bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Solid landslide generated waves
Authors: WANG YANG , LIU PHILIP L.-F. , MEI CHIANG C.
Published: March 2011

Theoretical formulation describing the wave generation by a slender solid landslide is presented. The slide motion is coupled with the surface wave dynamics and both the fluid viscous (lubricative) resistance and the solid friction are considered.

Numerical results are obtained for a cosine function shape slide. Numerical results show clearly the importance of the dynamic nonlinear coupling. The effects of lubricative resistance, solid friction, initial landslide speed and the slide height are discussed.
Development of low-cost image mosaics of hard-bottom sessile communities using SCUBA: comparisons of optical media and of proxy measures of community structure
Authors: van Rein H. , Schoeman D.S. , Brown C.J. , Quinn R. , Breen J.
Published: March 2011

Underwater image-based sampling procedures, using SCUBA, are compared using imagery collected from a temperate hard-substratum community. The effectiveness of a low-budget, high-resolution image mosaicing technique is assessed by comparing the relative efficiency of data collection, extraction and analysis among sampling procedures. In addition, a manipulative experiment tested whether the sampling procedures could detect the physical removal of 10% of the reef community. Overall, four factors were explored within the data: data collection media (stills and video), cover and community composition estimation techniques (visual cover estimation, frequency of occurrence and point extraction), change detection (pre- and post-impact) and depth (8, 14, 18 and 22 m). Stills imagery sampled the reef community at a higher image resolution than the video imagery, which enabled identification of more species and less-conspicuous benthic categories. Using the visual cover estimation technique, the stills imagery also had the greatest benefit in terms of efficiency and species identification. However, the experimental impact was detected using only the point extraction technique. The recommendations are that: (1) the image mosaicing technique is applied to fixed-station monitoring; (2) the point extraction technique be used for efficient and cost-effective monitoring at coarse taxonomic resolutions; and (3) survey depths remain constant over the duration of hard-substratum community monitoring.
The Epistemology of Ethical Intuitions
Authors: Lillehammer Hallvard
Published: March 2011

Intuitions are widely assumed to play an important evidential role in ethical inquiry. In this paper I critically discuss a recently influential claim that the epistemological credentials of ethical intuitions are undermined by their causal pedigree and functional role. I argue that this claim is exaggerated. In the course of doing so I argue that the challenge to ethical intuitions embodied in this claim should be understood not only as a narrowly epistemological challenge, but also as a substantially ethical one. I argue that this fact illuminates the epistemology of ethical intuitions.
Substance Dualism Fortified
Authors: Nathan N. M. L.
Published: March 2011

You have a body, but you are a soul or self. Without your body, you could still exist. Your body could be and perhaps is outlasted by the immaterial substance which is your soul or self. Thus the substance dualist. Most substance dualists are Cartesians. The self, they suppose, is essentially conscious: it cannot exist unless it thinks or wills or has experiences. In this paper I sketch out a different form of substance dualism. I suggest that it is not consciousness but another immaterial feature which is essential to the self, a feature in one way analogous to a non-dispositional taste. Each self has moreover a different feature of this general kind. If this is right then simple and straightforward answers are available to some questions which prove troublesome to the Cartesian, consciousness-requiring type of substance dualist. I mean the questions, How can the self exist in dreamless sleep?, What distinguishes two simultaneously existing selves, and What makes a self the same self as a self which exists at some other time?
Why are (some) Platonists so insouciant?
Authors: Craig William Lane
Published: March 2011

Some platonists truly agonize over the ontological commitments which their platonism demands of them. Peter van Inwagen, for example, confesses candidly,

I am happy to admit that I am uneasy about believing in the existence of ‘causally irrelevant’ objects. The fact that abstract objects, if they exist, can be neither causes or [sic] effects is one of the many features of abstract objects that make nominalism so attractive. I should very much like to be a nominalist, but I don't see how to be one …
Vague Music
Authors: Sorensen Roy
Published: March 2011

Is listening to (purely instrumental) music like looking through a kaleidoscope? Formalists contend that music is meaningless. Most music theorists concede that this austere thesis is surprisingly close to the truth. Nevertheless, they refute formalism with a little band of diffusely referential phenomena, such as musical quotation, onomatopoeia, exemplification, and leitmotifs. These curiosities ought to be pressed into a new campaign against assumptions that vagueness can only arise in the semantically lush setting of language. Just as the discovery of extremophilic bacteria led biologists to revise their opinions about the scope and preconditions of life, the marginal forms of reference that survive in the semantic desert of absolute music should lead philosophers to revise their assumptions much about scope and preconditions of vagueness.
The Bad News of the Gospel
Authors: Coope Christopher Miles
Published: March 2011

