and finally provide reviews and articles showing how understanding of both science and philosophy gives insight into the tragic delusions destroying the world. People believe that society can be saved by science, religion and politics, so I provide some suggestions as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. It is critical to understand why we behave as we do and so the first section presents articles that try to describe (not explain as Wittgenstein insisted) behavior. I start with a brief review of the logical structure of rationality, which provides some heuristics for the description of language (mind, rationality, personality) and gives some suggestions as to how this relates to the evolution of social behavior. This centers around the two writers I have found the most important in this regard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two ii systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. Since philosophical problems are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put it, due to the lack of perspicuity of language, they run throughout human discourse and behavior, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell on Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides’ Standard Social Science Model. The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case, there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the ‘thoughts’ of System 1) must lead directly to actions. iii It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. Thus, all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant’s futures. Many of the articles describe the ‘digital delusions’, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System 1, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers). The ‘reductionist’ claim is that one can ‘explain’ behavior at a ‘lower’ level, but what actually happens is that one does not explain human behavior but a ‘stand in’ for it. Hence the title of Searle’s classic review of Dennett’s book (“Consciousness Explained”)— “Consciousness Explained Away”. In most contexts ‘reduction’ of higher level emergent behavior to brain functions, biochemistry, or physics is incoherent. Also for ‘reduction’ of chemistry or physics, the path is blocked by chaos and uncertainty. Anything can be ‘represented’ by equations, but when they ‘represent’ higher order behavior, it is not clear (and cannot be made clear) what the ‘results’ mean. Reductionist metaphysics is a joke, but most scientists and philosophers lack the appropriate sense of humor. Other digital delusions are that we will be saved from the pure evil (selfishness) of System 1 by computers/AI/robotics/ nanotech/genetic engineering created by System 2. The No Free Lunch principal tells us there will be serious and possibly fatal consequences. The adventurous may regard this principle as a higher order emergent expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Hi-tech enthusiasts hugely underestimate the problems iv resulting from unrestrained motherhood, and of course it is neither profitable nor politically correct (and now with third world supremacism dominant, not even possible) to be honest about it. The last section describes various versions of the ‘altruism delusion’ that we are selected for cooperation, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces it. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. I describe versions of this delusion (i.e., that we are basically ‘friendly’ if just given a chance) as it appears in some recent books on sociology/biology/economics. I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology manifested as the inexorable machinations of System 1. Our psychology, eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa from ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection). Many accept the delusion that we are selected for cooperation with people generally (group selection or altruism) and not just our immediate relatives (kin selection or inclusive fitness), so I spend some time in the essays of the last section demolishing this fantasy. One thing rarely mentioned by the group selectionists is the fact that, even were ‘group selection’ possible, selfishness is at least as likely (probably far more likely in most contexts) to be group selected for as altruism. Just try to find examples of true altruism in nature –the fact that we can’t (which we know is not possible if we understand evolution) tells us that its apparent presence in humans is an artefact of modern life concealing the facts, and that it can no more be selected for than the tendency to suicide (which in fact it is). One does not really need science or mathematics to grasp this – it is crushingly obvious that an v organism cannot be selected for behavior that decreases the frequency of its own genes in the next generation. One might also benefit from considering a phenomenon never (in my experience) mentioned by group selectionists -- cancer. No group has as much in common as the (originally) genetically identical cells in our own bodies-a 100 trillion cell clone-- but we are all born with thousands and perhaps millions of cells that have already taken the first step on the path to cancer and generate millions to billions of cancer cells in our life. If we did not die of other things first, we (and perhaps all multicellular organisms) would all die of cancer. Only a massive and hugely complex mechanism built into our genome that represses or derepresses trillions of genes in trillions of cells, and kills and creates billions of cells a second, keeps the majority of us alive long enough to reproduce. One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only ‘the laws’ of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the Human mind. In the 20th century an even more evil notion arose—that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. There cannot be human rights without human wrongs. It cannot be more obvious, but one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of it’s topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of it’s food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a vi nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. The popular notions supported by the Democratic Party and Third World Supremacists are that Democracy, Diversity, Equality and Social Justice will produce a Utopia in America and the world, but it is clear as crystal that they unavoidably foster selfishness and divisiveness and are producing collapse. Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. Even the attempt to do this is already bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. -/- My writings are available as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C -/- . (shrink)

