Uncategorized

An article appeared last Wednesday on the “Daily Mail” referred to a report of the Healt Service Ombudsman concerning to the treatment given to the elderly in British Hospitals. The report recounted several cases of abuse and neglect received by elderly. Among the examples, the report cites the cases of elderly who do not receive… Read More »Nursing profession and the ethics of care.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has attracted some controversy recently over his call for affirmative action in social psychology. Haidt polled his colleagues over their political affiliation during a lecture and found that only a tiny minority identifies as conservative. Of course, as he well knows, this isn’t strong evidence for the claim that social psychologists are overwhelmingly ‘liberal’ (in the American sense of that word), but the available data would suggest that this is overwhelmingly likely to be the case. If this is correct, social psychology would be unrepresentative of the general population (given that around 40% of Americans identify as conservatives). Hence Haidt’s call for affirmative action: aim to have at least 10% of the membership of the professional organization be conservative.Read More »Affirmative Action in Social Psychology?

Colourful images of brain scans tend to dominate the science sections of the popular media, and it is now fashionable to affix ‘neuro’ to most words of English. But there is a predictable grumpy backlash. The philosopher Roger Scruton finds the recent wave of neuroscience rather distasteful. It is all merely (in a phrase he borrows from Raymond Tallis*) ‘neurotrash’–which wonderfully evokes lurid synthetic pop manufactured in some disco den in Berlin (is Neuropop–or God forbid, the Neurovision–the next step?). Although Scruton makes a cursory reference to some arguments against current neuroscience**, it seems clear enough that what provokes his outrage isn’t some philosophical disagreement. It is that this new wave of neuroscience–or if you prefer, neurotrash–is just so obnoxiously vulgar.

Read More »Neurotrash and Neurobabble

One of the growth areas in recent analytic philosophy is social epistemology. Epistemology is concerned with the nature of knowledge, but social epistemology often has a more applied focus. It asks about the conditions under which groups produce knowledge, and one of its central claims is that groups are often better at discovering truths than are individuals.

This comforting claim seems, at first sight, to be challenged by contemporary political events. The recent electoral success of Tea Party candidates in the United States, following on the heels of strong showings for hard right parties in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, as well as an increase in xenophobic rhetoric from centre right leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, seem to cast serious doubt on the ability of the electorate to rationally assess policies. The problem is sharpest in the US case, since the Tea Party seems to have mobilized the white working class to vote against their own economic interests. In these circumstances, it is tempting for the social democrat or even the moderate conservative to say, with Brecht, that the government should dissolve the people and elect another one.

Read More »Political epistemology and recent Australian experience

On the 4th of January 2006, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (better known to his countrymen as ‘Arik’) suffered a massive stroke at his vast Sycamore Ranch. He was placed under induced coma from which he never recovered consciousness. The hero of the Yom Kippur war, the villain of the massacres in Qibya and Sabra and Shatila, has since been occupying a bed in the Tel Hashomer hospital, in a permanent vegetative state. A doctor has said that his brain is ‘the size of a grapefruit’—only the brain stem remains, maintaining vegetative functions. Beyond that, ‘there is nothing, just fluid’. Earlier this month, Sharon was driven back to the Sycamore ranch, for the first time since the stroke. He was later taken back to the hospital, but the idea seems to be that in time he will be moved there permanently. It is said that keeping Sharon alive in this way costs the Israeli taxpayer something around $400,000 a year.

It would take a miracle for Sharon to recover – which is just to say that he will never regain consciousness. One day, perhaps soon, perhaps in many years, his heart will finally stop beating, and he will be interned in a grave in some state ceremony. In one sense, this will be the second time that Sharon has died. But in another sense, Sharon will never really die.

Read More »Arik Sharon Back in the Sycamore Ranch

Lots of people believe in psychic powers, but there has never been any convincing evidence for their existence.  Though there are many anecdotes attesting to their existence (below I will say something about why we ought not to be impressed by these stories), there has never been any genuine evidence in their favour. That is, until now. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the most influential journal in social psychology, is about to publish a study that presents evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena.

Read More »Against Open Mindedness