This article discusses Elizabeth Anscombe's faith and her concept of faith, and the bearing of this on what it is for belief to be reasonable. Reasonableness requires that we make a rough distinction between what can and cannot be taken seriously. At the margin we will rightly be influenced by thinkers such as Anscombe who were well able to appreciate the philosophical consensus but were also prepared to disturb it. She disturbed it in a particular way: by asserting Christian teachings robustly inimical to peace of mind. However she rejected many traditional defences of these teachings as presupposing a faulty understanding of rationality. The article attempts to assess what a more adequate understanding might be.
Plausibility and recovery from garden paths in second language sentence processing
Authors: ROBERTS LEAH , FELSER CLAUDIA
Published: March 2011

In this study, the influence of plausibility information on the real-time processing of locally ambiguous (“garden path”) sentences in a nonnative language is investigated. Using self-paced reading, we examined how advanced Greek-speaking learners of English and native speaker controls read sentences containing temporary subject–object ambiguities, with the ambiguous noun phrase being either semantically plausible or implausible as the direct object of the immediately preceding verb. Besides providing evidence for incremental interpretation in second language processing, our results indicate that the learners were more strongly influenced by plausibility information than the native speaker controls in their on-line processing of the experimental items. For the second language learners an initially plausible direct object interpretation lead to increased reanalysis difficulty in “weak” garden-path sentences where the required reanalysis did not interrupt the current thematic processing domain. No such evidence of on-line recovery was observed, in contrast, for “strong” garden-path sentences that required more substantial revisions of the representation built thus far, suggesting that comprehension breakdown was more likely here.
Effects of distributed practice on the acquisition of second language English syntax—ERRATUM
Authors: BIRD STEVE
Published: March 2011

There were eight occurrences of an incorrect spelling of the adjectival term language-learning as language-leaning in the original article (Bird, 2010). These typographical errors occurred in the first few pages only, which are reprinted herein. We regret these errors and any problems they may have caused.
TESTING FOR UNIT ROOTS IN THE PRESENCE OF A POSSIBLE BREAK IN TREND AND NONSTATIONARY VOLATILITY
Authors: Cavaliere Giuseppe , Harvey David I. , Leybourne Stephen J. , Taylor A.M. Robert
Published: March 2011

We analyze the impact of nonstationary volatility on the break fraction estimator and associated trend break unit root tests of Harris, Harvey, Leybourne, and Taylor (2009) (HHLT). We show that although HHLT’s break fraction estimator retains the same large-sample properties as demonstrated by HHLT for homoskedastic shocks, the limiting null distributions of unit root statistics based around this estimator are not pivotal under nonstationary volatility. A solution to the identified inference problem, which does not require the practitioner to specify a parametric model for volatility, is provided using the wild bootstrap and is shown to perform well in practice.
Farm-scale risk factors for bovine tuberculosis incidence in cattle herds during the Randomized Badger Culling Trial
Authors: MILL A. C. , RUSHTON S. P. , SHIRLEY M. D. F. , MURRAY A. W. A. , SMITH G. C. , DELAHAY R. J. , McDONALD R. A.
Published: March 2011

We analysed the incidence of cattle herd breakdowns due to bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis) in relation to experimental badger culling, badger populations and farm characteristics during the Randomized Badger Culling Trial (RBCT). Mixed modelling and event history analysis were used to examine the individual risk factors. The interdependencies of covariates were examined using structural equation modelling. There were consistent findings among the different analyses demonstrating that during a badger culling programme farms experiencing: reactive culling, larger herd sizes, larger holdings and holdings with multiple parcels of land were all at greater risk of a herd breakdown. Proactive culling reduced risks within the culling area, but we did not assess any potential effects in the periphery of the treatment area. Badger-related variables measured prior to the start of culling (number of social groups and length of badger territorial boundaries) did not consistently point to an increase in risk, when set against a background of ongoing badger culling. This could be because (1) the collected variables were not important to risk in cattle, or (2) there were insufficient data to demonstrate their importance. Our findings highlight the difficulty in identifying simple predictors of spatial variation in transmission risks from badger populations and the consequent challenge of tailoring management actions to any such field data.
Risk factors for hepatitis C virus infection in former Brazilian soccer players
Authors: AZEVEDO T. C. R. , FILGUEIRA N. A. , LOPES E. P.
Published: March 2011

We evaluated the occurrence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in 97 former soccer players who played in Recife, Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s, and analysed the risk factors for infection, such as history of transfusions, surgery, tattoos, piercings, and the use of illicit drugs or injectable vitamin complexes. Immunochromatographic testing was performed to detect anti-HCV antibodies. All former soccer players were men (mean age 59·2 years), of whom 62 (64%) and 35 (36%) were classified as amateurs and professionals, respectively. Seven (7·2%) tested positive for anti-HCV antibodies; three (4·8%) were amateurs, and four (11·4%) were professionals. In univariate analysis, transfusion, surgery, and use of injectable vitamin complexes were associated with HCV infection, while in multivariate analysis, only the use of injectable vitamin complexes was related (P=0·0005). We observed a high frequency of HCV infection in former soccer players, especially in professionals who used injectable vitamin complexes.
Center/surround organization of retinal bipolar cells: High correlation of fundamental responses of center and surround to sinusoidal contrasts
Authors: BURKHARDT DWIGHT A. , BARTOLETTI THEODORE M. , THORESON WALLACE B.
Published: March 2011