There is a tendency in contemporary jurisprudence to regard political authority and, more particularly, legal intervention in human affairs as having no justification unless it can be defended by what Laing calls the principle of modern liberal autonomy (MLA). According to this principle, if consenting adults want to do something, unless it does specific harm to others here and now, the law has no business intervening. Harm to the self and general harm to society can constitute no justification for legal (...) regulation or prohibition. So pervasive is this understanding of legal intervention in human affairs, that it is common now to encounter arguments in favour of permissive laws on, for example, private drug use, pornography, sexual and reproductive choice, based on the idea that to intervene in these areas would constitute a breach of the liberal ideal. The only alternative to modern liberal autonomy is assumed to be radical oppression, in which the State intervenes in the individual’s life to impose unwarranted measures designed to further its own ends. The legacy of Stalin, Hitler and other modern tyrants has undermined conceptual appeals to the common good. So widespread is this liberal assumption in the Western, English-speaking world that critics of the outlook embodied by MLA are customarily regarded with suspicion and charged with paternalism, narrow-mindedness and intolerance. Laing highlights contradictions inherent in the modern liberal tradition. She argues that there is a certain reliance on the notion of the common good within the natural law tradition that is instructive. According to this view, the common good constitutes a mean between two extremes: on the one hand, contemporary liberalism’s over-insistence on radical individual autonomy and, on the other hand, totalitarianism’s over-emphasis on collective social benefit. There is, I will argue, substantial terrain between the conceptual excesses of modern liberalism and oppressive tyranny that needs to be acknowledged and discussed. (shrink)

The study determined the dynamics of growing grain crops in Ukraine and the geography of their export. The problems of ensuring export logistics as a result of military aggression by russia in the context of ensuring food security are pointed out. The main directions of export logistics of grain crops from Ukraine and the peculiarities of transportation by railway, river and road transport were studied. The directions of diversification of export logistics of grain crops from Ukraine during martial law (...) in the context of ensuring food security have been determined. Further ways of ensuring the development of the export of grain crops from Ukraine and improving the logistics infrastructure are substantiated. A description of the directions of cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union countries regarding the promotion and support of export logistics to the main countries of importers of agricultural products to ensure food security is provided. Ways of post-war restoration of the logistics of export of agricultural products from Ukraine and ensuring the sustainability of agricultural producers are considered. (shrink)

The right to food is recognized as a basic right under international human rights law. The lack of implementation of the right is a challenge for societies around the world. The failures in implementation are leading stakeholder's to strongly advance more appropriate standards vis-a-vis the right to food. The concept of food sovereignty for instance has gained importance in this regard. The concept of food sovereignty is interpreted to be larger in scope than the right to (...) food. Food sovereignty is not limited to the making "provision" of food to the beneficiaries by the state. In addition, it also mandates the empowerment of communities by the adoption of policies to secure land, food production and consumption, etc. -/- In 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food recognized the wider import of the right to food based on the concept of food sovereignty. The Rapporteur emphasised on the provision of land for instance as essential to right to food. The acceptance of food sovereignty as a benchmark for state performance is one of the most notable developments in the field of economic, social and cultural rights. This chapter discusses the role of the concept of food sovereignty, and how it is shaping international and domestic policy frameworks. (shrink)

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal (...) regulation. We also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

Review of Causation and Free Will by Carolina Sartorio, Oxford University Press, 2016. viii + 188 pp. £35.00.

