Department of Philosophy

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 130
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    A Peircean Approach to the Umwelt
    (UNIL, 2022) De Tienne, André; Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts
    The concept of Umwelt has become so significant in biosemiotics that one may wonder whether Peirce could conceivably have missed it within the broader logical and metaphysical context of his realist pragmaticist semiotic theory. This brief paper suggests that far from having missed it, Peirce tackled it front and center at a most fundamental level.
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    Adding Natural Frequency Data to a Decision Aid for Colorectal Cancer Screening: Results of a Randomized Trial
    (2013-10-22) Schwartz, Peter H.; Muriello, Paul F.; Perkins, Susan M.; Schmidt, Karen K.; Rawl, Susan M.
    Guidelines recommend that decision aids provide natural frequency data regarding baseline risk, risk reduction, and chances of false positives and negatives. Such quantitative information may confuse patients, especially those with low numeracy. We conducted a randomized trial to compare effects of 2 colorectal cancer (CRC) screening decision aids—one with and one without natural frequency data.
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    Agency Implies Weakness of Will
    (2013-01-24) Keller, J. Gregory
    Notions of agency and of weakness of will clearly seem to be related to one another. This essay takes on a rather modest task in relation to current discussion of these topics; it seeks to establish the following claim: If A is a normal human agent, weakness of will is possible for A. The argument relies on demonstrating that certain necessary conditions for normal human agency are at least roughly equivalent to certain sufficient conditions for weakness of will. The connection between agency and weakness of will is made through the use of an extended example that lays bare the links between the two.
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    Aquinas on the Nature of Human Beings
    (Philosophy Education Society, 2004-12) Eberl, Jason T.
    In this paper, I provide a formulation of Thomas Aquinas’s account of the nature of human beings for the purpose of comparing it with other accounts in both the history of philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy. I discuss how his apparently dualistic understanding of the relationship between soul and body yields the conclusion that a human being exists as a unified substance composed of a rational soul informing, that is, serving as the specific organizing principle of, a physical body. I further address the issue of Aquinas’s contention that a human rational soul can exist without being united to a body and show how this ability of a human soul does not contradict the thesis that a human being exists naturally as embodied. I will also respond to two related questions. First, what accounts for the individuation of human beings as distinct members of the human species?Second, what is the principle of identity by which a human being persists through time and change?
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    Aquinas's Account of Human Embryogenesis and Recent Interpretations
    (University of Chicago Press, 2005-08) Eberl, Jason T.
    In addressing bioethical issues at the beginning of human life, such as abortion, in vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem cell research, one primary concern regards establishing when a developing human embryo or fetus can be considered a person. Thomas Aquinas argues that an embryo or fetus is not a human person until its body is informed by a rational soul. Aquinas’s explicit account of human embryogenesis has been generally rejected by contemporary scholars due to its dependence upon medieval biological data, which has been far surpassed by current scientific research. A number of scholars, however, have attempted to combine Aquinas’s basic metaphysical account of human nature with current embryological data to develop a contemporary Thomistic account of a human person’s beginning. In this paper, I discuss two recent interpretations in which it is argued that a human person does not begin to exist until a fetus has developed a functioning cerebral cortex.
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    Assessing Arms Makers' Corporate Social Responsibility
    (Springer, 2007) Byrne, Edmund F.
    Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a focal point for research aimed at extending business ethics to extra-corporate issues; and as a result many companies now seek to at least appear dedicated to one or another version of CSR. This has not affected the arms industry, however. For this industry has not been discussed in CSR lierature, perhaps because few CSR scholars have questioned this industry's privileged status as an instrument of national sovereignty. But major changes in the organization of political communities call traditional views of sovereignty into question. With these considerations in mind I assess the U.S. arms industryon the basis of CSR requirements regarding the environment, social equity, profitability, and use of political power. I find that this industry fails to meet any of these four CSR requirements. . . . So, I conclude, they should be held responsible for the foreseeable consequences that flow from use of their products, be it via civil liability or responsibility under international human rights standards.
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    The Beginning of Personhood: A Thomistic Biological Analysis
    (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2000-04) Eberl, Jason T.
    “When did I, a human person, begin to exist?” In developing an answer to this question, I utilize a Thomistic framework which holds that the human person is a composite of a biological organism and an intellective soul. Eric Olson and Norman Ford both argue that the beginning of an individual human biological organism occurs at the moment when implantation of the zygote in the uterus occurs and the “primitive streak” begins to form. Prior to this point, there does not exist an individual human organism, but a cluster of biological cells which has the potential to split and develop as one or more separate human organisms (identical twinning). Ensoulment (the instantiation of a human intellective soul in biological matter) does not occur until the point of implantation. This conception of the beginning of human personhood has moral implications concerning the status of pre-implantation biological cell clusters. A new understanding of the beginning of human personhood entails a new understanding of the morality of certain medical procedures which have a direct affect on these cell clusters which contain human DNA. Such procedures discussed in this article are embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, procured abortion, and the use of abortifacient contraceptives.