Receptive field organization of cone-driven bipolar cells was investigated by intracellular recording in the intact light-adapted retina of the tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum). Centered spots and concentric annuli of optimum dimensions were used to selectively stimulate the receptive field center and surround with sinusoidal modulations of contrast at 3 Hz. At low contrasts, responses of both the center and surround of both ON and OFF bipolar cells were linear, showing high gain and thus contrast enhancement relative to cones. The contrast/response curves for the fundamental response, measured by a Fast Fourier Transform, reached half maximum amplitude quickly at 13% contrast followed by saturation at high contrasts. The variation of the normalized amplitude of the center and surround responses was remarkably similar, showing linear regression over the entire response range with very high correlations, r2 = 0.97 for both ON and OFF cells. The contrast/response curves of both center and surround for both ON and OFF cells were well fit (r2 = 0.98) by an equation for single-site binding. In about half the cells studied, the nonlinear waveforms of center and surround could be brought into coincidence by scaling and shifting the surround response in time. This implies that a nonlinearity, common to both center and surround, occurs after polarity inversion at the cone feedback synapse. Evidence from paired whole-cell recordings between single cones and OFF bipolar cells suggests that substantial nonlinearity is not due to transmission at the cone synapse but instead arises from intrinsic bipolar cell and network mechanisms. When sinusoidal contrast modulations were applied to the center and surround simultaneously, clear additivity was observed for small responses in both ON and OFF cells, whereas the interaction was strikingly nonadditive for large responses. The contribution of the surround was then greatly reduced, suggesting attenuation at the cone feedback synapse.
Classification and Normativity: Some Thoughts on Different Ways of Carving Up the Field of Bioethics
Authors: HOLM SØREN
Published: March 2011

Bioethics is, as is moral philosophy in general, a field spanning a range of different philosophical approaches, normative standpoints, methods and styles of analysis, metaphysics, and ontologies. In discussing bioethics, it is often seen as useful to introduce some kind of order on the field by categorizing individual philosophers or specific arguments into a relatively small number of categories. Such categorization or classification has several functions. It may help to show the relationship between basic assumptions and specific arguments or it may be used argumentatively by arguing not against a single philosopher or her arguments but against the category to which she or they belong or are claimed to belong. In this way, whole lines of argument can be disposed of in one fell swoop and whole groups of philosophers dismissed by showing that they belong to some category that can, in some way, be discounted because it is fallacious. Or, conversely, lines of arguments and groups of philosophers can be celebrated and appropriated as support for yet new arguments.
Eugenics and the Genetic Challenge, Again: All Dressed Up and Just Everywhere to Go
Authors: KOCH TOM
Published: March 2011

Dashiell Hammett’s reaction was “sharp and angry, snarling” when he read, at her request, a work in progress by his friend and lover, Lillian Hellman. “He spoke as if I had betrayed him.” His judgment was absolute and his advice unsparing: “Tear this up and throw it away. It’s worse than bad—it’s half good.” That is exactly what I thought of Matti Häyry’sRationality and the Genetic Challengeas, for the third time in the evening, I penned a note in its margins and sent it sailing across the room in disgust. Cambridge University Press knows its book binding, however, and the spine of the text was undamaged.
Are All Rational Moralities Equivalent?
Authors: GUNSON DARRYL
Published: March 2011

Matti Häyry’s new bookRationality and the Genetic Challengediscusses the ethics of human genetic modification and the bioethical rationalities that inform the different ethical conclusions authors have advanced. It is aimed at correcting the belief that “only one rationality exists or one morality exists; that those that disagree [with them] are unreasonable or evil.” Häyry argues that there are multiple rationalities, and that even though ethical issues may have solutions within individual rationalities, disagreements that have their root in separate rational approaches cannot be universally solved by intellectual arguments. In debates about the ethics of using new biotechnologies to genetically modify human beings, the normal state is one of fundamental disagreement over almost all of the anticipated uses to which the technology could be put. Häyry’s point is that such a state of affairs is not necessarily due to a lack of reason because there are many, equally valid, ways of being reasonable.
Balancing Procreative Autonomy and Parental Responsibility
Authors: BULLER TOM , BAUER STEPHANIE
Published: March 2011

In Rationality and the Genetic Challenge: Making People Better? Matti Häyry provides a clear and informed discussion and analysis of a number of competing answers to the above questions. Häyry describes three main perspectives on the morality of prenatal genetic diagnosis (PGD), the “restrictive,” “moderate,” and “permissive” views, and his analysis illuminates that these views can be distinguished in terms of their different “rationalities”—their respective understanding of what counts as a reasonable choice for parents to make in light of PGD.
Developing Medicines in Line with Global Public Health Needs: The Role of the World Health Organization
Authors: PANG TIKKI
Published: March 2011