In bioethics, the predominant categorization of various types of influence has been a tripartite classification of rational persuasion (meaning influence by reason and argument), coercion (meaning influence by irresistible threats—or on a few accounts, offers), and manipulation (meaning everything in between). The standard ethical analysis in bioethics has been that rational persuasion is always permissible, and coercion is almost always impermissible save a few cases such as imminent threat to self or others. However, many forms of influence fall into the (...) broad middle terrain—and this terrain is in desperate need of conceptual refining and ethical analysis in light of recent interest in using principles from behavioral science to influence health decisions and behaviors. This paper aims to address the neglected space between rational persuasion and coercion in bioethics. First, I argue for conceptual revisions that include removing the “manipulation” label and relabeling this space “nonargumentative]influence,” with two subtypes: “reason-bypassing” and “reason-countering.” Second, I argue that bioethicists have made the mistake of relying heavily on the conceptual categories themselves for normative work and instead should assess the ethical permissibility of a particular instance of influence by asking several key ethical questions, which I elucidate, that relate to (1) the impact of the form of influence on autonomy and (2) the relationship between the influencer and the influenced. Finally, I apply my analysis to two examples of nonargumentative influence in health care and health policy: (1) governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) trying to influence the public to be healthier using nonargumentative measures such as vivid images on cigarette packages to make more salient the negative effects of smoking, and (2) a physician framing a surgery in terms of survival rates instead of mortality rates to influence her patient to consent to the surgery. (shrink)

Why does American law allow the recreational use of some drugs, such as alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, but not others, such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin? The answer lies not simply in the harm the use of these drugs might cause, but in the perceived morality—or lack thereof—of their recreational use. Despite strong rhetoric from moral critics of recreational drug use, however, it is surprisingly difficult to discern the reasons they have for deeming the recreational use of (some) drugs (...) morally wrong. In this book, Rob Lovering lays out and dissects various arguments for the immorality of using marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs recreationally. He contends that, by and large, these arguments do not succeed. Lovering's book represents one of the first works to systematically present, analyze, and critique arguments for the moral wrongness of recreational drug use. Given this, as well as the popularity of the morality-based defense of the United States' drug laws, this book is an important and timely contribution to the debate on the recreational use of drugs. (shrink)

In the TACITUS project for using commonsense knowledge in the understanding of texts about mechanical devices and their failures, we have been developing various commonsense theories that are needed to mediate between the way we talk about the behavior of such devices and causal models of their operation. Of central importance in this effort is the axiomatization of what might be called commonsense metaphysics. This includes a number of areas that figure in virtually every domain of discourse, such as granularity, (...) scales, time, space, material, physical objects, shape, causality, functionality, and force. Our effort has been to construct core theories of each of these areas, and then to define, or at least characterize, a large number of lexical items in terms provided by the core theories. In this paper we discuss our methodological principles and describe the key ideas in the various domains we are investigating. (shrink)

The war on drugs is widely criticized as unjust. The idea that the laws prohibiting drugs are unjust can easily lead to the conclusion that those laws do not deserve our respect, so that our only moral reason to obey them flows from a general moral obligation to obey the law, rather than from anything morally troubling about drug use itself. In this paper, I argue that this line of thinking is mistaken. I begin by arguing that the (...) class='Hi'>drug laws are indeed unjust. However, so long as they remain prohibited, I argue that we have strong moral reasons to avoid drug use. First, drug users are partly responsible for the violent and exploitative conditions in which many drugs are produced and distributed. Second, the unequal ways in which drug laws are enforced make drug use by many an unethical exercise of privilege. These reasons do not depend on the existence of a general moral obligation to obey the law; we ought to refrain from illegal drug use even if prohibition is unjust and even if we have no general obligation to obey the law. In fact, drug laws turn out to represent an interesting exception case within the broader debate about this obligation, and I argue that it is the very injustice of the law that generates the reasons not to violate it. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical paternalism is the normative stance upheld by pharmaceutical regulatory agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration. These agencies prevent patients from accessing treatments declared safe and ineffective for the patient’s good without their consent. Libertarian critics of the FDA have shown a number of significant flaws in regulatory paternalism. Against these objections, I will argue that, in order to make an informed decision about treatments, a libertarian patient should request full disclosure of the uncertainty about an (...) experimental treatment. But pharmaceutical markets, on their own, are not a reliable source of information about such uncertainty. And companies have the power to capture any independent expert who may assess it. Therefore, the libertarian is better off deferring on an independent regulatory body the assessment of the pharmaceutical risks, constraining access to treatments until tested. (shrink)

Are animals our domestic companions, fellow citizens of the ecosystems we inhabit, mobile meals and resources for us, or some combination thereof? This well chosen collection of essays written by recognized scholars addresses many of the intriguing aspects concerning the controversy over meat consumption. These aspects include not only eating meat, but also hunting animals, breeding, feeding, killing, and shredding them for our use, buying meat, the economics of the meat industry, the understanding of predation and food webs in (...) ecology, and the significance of animals for issues about nutrition, gender, wealth, and cultural autonomy. (shrink)

