Deliberating About the Public Interest

Although the idea of the public interest features prominently in many accounts of deliberative democracy, the relationship between deliberative democracy and the public interest is rarely spelt out with any degree of precision. In this article, I identify and defend one particular way of framing this relationship. I begin by arguing that people can deliberate about the public interest only if the public interest is, in principle, identifiable independently of their deliberations. Of course, some pluralists claim that the public interest is an implausible idea, which casts doubt on the idea that there might be something for people to deliberate about. Yet while, following Brian Barry, we can get around this problem by defining the public interest as an interest in which everyone shares qua member of the public, what still needs to be explained is why people should be prepared to privilege this particular capacity. I argue that the account of political equality with which deliberative democracy is bound up offers a compelling explanation of this sort, even if it also gives rise to some difficult questions of feasibility. I conclude by considering the charge that any political scheme that framed the relationship between deliberative democracy and the public interest in this way would be undesirable.     

An open letter to institutional review boards considering Northfield Laboratories' PolyHeme® trial

At the time of this writing, a widely publicized, waived-consent trial is underway. Sponsored by Northfield Laboratories, Inc. (Evanston, IL) the trial is intended to evaluate the emergency use of PolyHeme?, an oxygen-carrying resuscitative fluid that might prevent deaths from uncontrolled bleeding. The protocol allows patients in hemorrhagic shock to be randomized between PolyHeme? and saline in the field and, still without consent, randomized between PolyHeme? and blood after arrival at an emergency department. The Federal regulations that govern the waiver of consent restrict its applicability to circumstances where proven, satisfactory treatments are unavailable. Blood-the standard treatment for hemorrhagic shock-is not available in ambulances but is available in hospitals. The authors argue that the in-hospital stage of the study fails to meet ethical and regulatory standards.     

Vegetative state: efforts to curb misdiagnosis

Media reports on the case of Rom Houben have constituted a new reminder of the risks of misdiagnosis with cases with apparent vegetative state, particularly when following the clinical consensus of the care team as diagnostic criterion. Systematic use of behavioral and non-behavioral assessment strategies (e.g., behavioral scales, event-related potentials, and neuro-imaging) may help reduce the aforementioned risks. A new learning assessment strategy could also be considered part of the assessment to extend the evaluation process. Signs of learning might be viewed as forms of concrete knowledge representing a basic level of non-reflective consciousness.     

Authenticity in the Zhuangzi ? Contemporary Misreadings of Zhen 真and an Alternative to Existentialism

This essay reviews the Zhuangzian notion of zhen 真, often through the text’s advancement of the zhenren 真人 (“genuine person,” “true person”) or zhenzhi 真知 (“genuine knowledge,” “true knowledge”). Contemporary scholarship, in both Chinese and English, often presents zhen as analogous to the existentialist theory of authenticity, which correspondingly reflects on interpretations of the “self,” and thereby the zhen person. Much of the Zhuangzi is a reaction to the Lunyu, including an ironic response to the Confucian cultivation project. If we establish our interpretation of the “self” against this background then we find that zhen in the Zhuangzi is actually used to argue against the Confucian identification of the person and self through social roles or conventions. However, advocating zhen does not suggest that there is some essential or core “self” to refer to; instead, it implies a natural state of responsiveness where the person acts efficaciously by being in line with what is obvious or affirmed in the situation. This essay thereby presents a reading of zhen that is historically and culturally consistent, and sets up the Zhuangzi as an alternative, and not an echo, to some of the major issues dealt with by the existentialist movement.     

The information content of panoramic images II: view-based navigation in nonrectangular experimental arenas

Two recent studies testing navigation of rats in swimming pools have posed problems for any account of the use of purely geometric properties of space in navigation (M. Graham, M. A. Good, A. McGregor, & J. M. Pearce, 2006; J. M. Pearce, M. A. Good, P. M. Jones, & A. McGregor, 2004). The authors simulated 1 experiment from each study in a virtual reality environment to test whether experimental results could be explained by view-based navigation. The authors recorded a reference image at the target location and then determined global panoramic image differences between this image and images taken at regularly spaced locations throughout the arena. A formal model, in which an agent attempts to minimize image differences between the reference image and current views, generated trajectories that could be compared with the search performance of rats. For both experiments, this model mimics many aspects of rat behavior. View-based navigation provides a sufficient and parsimonious explanation for a range of navigational behaviors of rats under these experimental conditions.     

Object-based selection in the Baylis and Driver (1993) paradigm is subject to space-based attentional modulation

Three experiments re-examined Baylis and Driver's (1993) strong evidence for object-based selection, that making relative apex location judgments is harder between two objects than within a single object, with object (figure-ground) segmentation determined solely by color-based perceptual set. Using variations of the Baylis and Driver paradigm, the experiments replicated a two-object cost. However, they also showed a large part of the two-object cost to be attributable to space-based factors, though there remained an irreducible cost consistent with 'true' object-based selection.     

Hating the One You Love

Many testimonies, as well as fictional works, describe situations in which people find themselves hating the person that they love. This might initially appear to be contradiction, as how can one love and hate the same person at the same time? A discussion of this problem requires making a distinction between logical consistency and psychologically compatibility. Hating the one you love may be a consistent experience, but it raises difficulties concerning its psychological compatibility.     

The Effect of Residential Neighborhood on Child Behavior Problems in First Grade

Child behavior problems have been identified as being responsible for the greatest reduction in quality of life for children between ages 1 and 19. In this study, we examine whether neighborhood social processes are associated with differences in child behavior problems in an economically and racially diverse sample of 405 urban-dwelling first grade children and whether parenting behavior mediates and/or moderates the effects of neighborhoods. Furthermore, we examine whether neighborhood social processes play the same role with regards to child behavior problems at differing levels of neighborhood economic impoverishment. Results of multivariate multilevel regression analyses indicate that a high negative social climate is associated with greater internalizing problems. High potential for community involvement for children in the neighborhood was associated with fewer behavior problems, but only in economically impoverished neighborhoods. Differences in parenting behavior did not appear to mediate neighborhood effects on behavior problems, and parenting characterized by a high degree of positive involvement was associated with fewer behavior problems in all types of neighborhoods.