“I want my leadership to be judged by the impact of our work on the health of two populations: women and the people of Africa.” This is how Dr. Margaret Chan, the current Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), described her leadership mission. The reason behind this mission is evident. Women and girls constitute 70% of the world’s poor and 80% of the world’s refugees. Gender violence against women aged 15–44 is responsible for more deaths and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war. An estimated 350,000 to 500,000 women still die in childbirth every year. The negative health implications of absolute poverty are worst in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Hence, Chan aims to have the biggest impact on the world’s poorest people.
Evolution of the Literature Identifying Physicians' Roles in Leadership, Clinical Development, and Practice of the Subspecialty of Emergency Medical Services
Authors: Millin Michael G. , Brown Lawrence H. , Craven Catherine K. , Hawkins Seth C. , Tan David K. , Piazza Gina M. , Cone David C. , Sattin Richard W.
Published: March 2011

Purpose:The 2007 Institute of Medicine report entitledEmergency Medical Services at the Crossroadsidentified a need for the establishment of physician subspecialty certification in emergency medical services (EMS). The purpose of this study was to identify and explore the evolution of publications that define the role of the physician in EMS systems in the United States.

Methods:Three comprehensive searches were undertaken to identify articles that define the physician's role in the leadership, clinical development, and practice of EMS. Independent reviewers then evaluated these articles to further determine whether the articles identified the physician's role in EMS. Then, identified articles were classified by the type of publication in order to evaluate the transition from a non-peer reviewed to peer-reviewed literature base and an analysis was performed on the differences in the growth between these two groups. In addition, for the peer-reviewed articles, an analysis was performed to identify the proportion of articles that were quantitative versus qualitative in nature.

Results:The comprehensive review identified 1,504 articles. Ninety articles were excluded due to lack of relevance to the US. The remaining 1,414 articles were reviewed, and 194 papers that address the physician's role within EMS systems were identified; 72 additional articles were identified by hand search of references for a total of 266 articles. The percentage of peer-reviewed articles has increased steadily over the past three decades. In addition, the percentage of quantitative articles increased from the first decade to the second and third decades.

Conclusions:This comprehensive review demonstrates that over the past 30 years an evidence base addressing the role of the physician in EMS has developed. This evidence base has steadily evolved to include a greater proportion of peer-reviewed, quantitative literature.
Asia Tsunami Disaster 2004: Experience at Three International Airports
Authors: Deebaj Richard , Castrén Maaret , Öhlén Gunnar
Published: March 2011

Introduction: On 26 December 2004, a large earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the resulting tsunami created a disaster on a scale unprecedented in recorded history. Thousands of foreign tourists, predominantly Europeans, were affected. Their governments were required to organize rapid rescue responses for a catastrophe thousands of miles away, something for which they had little or no experience. The rescue operations at three international airports in Sweden, the UK, and Finland are analyzed with emphasis on “lessons learned” and recommendations for future similar rescue efforts.

Methods: This report is based on interviews with and unpublished reports from medical personnel involved in the rescue operations at the three airports, as well as selected references from an electronic literature search.

Results: In the period immediately following the tsunami, tens of thousands of Swedes, Britons, and Finns returned home from the affected areas in Southeast Asia. More than 7,800, 104, and approximately 3,700 casualties from Sweden, the UK, and Finland, respectively, received medical and/or psychological care at the temporary medical clinics organized at the home airports. Psychiatric presentations and soft tissue and orthopedic injuries predominated.

Conclusions: All three airport medical operations suffered from the lack of a national catastrophe plan that addressed the contingency of a natural or disaster due to a natural or man-made project occurring outside the country's borders involving a large number of its citizens. While the rescue operations at the three airports functioned variably well, much of the success could be attributed to individual initiative and impromptu problem-solving. Anticipation of the psychological and aftercare needs of all those involved contributed to the relative effectiveness of the Finnish and Swedish operations.
Heart Rate as a Marker of Stress in Ambulance Personnel: A Pilot Study of the Body's Response to the Ambulance Alarm
Authors: Karlsson Kåre , Niemelä Patrik , Jonsson Anders
Published: March 2011

Introduction: Studies have demonstrated the presence of stress and post-traumatic stress among ambulance personnel, but no previous research has focused on the body's reaction in the form of the change in heart rate of ambulance staff in association with specific occupational stress.

Hypothesis: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether work as an ambulance professional generates prolonged physiological arousal that can be measured by heart rate in different situations.

Methods: Twenty participants carried a pulse-meter in the form of a wristwatch, which continuously measured and stored their heart rate 24 hours per day for a period of seven days. All ambulance alarms that occurred during the test period were recorded in journals, and the participants completed diaries and a questionnaire describing their experiences. The alarms were divided into different phases. Correlations between heart rate in the different phases were computed.

Results: Analysis of study data indicated a significant rise of heart rate unrelated to physical effort during an emergency alarm and response. This increased heart rate was noticed throughout the mission and it was not related to the length of experience the staff had in the ambulance profession. In addition, a non-significant trend suggested that alarms involving acutely ill children lead to an even higher increase in heart rate. In addition, this research showed that constant tension existed during sleep, while available for an emergency, indicated by a noticeable increase in heart rate during sleep at work compared to sleeping at home.