Language suggestive of natural law ethics, similar to the Catholic understanding of ethical foundations, is prevalent in a number of disciplines. But it does not always issue in a full-blooded commitment to objective ethics, being undermined by relativist ethical currents. In law and politics, there is a robust conception of "human rights", but it has become somewhat detached from both the worth of persons in themselves and from duties. In education, talk of "values" imports ethical considerations but hints at a (...) subjectivist view of them. In the psychology and sociology of drug use, ethically thin concepts of "harm minimisation" and "selfimage" dominate discussion and distract attention from the virtue of temperance and the training of character. A more forceful assertion of an ethics based on the worth of persons in these cases would be most desirable. Arguments against objectivity in the fundamentals may be replied to by examining the parallel between ethics and the discipline whose objectivity has been least challenged by relativist arguments, mathematics. (shrink)

This well chosen collection of essays written by recognized scholars addresses many of the intriguing aspects concerning the controversy over meat consumption. These aspects include not only eating meat, but also hunting animals, breeding, feeding, killing, and shredding them for our use, buying meat, the economics of the meat industry, the understanding of predation and food webs in ecology, and the significance of animals for issues about nutrition, gender, wealth, and cultural autonomy. Dombrowski rightly notes that the contemporary debate (...) regarding philosophical vegetarianism has been profoundly shaped by the historical figures who have rejected or embraced the anthropocentrism entrenched in Western thought. Three anthropological-medical essays compare meat with vegetarian diets. Eight essays treat the recent philosophical debate over the moral status of animals and whether vegetarianism is obligatory. Several essays discuss religious views on meat-eating and vegetarianism. Three essays explore meat, patriarchy, and the exploitation of nature and animals with respect to race, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class. The last four essays debate how to understand predation, environmental ethics, and animal protection. This collection is a fine entrée for all readers of this journal, since the debate over meat must by now figure into every thinking person’s diet. (shrink)

Switching from a meat-heavy to a plant-based diet is one of the highest-impact lifestyle changes for climate mitigation and adaptation. Conventional demand-side energy policy has focused on increasing consumption of efficient machines and fuels. Regulating food demand has key advantages. First, food consumption is biologically constrained, thus switching to more efficient foods avoids unintended consequences of switching to more efficient machines, like higher overall energy consumption. Second, food consumption, like smoking, is primed for norm- shifting because it (...) occurs in socially conspicuous environments. While place-based bans and information regulation were essential in lowering the prevalence of smoking, the same strategies may be even more effective in reducing meat demand. Several policy reforms can be implemented at the federal level, from reform of food marketing schemes to publicly subsidized meal programs. (shrink)

Introduction In 2013, Dr. J. Muizelaar and Dr. R. Schrot, two neurosurgeons at the University of California Davis Medical Center (UCDMC), were found guilty of research misconduct due to failure to comply with institutional policies as well as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations governing human subjects research. At issue here, however, is the difference between research and innovative therapy in the clinical setting of patient care where clinical judgment is reasonably to be privileged. Methods The UCDMC investigative (...) document is reviewed along with standard literature on clinical ethics and clinical data about glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cancer. Results In this paper I argue that, by tendentiously focusing on policies, regulations, and procedures governing human subjects research, the UCDMC investigation failed to account for the centrality of clinical judgment and clinical ethics pertinent to judicious review of this matter, especially given the unique clinical context of terminally ill patients having exhausted standard care treatment options for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cancer. Conclusions The UCDMC investigation raises serious problems for clinicians who are engaged in innovative therapy in the clinical setting, requiring a regulatory framework separate from the normal Institutional Review Board (IRB) process. (shrink)

