Stephen Clarke

Defensible Territory for Entity Realism

In the face of argument to the contrary, it is shown that there is defensible middle ground available for entity realism, between the extremes of scientific realism and empiricist antirealism. Cartwrights ([1983]) earlier argument for defensible middle ground between these extremes, which depended crucially on the viability of an underdeveloped distinction between inference to the best explanation (IBE) and inference to the most probable cause (IPC), is examined and its defects are identified. The relationship between IBE and IPC is clarified and a revised version of Cartwrights argument for defensible middle ground, which is free of the identified defects, is presented.

Religion as an Evolutionary Byproduct: A Critique of the Standard Model

The dominant view in the cognitive science of religion (the ‘Standard Model’) is that religious belief and behaviour are not adaptive traits but rather incidental byproducts of the cognitive architecture of mind. Because evidence for the Standard Model is inconclusive, the case for it depends crucially on its alleged methodological superiority to selectionist alternatives. However, we show that the Standard Model has both methodological and evidential disadvantages when compared with selectionist alternatives. We also consider a pluralistic approach, which holds that religion or various aspects of religion originated as byproducts of evolved cognitive structures but were subsequently co-opted for adaptive purposes. We argue that when properly formulated, the pluralistic approach also has certain advantages over the Standard Model. 1 Religion as Evolutionary Explanandum 2 The Standard Model of the Origin and Evolution of Religion 3 Elaborating on the Standard Model: Modules and Spandrels 4 A Methodological Comparison of Functional and Byproduct Explanation 5 Selectionist Alternatives to the Standard Model   5.1 Religion as an adaptation with a genetic basis   5.2 Religion as an adaptation of cultural groups   5.3 A pluralist view 6 Conclusion 1 Religion as Evolutionary Explanandum 2 The Standard Model of the Origin and Evolution of Religion 3 Elaborating on the Standard Model: Modules and Spandrels 4 A Methodological Comparison of Functional and Byproduct Explanation 5 Selectionist Alternatives to the Standard Model   5.1 Religion as an adaptation with a genetic basis   5.2 Religion as an adaptation of cultural groups   5.3 A pluralist view   5.1 Religion as an adaptation with a genetic basis   5.2 Religion as an adaptation of cultural groups   5.3 A pluralist view 6 Conclusion

Cardiac surgeon report cards, referral for cardiac surgery, and the ethical responsibilities of cardiologists.

Public reporting of clinical outcomes data is but one response to calls for increasing transparency in health care. Cardiac surgical operations are among the most commonly performed complex operative procedures. Risk-adjusted cardiac surgery mortality rate data for individual cardiac surgeons are currently available for >25% of the U.S. population as well as for Great Britain and Ireland. Although cardiologists are the primary source of referral of patients for cardiac surgery, surveys of cardiologists and analysis of market share data indicate this information is not being used to refer to cardiac surgeons with the lowest mortality rates. We review the ethical principles that should obligate cardiologists to discuss and use outcomes data, when available, in selecting cardiac surgeons to whom they refer their patients.

Neuroethics and psychiatry.

Purpose of review The field of neuroethics is experiencing a great deal of activity at present, as researchers come to realize the potentially dramatic implications of new work in neuroscience and its applications. This review aims to describe some of the work of direct relevance to psychiatric ethics. Recent findings The review focuses on ethical issues surrounding the use of propranolol to treat or prevent posttraumatic stress disorder, issues concerning the capacity of the mentally ill to give informed consent to medical treatment and the potential social implications of cognitive enhancers and other interventions into the mind. Summary It is argued that psychiatric ethics would benefit from a consideration of cognate questions arising in neuroethics; in particular, neuroethics has the potential to remind psychiatrists that individual treatment decisions can have broad social implications.

The Duty to Disclose Adverse Clinical Trial Results

Participants in some clinical trials are at risk of being harmed and sometimes are seriously harmed as a result of not being provided with available, relevant risk information. We argue that this situation is unacceptable and that there is a moral duty to disclose all adverse clinical trial results to participants in clinical trials. This duty is grounded in the human right not to be placed at risk of harm without informed consent. We consider objections to disclosure grounded in considerations of commercial interest, and we argue that these concerns are insufficient to override the moral duty to disclose adverse clinical trial results. However, we also develop a proposal that enables commercial interests to be protected, while promoting the duty to disclose adverse clinical trial results.