Conclusions: A rise in heart rate was experienced during all acute emergency missions, regardless of a subject's experience, education, and gender. Missions by themselves generated a rate increase that did not seem to correlate with physical effort required during an emergency response. This study shows that working on an ambulance that responds to medical emergencies is associated with a prolonged physiological arousal.
Debate: Langton on Things in Themselves: Critique of Kantian Humility
Authors: Falkenstein Lorne
Published: March 2011

Rae Langton's main purpose in Kantian Humility is to uncover the reasons that led Kant to claim that we can have no knowledge of things in themselves. As part of this effort, she articulates and attempts to defend a novel and intriguing position on what things in themselves are for Kant, and what it means for him to deny knowledge of them. Though the presentation of these views is lucid and informed by selective citation from a range of Kant's works, the argument is flawed and the author's treatment of Kant is blinkered.
Rethinking Kant on Individuation
Authors: Rubenstein Eric M.
Published: March 2011

In the section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection Kant writes:

Suppose that an object is exhibited to us repeatedly but always with the same intrinsic determinations (qualitas et quantitas). In that case, if the object counts as object of pure understanding then it is always the same object, and is not many but only one thing (i.e., we have numerica identitas). But if the object is appearance, then comparison of concepts does not matter at all; rather, however much everything regarding these concepts may be the same, yet the difference of locations of these appearances at the same time is a sufficient basis for the numerical difference of the object (of the senses) itself. Thus in the case of two drops of water we can abstract completely from all intrinsic difference (of quality and quantity), and their being intuited simultaneously in different locations is enough for considering them to be numerically different.
Analysis in theCritique of Pure Reason
Authors: Merritt Melissa McBay
Published: March 2011

It is widely supposed that the principal task of Kant'sCritique of Pure Reasonis to carry out some kind of analysis of experience. Commentators as profoundly at odds on fundamental points of interpretation as P. F. Strawson and Patricia Kitcher share this supposition. In a letter to J. S. Beck, Kant seems to endorse this view himself, referring to some unspecified stretch of theCritiqueas an ‘analysis of experience in general’. The idea that theCritiqueis engaged in an analysis of experience accords well with an attractive conception of Critical philosophy as making something explicit that is generally only implicit in our cognitive lives. After all, the categorical imperative is no innovation of Kant's practical philosophy, but rather is meant to be revealed as the animating principle of ‘ordinary moral rational cognition’. Likewise, the principles revealed in Kant's theoretical philosophy should be nothing other than the principles that necessarily animate ordinary empirical cognition; and Kant says that experience is, or is a mode of, empirical cognition. For this reason, it is undeniably compelling to think of theCritiqueas offering some kind of analysis of experience.
Cultivating Virtue: Moral Progress and the Kantian State
Authors: Surprenant Chris W.
Published: March 2011

After examining the ethical and political writings of Immanuel Kant, one finds an apparent paradox in his philosophy as his perfectionist moral teachings appear to be linked to his anti-perfectionist political theory. Specifically, he writes that the perfection of moral character can only take place for an individual who is inside of civil society, a condition where no laws may legitimately be implemented expressly for the purpose of trying to make individuals moral. Kant believes that living in civil society is a necessary condition for an individual to refine his talents and reason completely, a process required by morality. I believe, however, that the connection between his moral and political theory runs much deeper than simply facilitating the refinement of talents. Kant's moral theory focuses on an individual's cultivation of virtue, but this cultivation cannot be most satisfactorily completed unless that individual is a member of civil society. Put differently, civil society plays a necessary role in cultivating an individual's character so that he is able to act from maxims consistent with the moral law, out of the respect for the law itself. However, because he believes that civic laws primarily intended to encourage moral cultivation cannot be implemented legitimately, it seems curious that this condition should play such a significant role in Kant's moral philosophy. Through this examination of Kant's moral and political theory, it will be shown that Kant's political society establishes a condition necessary for an individual's complete cultivation of virtue, not by implementing laws that make men moral but by weakening the forces of heteronomy, thereby removing barriers to moral action.
A Universality Not Based on Concepts: Kant's Key to the Critique of Taste
Authors: Palmer Linda
Published: March 2011

‘Beautiful is what, without a concept, is liked universally.’ Thus ends the second Moment of the Analytic of the Beautiful in Kant's Critique of Judgment.