On April 19, 2024, the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness was announced at the “Emerging Science of Animal Consciousness” conference held at New York University. The New York Declaration is an effort to showcase a scientific consensus on the presence of conscious experiences across all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fish) and many invertebrates (at least including cephalopods, decapod crustaceans, and insects). Scientifically, the New York Declaration marks a significant advancement for humanity. However, it also brings heightened awareness to (...) the moral challenges associated with animals that have conscious experiences (or phenomenal consciousness). This article will discuss philosophical approaches to the moral issue of killing sentient beings, thereby highlighting an existing moral dilemma in human society: In sustaining human survival, a species considered to have morality, we have to violate our own moral standards by killing other species with intrinsic value, consciousness, or sentience. This moral dilemma has long been present in human society. Various solutions have been proposed and implemented in practice to address this issue, such as the non-violence and vegetarian approach of Buddhism, the application of Islamic law and sacred rituals to animals in Islam, animal rights movements and voluntary extinction in Western countries, and the technology producing meat using animal cells. However, despite these approaches, we have not yet been able to fully resolve the dilemma, as sentient beings continue to be killed for our survival. We believe the most feasible solution is to change the current food consumption culture, build an eco-surplus culture to mitigate climate change, prevent deforestation, and promote peace. (shrink)

Water is regarded as indefeasible necessity of human civilization. In the South Asia region, the groundwater resource is poised as essence of life, security and development. Bangladesh is not an exception from that. Due to scarcity as well as disproportionate availability of surface water supply, the groundwater resource is veered into vital source to undergird heavy demand of water supply for livelihoods, industrial and agricultural purposes. Considering these, the groundwater resource governance is crucial since it is the mainstay of upholding (...) economic, social and development rights; failure to ensure proper governance would only drag the country into the tentacles of environmental scourge, conflict and food insecurity. The paper endeavors to analyze the role and significance of civil society on groundwater resource management. It explores the nature of challenges that civil society is encountering during its engagement with groundwater resource governance. This paper undertakes to outline national legislative and policy response to groundwater resource management in Bangladesh. It also scrutinizes in detail of groundwater resource aspect in international law and would reveal that, considering the gravity of the issue, both the domain of international law and national law contribute below the par to the issue. The paper further contends that existing legislative and policy structure of Bangladesh eventually maims the civil society from contributing and bars it to facilitate effective participation of the commons. In the concluding remarks, the paper highlights suggested recommendations stemming from discussions, observations and policy reports to bolster the affiliation of civil society in the governance of groundwater resource. (shrink)

The authors of the book have come to the conclusion that toensuring the country’s security in the conditions of military aggression, it is necessary to use the mechanisms of protection of territories and population, support of economic entities, international legal levers of influence on the aggressor country. Basic research focuses on assessment the resource potential of enterprises during martial law, the analysis of migration flows in the middle of the country and abroad, the volume of food exports, marketing and (...) logistics system. The research results have been implemented in the different decision-making models during martial law, information and economic security management, formation of personnel potential and assets of enterprises, food, energy and environmental security management, use of budgetary levers and financial instruments. The results of the study can be used in the developing of directions, programs and strategies for the post-war recovery of Ukraine’s economy and the attraction of foreign investments in the regions, decision-making at the level of ministries and agencies that regulate security management processes. The results can also be used by students and young scientists in the educational process and conducting scientific research on the problems of ensuring the country’s security. (shrink)

The article explains why we should not use dangerous drugs for pleasure.

In hyper-modern society, food has become a source of endemic discontent. Many food products are seen as ‘tainted’; literally, figuratively or both. A psychoanalytic approach, I will argue, may help us to come to terms with our alimentary predicaments. What I envision is a ‘depth ethics’ focusing on some of the latent tensions, conflicts and ambiguities at work in the current food debate. First, I will outline some promising leads provided by two prominent psychoanalytic authors, namely Sigmund (...) Freud and Jacques Lacan. Subsequently, I will elucidate why our chronic dependency on high-tech food production apparently fails to meet consumer needs, focusing on some scenarios of escape, such as anorexia, cultured meat and ersatz food. And I will use ‘genres of the imagination’ to flesh out how food consumption has become a podium for enacting cultural symptoms, moral outcries, provocative identities and practices of the Self. Notably, I will discuss a story by Franz Kafka, a painting by Pablo Picasso and a food novel by Margaret Atwood. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the nature of medical interventions like neuromodulation on the complex human experience of love. Love is built upon two fundamental natures, viz: the biological and the psychosocial. As a result of this distinction, scientists, and bioethicists have been exploring the possible ways this complex human experience can be biologically tampered with to produce some supposed higher-order ends like well-being and human flourishing. At the forefront in this quest are Earp, Sandberg and Savulescu whose research works (...) over ten years has focused on the good that could stem from the medicalization of love. I acknowledge the various criticisms that have been made against this stance. However, most of these criticisms have been directed towards the mere side effects and sociocultural disservices that could result from the process of using drugs to influence human romantic relationships and in the end, critiques endorse the medicalization of love on the basis that its benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Consequently, I advance two strands of arguments against “medically-assisted love,” the ontological and the socio-ethical arguments. The former presupposes that beyond the possible side effects of medicalizing love there is something inherently mistaken about this effort and there is something intrinsically different about love that distinguishes it from its medically-engineered alternative. In the latter argument, I claim that drug interventions in romantic love contravene the very nature of medicine. Overall, I believe that critiques were still able to endorse medicalizing love despite their objections because they were only looking at one direction, the physical/cultural complications. (shrink)