Scientific Imperialism and the Proper Relations between the Sciences

John Dupré argues that ‘scientific imperialism’ can result in ‘misguided’ science being considered acceptable. ‘Misguided’ is an explicitly normative term and the use of the pejorative ‘imperialistic’ is implicitly normative. However, Dupré has not justified the normative dimension of his critique. We identify two ways in which it might be justified. It might be justified if colonisation prevents a discipline from progressing in ways that it might otherwise progress. It might also be justified if colonisation prevents the expression of important values in the colonised discipline. This second concern seems most pressing in the human sciences.

SIM and the City: Rationalism in Psychology and Philosophy and Haidt's Account of Moral Judgment

Jonathan Haidt (2001) advances the ‘Social Intuitionist’ account of moral judgment, which he presents as an alternative to rationalist accounts of moral judgment, hitherto dominant in psychology. Here I consider Haidts anti-rationalism and the debate that it has provoked in moral psychology, as well as some anti-rationalist philosophical claims that Haidt and others have grounded in the empirical work of Haidt and his collaborators. I will argue that although the case for anti-rationalism in moral psychology based on the work of Haidt and his collaborators is plausible, a decisive case has yet to be made. It will require further experimental evidence before a decisive case could be made. My assessment of anti-rationalist philosophical arguments that are grounded in the empirical work of Haidt and his collaborators is much more negative than this. I will argue that this body of empirical work is a very unpromising basis for such arguments.

Imperialism, Progress, Developmental Teleology, and Interdisciplinary Unification

In a previous article in this journal, we examined John Duprés claim that ‘scientific imperialism’ can lead to ‘misguided’ science being considered acceptable. Here, we address criticisms raised by Ian J. Kidd and Uskali Mäki against that article. While both commentators take us to be offering our own account of scientific imperialism that goes beyond that developed by Dupré, and go on to criticise what they take to be our account, our actual ambitions were modest. We intended to ‘explicate the sense in which the term is used by Dupré’ and to ‘identify the normative content of his critique of scientific imperialism’. We made no claim to have developed our own account of scientific imperialism that went further than what was implicit in Duprés work already. However, that said, the discussions presented by both Kidd and Mäki raise important general issues about how the idea of scientific imperialism should be understood and framed. Here, we offer our considered responses to Kidds and Makis discussions of scientific imperialism.

Intuitions as Evidence, Philosophical Expertise and the Developmental Challenge

Abstract Appeals to intuitions as evidence in philosophy are challenged by experimental philosophers and other critics. A common response to experimental philosophical criticisms is to hold that only professional philosophers’ intuitions count as evidence in philosophy. This ‘expert intuitions defence’ is inadequate for two reasons. First, recent studies indicate significant variability in professional philosophers’ intuitions. Second, the academic literature on professional intuitions gives us reasons to doubt that professional philosophers develop truth-apt intuitions. The onus falls on those who mount the expert intuitions defence to meet these objections because it is implicitly being claimed that training and practice caused professional philosophers to acquire reliably accurate intuitions and we are owed an account of how this transformation takes place. A possible response to this situation is to attempt to reform philosophical practice to improve the quality of intuitions. Another possible response, advocated here, is to avoid appeals to intuitions as evidence.

Transcendental realisms in the philosophy of science: on Bhaskar and Cartwright

I consider two transcendental arguments for realism in the philosophy of science, which are due to Roy Bhaskar (A realist theory of science, 1975) and Nancy Cartwright (The dappled world, 1999). Bhaskar and Cartwright are both influential figures, however there is little discussion of their use of transcendental arguments in the literature. Here I seek to correct this oversight. I begin by describing the role of the transcendental arguments in question, in the context of the broader philosophical theories in which they are embedded, by Bhaskar and Cartwright respectively. I then consider some specific problems that arise for these particular transcendental arguments, in the context of contemporary philosophy of science. I raise two general problems for transcendental arguments for realism and I finish by spelling out what needs to be done to address the criticisms raised in this paper.