What could yield a non-conceptual universality? Kant finds this in the harmonious ‘free play’ of the mental powers, which he characterizes as a mental state that is both non-cognitive and inherently universally valid. In general, any interpretation of Kant's aesthetic theory will depend on the view of its relationship to cognition. This relationship itself should be understood in reference to Kant's notion of the mental state (or activity of the cognitive powers) in judging generally, as presented in the Critique of Judgment.
Reasoning Takes Time: On Allison and the Timelessness of the Intelligible Self
Authors: Freyenhagen Fabian
Published: March 2011

Consider the following objection of Bennett to Kant:

The least swallowable part of Kant's whole theory of freedom is the claim that the causality of freedom is not in time. This follows from Kant's doctrine that time is an appearance, and anyway the theory of freedom needs it: it is because the noumenal cause of an event is not in time, and thus is not itself an event, that it escapes the causality of nature. Kant is unembarrassed: ‘Inasmuch as it isnoumenon, nothinghappensin it; there can be no change requiring dynamical determination in time, and therefore no causal dependence upon appearances … No action beginsinthis active being itself; but we may yet quite correctly say that the active being ofitselfbegins its effects in the sensible world’ [KrV, A541=B569]. That is indefensible. Something in which ‘nothing happens’ cannot be ‘active’ or ‘begin’ a train of events. (Bennett 1974: 226)
Does Kant's Rejection of the Right to Resist Make Him a Legal Rigorist? Instantiation and Interpretation in theRechtslehre
Authors: Neculau Radu
Published: March 2011

It is generally acknowledged that Kant's political philosophy stands on a par with the great works of the Western liberal tradition. It is also a matter of agreement that the rational principles on which it rests represent an adequate philosophical expression of the progressive agenda that was inaugurated by the Enlightenment and fulfilled, with varying degrees of success, by the French Revolution. Yet Kant's philosophical position is ambiguous when it comes to evaluating that momentous event in modern history. We know, from anecdotal evidence, some surviving letters, several cryptic references in his published works, as well as a number of posthumously published reflections, that Kant was enthusiastic about and strongly approved of the changes that were taking place in France at the time. He certainly condemned, in strong and unequivocal terms, the execution of Louis XVI. But this did not translate into a repudiation of his support for the revolution. And he seems to have found even in this case mitigating circumstances that explained the revolutionaries' decision to execute the monarch, thus in fact excusing their action. Moreover, he argued that all post-revolutionary governments ought to command the same kind of loyalty from their subjects as the ones they replaced, which appears to justify Kant's contention in theIdea for a Universal Historythat political violence can be a vehicle of progress. Furthermore, in theContest of FacultiesKant went so far as to identify in the enthusiastic response of the ‘spectators’ to the French Revolution a clear sign of the moral disposition of humankind (CF182/7: 85).
Reflection: Its Structure and Meaning in Kant's Judgements of Taste
Authors: Sweet Kristi
Published: March 2011

When Kant announces in a letter to Reinhold that he has discovered a new domain of a priori principles, he situates these principles in a ‘faculty of feeling pleasure and displeasure’ (Zammito 1992: 47). And it is indeed in his Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, named in this letter the Critique of Taste, that we find his elucidation of the relation of the principle of purposiveness to the feeling of pleasure. The kinds of judgements in which our feelings are evaluated in accordance with a principle are what Kant names reflective judgements. And while reflective judgements emerge in the third Critique to include not only judgements of taste, but also judgements of the sublime and teleological judgements of nature, in this paper I will focus on the first, as the question of the relatedness of reflection to pleasure is most pronounced in this context. There is no consensus in Kant scholarship as to what the structure of reflective judgements is, as evidenced by the widely disparate views of those such as Guyer, Allison, Pippin, Ginsborg, Lyotard, and others.
Kant on Common Sense and Scepticism
Authors: Guyer Paul
Published: March 2011

Is the refutation of scepticism a central objective for Kant? Some commentators have denied that the refutation of either theoretical or moral scepticism was central to Kant's concerns. Thus, in his recent bookKant and the Fate of Autonomy, Karl Ameriks rejects 'taking Kant to be basically a respondent to the skeptic'. According to Ameriks, who here has Kant's theoretical philosophy in mind,

What Kant goes on to propose is that, instead of focusing on trying to establish with certainty – against skepticism – that the objects of common sense exist, let alone that they have philosophical dominance, or, in contrast, on explaining that it is only the theoretical discoveries of science that determine what is objective, one can rather work primarily to determine a positive and balanced philosophical relation between the distinct frameworks of our manifest and scientific images.
Kant on Lies, Candour and Reticence
Authors: Mahon James Edwin
Published: March 2011

Like several prominent moral philosophers before him, such as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, Kant held that it is never morally permissible to tell a lie. Although a great deal has been written on why and how he argued for this conclusion, comparatively little has been written on what, precisely, Kant considered a lie to be, and on how he differentiated between being truthful and being candid, between telling a lie and being reticent, and between telling a lie and other forms of linguistic deception. That is to say, very little has been written on thescopeof Kant's prohibition against lying. In this article I will argue that the scope of the prohibition against lying is narrower than it is commonly supposed to be.
Morality and Sensibility in Kant: Toward a Theory of Virtue
Authors: Reid James
Published: March 2011