Acknowledgments. The seed of this book began with a session on “food and everyday life” which took place at the 2010 Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy con- ference in Montreal, Canada. I thus wish to acknowledge and ...

India is the leading producer of fruits worldwide. The major problem after citrus fruits consumption is their peel that are hazardous to our environment and mainly regarded as a solid waste however, they are rich sources of fibres, large amount of Vitamin C, phenolics and flavonoids which are best agents of antioxidant. In this paper, we have discussed about the orange peel waste which has many beneficial roles in our daily life. Citrus peel has the highest number of Phytochemicals such (...) as flavonoids, terpenoids, quinolines and having highest antioxidant activity as compared to the pulp and seed as well as identified from the extraction. The different Phytochemicals test analysis have been discussed in this paper (steroids testing, saponins testing) and different antioxidant test used to check the antioxidant activity of the citrus fruit peel extract are Hydrogen peroxide scavenging test, Nitric oxide scavenging test, DPPH test etc. The main objective of this paper is that the higher antioxidant activity of different mixture of Citrus fruit peel can help to reduce the generation of free radicals and can act as an anti-proliferative agent. The search for novel drugs and alternative medicine especially against cancer has led to increased research in medicinal plants. This review also indicated that Citrus peels contains antioxidant compounds which could be exploited as value added products in the food and cosmetic industry. (shrink)

Many advocate practices of ‘local food’ or ‘locavorism’ as a partial solution to the injustices and unsustainability of contemporary food systems. I think that there is much to be said in favor of local food movements, but these virtues are insufficient to immunize locavorism from criticism. In particular, three duties of international ethics—beneficence, repair and fairness—may provide reasons for constraining the developed world’s permissible pursuit of local food. A complete account of why (and how) the fulfillment (...) of these duties constrains locavorism will require extensive empirical evidence about the relationship between agricultural demand-led industrialization, international trade (rules), and local food practices. In this paper I can only gesture at some of this evidence and, for that reason, my policy prescriptions are merely provisional. Instead, the upshot of this paper is that advocates of locavorism ought to be attentive to the empirical-dependence of the moral permissibility of their projects. As local food ‘scales up’—and comes to be embraced as a goal of political communities—these concerns should receive even greater attention. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue the cooking is a fraught issue for women, and especially women who self-identify as feminist, because it is so deeply gendered.

This commentary defends 3 arguments for changing the label of levonorgestrel-based emergency contraception (LNG EC) so that it no longer supports the possibility of a mechanism of action after fertilization. First, there is no direct scientific evidence confirming any postfertilization mechanisms. Second, despite the weight of evidence, there is still widespread public misunderstanding over the mechanism of LNG EC. Third, this FDA label is not a value-free claim, but instead it has functioned like a political tool for reducing contraceptive access. (...) The label is laden with antiabortion values (even though EC is contraception, not abortion), and it imposes these values on potential users, resulting in barriers to access such as with Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. These 3 arguments together provide scientific, social, and ethical grounds for the FDA to take the initiate in changing Plan B's drug label. (shrink)