… an immense gulf is fixed between the domain of the concept of nature, the sensible, and the domain of the concept of freedom, the supersensible, so that no transition from the sensible to the supersensible (and hence by means of the theoretical use of reason) is possible, just as if they were two different worlds. (Kant, Critique of Judgment, §II, 5: 175-6)
Justice and Virtue in Kant's Account of Marriage
Authors: Brake Elizabeth
Published: March 2011

All duties are either duties of right (officia iuris), that is, duties for which external lawgiving is possible, or duties of virtue (officia virtutis s. ethica), for which external lawgiving is not possible. - Duties of virtue cannot be subject to external lawgiving simply because they have to do with an end which (or the having of which) is also a duty. No external lawgiving can bring about someone's setting an end for himself (because this is an internal act of the mind), although it may prescribe external actions that lead to an end without the subject making it his end. (Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals)
Interpreting Kant's Theory of Divine Commands
Authors: Kain Patrick
Published: March 2011

Kant rejected ‘theological morality’, insisting that no one, including God, can be the ‘author’ of the moral law because the moral law is a categorically necessary, non-positive law. Kant was also no religious enthusiast and clearly intended to rule out certain kinds of dependence of ethics on theology. Such considerations make it tempting to suggest that Kant was fully committed to what has been called the ‘autonomy of ethics’ from theology. Yet an observant reader of Kant's corpus is constantly confronted with passages in which Kant discusses philosophical theology, connections between moral philosophy and theology, and even argues that we should ‘recognize all our duties as divine commands’ (KpV, 5: 129).
Kant's Principle of Purposiveness and the Missing Point of (Aesthetic) Judgements
Authors: Baz Avner
Published: March 2011

My plan in this article is to begin by raising the question of the point of judgements of beauty, and then to examine Kant's account of beauty in the thirdCritiquefrom the perspective opened up by that question. Having raised the question of the point, I will argue, first, that there is animpliedanswer to it in Kant's text, and, second, that the answer is ultimately unsatisfying in that it falsely assumes that there is a ‘need’, or ‘task’, or ‘purpose’, that we all necessarily share, to conceptualize all that encounters us in our experience, and fit it into one unified and comprehensive system. It is only against this assumption of our transcendental cognitive interest that Kant can so much asseemto have a real story to tell about where the value that we (‘disinterestedly’) claim for things in calling them ‘beautiful’ derives from. This, in effect, means that to the extent that Kant offers us any answer at all to the question of the point of judgements of beauty, that answer testifies to hisgeneralneglect of the question of the point of judgements. And my purpose is to draw attention to that neglect, and to begin to assess its significance for Kant's transcendental project in general and for his conception of beauty in particular.
Kant on Just War and ‘Unjust Enemies’: Reflections on a ‘Pleonasm’
Authors: Shell Susan Meld
Published: March 2011

The following remarks are intended to help clarify Kant's position on international right and, specifically, the so-called ‘right of war’. They are part of a more general study of Kant's politics; but I also make them here in the hope that Kant's view of international law (or right) can furnish us with some much-needed practical help and guidance. More specifically, I will try to show that Kant is less averse to the use of force, including resort to pre-emptive war, and far more attuned to possibilities for political catastrophe, than he is often taken to be. A greater appreciation for Kant's actual position can, I hope, make a small contribution toward mending the growing rift between so-called ‘Kantians’ who underrate the need for force, and self-styled ‘Hobbesians’ who underestimate the power of moral principle.
When the Tail Wags the Dog: Animal Welfare and Indirect Duty in Kantian Ethics
Authors: Timmermann Jens
Published: March 2011

Even the most sympathetic readers of Kant's moral philosophy usually disagree with him about some aspect of his theory, or some particular moral judgement. His unqualified condemnation of lying in the essay ‘On a supposed right to lie from philanthropy’ is a classical case in question, as is his strong endorsement of retributive justice and the death penalty. A third prominent source of discontent are Kant's repeated verdicts on the moral status of non-human animals, or rather the lack thereof. For, despite the fact that his practical recommendations in this field are sensible and even progressive, he repeatedly insists that there are no direct duties to animals, that the well-being of animals is morally indifferent, in particular that we ought to treat animals decently solely for the sake of humanity. As a result, the foundations of his advice seem morally inadequate, even offensive.
Necessity, Existence and Transcendental Idealism
Authors: Greenberg Robert
Published: March 2011

The role of transcendental idealism in Kant's theory of knowledge has been both deliberately underrated1 and inadvertently exaggerated. If conceivably not necessary, its role in Kant's explanation of the possibility of a priori knowledge in theCritique of Pure Reasonis at least pivotal to the success of the explanation. On the other hand, though transcendental idealism depends on Kant's epistemological criterion of an existing object, or, simply, his criterion of existence, the criterion for its part is actually independent of the idealism. In fact, it may be because this independence has hardly been recognized that commentators have been unaware of the role the criterion may actually be playing in the continuing controversy over the correct interpretation of the idealism. Altogether, this article addresses both shortcomings – the underestimation and the exaggeration of the role of the idealism in Kant's epistemology. While it places the idealism at the centre of the epistemology, it also separates the criterion of existence from the idealism. In highlighting this contrast, the article explains how the criterion may actually be contributing to the persistence of the ongoing dispute over the correct interpretation of the idealism.
Kantian Ethical Duties
Authors: Rivera Faviola
Published: March 2011

Perfect ethical duties have usually puzzled commentators on Kant's ethics because they do not fit neatly within his taxonomy of duties. Ethical duties require the adoption of maxims of ends: the happiness of others and one's own perfection are Kant's two main categories. These duties, he claims, are of wide obligation because they do not specify what in particular one ought to do, when, and how much. They leave ‘a latitude for free choice’ as he puts it. Perfect duties, however, such as the duties of respect, to avoid suicide, lying, and servility, do not appear to require the adoption of ends but only the performance or omission of specific types of actions. The puzzle is how these duties can be ethical, and therefore wide. Faced with this difficulty, Mary Gregor denies that perfect ethical duties are wide. She claims that they are an ‘anomaly’ and that they do not belong to ethics proper but to moral philosophy in general. She argues that these duties are derived from the categorical imperative, instead of, as Kant himself appears to have thought, the first principle of virtue. Taking a very different approach, Onora O'Neill finds the perfect/imperfect distinction of little importance and suggests doing without it altogether. Most other interpreters also assume that ‘wide’ is opposed to ‘perfect’ so that a wide perfect duty is a conceptual impossibility.
Délégation de la Société française à Bruxelles
Authors: Huber-Saladin
Published: March 2011

Dans la première séance du Gomité que j'ai présidée à Bruxelles, à laquelle assistaient Messieurs de Melun et de Sartiges, la situation financière ne soldait que par 45,000 francs; ce chiflre était même menacè par des dettes laissées à Sedan, des réclamations et des charges tellement au-dessus de nos forces, que nous ne pouvions songer é les remplir. Un appel par télégraphe, adressé à messieurs les délégués régionaux, étant resté sans résultat, une résolution énergique nous était impérieusement commandée : celle de la dissolution immédiate des grandes ambulances qui se trouvaient encore dans les Ardennes. Notre arrêté du 4 octobre fixait, aussi équitablement que possible, les conditions de liquidation des infirmiers, et les indemnités accordées au personnel médical. II laissait à ce personnel le vague espoir d'une réorganisation réduite, si des secours nous permettaient d'utiliser ses services.
La mission des femmes en temps de guerre: Par Mme William Monod
Authors: Humbert Edouard
Published: March 2011

Voici un tableau vrai et coloré à la fois, un émouvant tableau de la réalité, devant lequel M. Guizot ne dirait pas : « On veut des romans, que ne regarde-t-on de près à l'histoire? » Les héroïnes et les scènes mises sous nos yeux n'ont rien de fictif; elles se sont récemment passées, ces scènes, elles vivent pour la plupart, ces héroïnes, et pourtant les unes ont tout l'attrait de la poésie, les autres tout le charme de l'idéal. C'est qu'ily a histoire et histoire. Heureux qui sait choisir! Nous savions bien que partout et en tout temps de nobles femmes ont tenu le dévouement, l'abnégation, le sacrifice pour le plus simple et le plus élémentaire des devoirs; mais l'héroïsme au bruit du canon, sur le champ de bataille, au plus fort de la mêlée, l'héroïsme qui soulage, secourt, console et sauve de pauvres blessés, cet héroïsme tout moderne n'avait pas encore été décrit et raconté en détail par un auteur français. Mme Monod a comblé une lacune. Des onze -chapitres qui composent son ouvrage, je n'en voudrais retrancher aucun, tant il y a unité de pensée et d'intérêt.
Le Chah de Perse et la Convention de Genève
Authors: Houssein
Published: March 2011

Plusieurs journaux ont annoncé que le Chah de Perse, pendant son voyage en Europe, avait adhéré à la Convention de Genève. Cette nouvelle est inexacte ou tout au moins prématurée, et nos lecteurs nous sauront gré, sans doute, de rétablir les fails sous leur vrai jour.
Programme de Concours
Authors: von Holleben E.
Published: March 2011

L'ouverture de l'Exposition internationale de Vienne a offert a S. M. l'lmpératrice, reine de Prusse, une nouvelle occasion de contribuer, en temps de paix, g l'avancement et à la consolidation de l'œuvre humanitaire que représente le symbole de la Croix rouge.
Expédition d'atschin
Authors: de Stuers Général
Published: March 2011

Le gouvernement néerlandais déploie, tant en Europe qu'aux Indes orientales, une grande activité en vue de la seconde expédition contre les Atschinois. En attendant la reprise des hostilités, une forte escadre continue à bloquer les côtes situées à l'extrémité septentrionale de l'île de Sumatra.
Le Croissant Rouge
Authors: Ador G. , Moynier G.
Published: March 2011

Dans notre 37me circulaire (du 14 juillet 1877) se trouve, relativement au respect du signe de neutralité par les belligérents, uu passage que nous devons rectifier d'après des informations récentes.