The relation between body and mind is one of the oldest riddles that has puzzled mankind. That material and mental events may interact is accepted even by the law: our mental capacity to concentrate on the task can be seriously reduced by drugs. Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical events, upon the mind of the recipient of the (...) letter. This is what the authors of this book call the 'interaction of mental and physical events'. We know very little about this interaction; and according to recent philosophical fashions this is explained by the alleged fact that we have brains but no thoughts. The authors of this book stress that they cannot solve the body mind problem; but they hope that they have been able to shed new light on it. Eccles especially with his theory that the brain is a detector and amplifier; a theory that has given rise to important new developments, including new and exciting experiments; and Popper with his highly controversial theory of 'World 3'. They show that certain fashionable solutions which have been offered fail to understand the seriousness of the problems of the emergence of life, or consciousness and of the creativity of our minds. In Part I, Popper discusses the philosophical issue between dualist or even pluralist interaction on the one side, and materialism and parallelism on the other. There is also a historical review of these issues. In Part II, Eccles examines the mind from the neurological standpoint: the structure of the brain and its functional performance under normal as well as abnormal circumstances. The result is a radical and intriguing hypothesis on the interaction between mental events and detailed neurological occurrences in the cerebral cortex. Part III, based on twelve recorded conversations, reflects the exciting exchange between the authors as they attempt to come to terms with their opinions. (shrink)

Studies have shown that both serotonin and glutamate receptor systems play a crucial role in the mechanisms underlying drug-induced synesthesia. The specific nature of these mechanisms, however, continues to remain elusive. Here we propose two distinct hypotheses for how synesthesia triggered by hallucinogens in the serotonin-agonist family may occur. One hypothesis is that the drug-induced destabilization of thalamic projections via GABAergic neuronal circuits from sensory areas leads to a disruption of low-level, spontaneous integration of multisensory stimuli. This sort (...) of integration regularly occurs when spatial and temporal attributes match. Destabilization of feedback loops, however, can result in incongruent experiences or binding of random thalamus activation with sensory input in a particular sensory modality. The second hypothesis builds on embodied cognition, cases in which visual images of external stimuli activate task-related neural regions. On this proposal, binding processes that do not normally generate awareness become accessible to consciousness as a result of decreased attentional discrimination among incoming stimuli. (shrink)

I argue that one’s views about which “metaphysical laws” obtain—including laws about what is identical with what, about what is reducible to what, and about what grounds what—can be used to deflect or neutralize the threat posed by a debunking explanation. I use a well-known debunking argument in the metaphysics of material objects as a case study. Then, after defending the proposed strategy from the charge of question-begging, I close by showing how the proposed strategy can be used by certain (...) moral realists to resist the evolutionary debunking arguments. (shrink)

While seeking novel food sources to feed the increasing population of the globe, several alternatives have been discussed, including algae, fungi or in vitro meat. The increasingly propagated usage of farmed insects for human nutrition raises issues regarding food safety, consumer information and animal protection. In line with law, insects like any other animals must not be reared or manipulated in a way that inflicts unnecessary pain, distress or harm on them. Currently, there is a great need for (...) research in the area of insect welfare, especially regarding species-specific needs, health, farming systems and humane methods of killing. Recent results from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral sciences prompt caution when denying consciousness and therefore the likelihood of presence of pain and suffering or something closely related to it to insects. From an animal protection point of view, these issues should be satisfyingly solved before propagating and establishing intensive husbandry systems for insects as a new type of mini-livestock factory farming. (shrink)

We have a much better understanding of physics than we do of consciousness. I consider ways in which intrinsically mental aspects of fundamental ontology might induce modifications of the known laws of physics, or whether they could be relevant to accounting for consciousness if no such modifications exist. I suggest that our current knowledge of physics should make us skeptical of hypothetical modifications of the known rules, and that without such modifications it’s hard to imagine how intrinsically mental aspects could (...) play a useful explanatory role. Draft version of a paper submitted to Journal of Consciousness Studies, special issue responding to Philip Goff’s Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. (shrink)

I discuss three tiers of technological innovation: mild innovation, or the acceleration by technology of a human activity aimed at a good; moderate innovation, or the obviation by technology of an activity aimed at a good; and radical innovation, or the altering by technology of the human condition so as to change what counts as a good. I argue that it is impossible to morally assess proposed innovations within any of these three tiers unless we rehabilitate a natural-law ethical framework. (...) And I offer some moral starting points within such a framework, in connection with innovations of each of the three types. (shrink)