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When reasoning about deontic rules (what one may, should, or should not do in a given set of circumstances), reasoners adopt a violation‐detection strategy, a strategy they do not adopt when reasoning about indicative rules (descriptions of purported state of affairs). I argue that this indicative‐deontic distinction constitutes a primitive in the cognitive architecture. To support this claim, I show that this distinction emerges early in development, is observed regardless of the cultural background of the reasoner, and can be selectively (...) disrupted at the neurological level. I also argue that this distinction emerged as a result of selective pressure favouring the evolution of reasoning strategies that determine survival within dominance hierarchies. (shrink)

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Two experiments were conducted to investigate children’s interpretations of standard arithmetic word problems and the factors that influence their interpretations. In Experiment 1, children were required to solve a series of problems and then to draw and select pictures that represented the problems’ structures. Solution performance was found to vary systematically with the nature of the representations drawn and chosen. The crucial determinant of solution success was the interpretation a child assigned to certain phrases used in the problems. In Experiment (...) 2, solution and drawing accuracy were found to be significantly improved by rewording problems to avoid ambiguous linguistic forms. Together, these results imply that (a) word-problem solution errors are caused by misinterpretations of certain verbal expressions commonly used in problem texts, and (b) these misinterpretations are the result of missing or inadequate mappings of these verbal expressions to partwhole knowledge. (shrink)

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Fairley and Manktelow (1997) have mistaken an error of presentation for an error of substance. My causal the- ory remains the same: Causal reasoning scenarios that require the reasoner to decide whether or not an effect will occur in the presence of a viable cause trigger considera- tion of disabling conditions—that is, factors that could prevent the effect from occurring in the presence of a vi- able cause. Scenarios that require the reasoner to decide whether or not a particular cause (...) has produced an ob- served effect trigger consideration of possible alternative causes. The data reported by Cummins (1995) and Cum- mins, Lubart, Alksnis, and Rist (1991) are consistent with this theoretical analysis. (shrink)

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Research from ethology and evolutionary biology indicates the following about the evolution of reasoning capacity. First, solving problems of social competition and cooperation have direct impact on survival rates and reproductive success. Second, the social structure that evolved from this pressure is the dominance hierarchy. Third, primates that live in large groups with complex dominance hierarchies also show greater neocortical development, and concomitantly greater cognitive capacity. These facts suggest that the necessity of reasoning effectively about dominance hierarchies left an indelible (...) mark on primate reasoning architectures, including that of humans. In order to survive in a dominance hierarchy, an individual must be capable of (a) making rank discriminations, (b) recognizing what is forbidden and what is permitted based one's rank, and (c) deciding whether to engage in or refriin from activities that will allow one to move up in rank. The first problem is closely tied to the capacity for transitive reasoning, while the second and third are intimately related to the capacity for deontic reasoning. I argue that the human capacity for these types of reasoning have evolutionary roots that reach deeper into our ancestral past than the emergence of the hominid line, and the operation of these evolutionarily primitive reasoning systems can be seen in the development of human reasoning and domain-specific effects in adult reasoning. (shrink)

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Dominance hierarchies are ubiquitous in the societies of human and non-human animals. Evidence from comparative, developmental, and cognitive psychological investigations is presented that show how social dominance hierarchies shaped the evolution of the human mind, and hence, human social institutions. It is argued that the pressures that arise from living in hierarchical social groups laid a foundation of fundamental concepts and cognitive strategies that are crucial to surviving in social dominance hierarchies. These include recognizing and reasoning transitively about dominance relations, (...) fast-track learning of social norms (permissions, prohibitions, and obligations), detecting violations of social norms (cheating), monitoring reciprocal obligations, and reading the intentions of others. (shrink)

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The purpose of the work reported here was to investigate the role of problem comparison and, specifically, analogical comparison in the induction of problem categories. This work was motivated by two factors. First, it is well-documented that experts and novices represent problems in very different ways and that solution success often depends on producing expert-like problem representations (DeGroot, 1965; Duncker, 1945; Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981; Hardiman, Dufresne, & Mestre, 1989; Novick, 1988; Schoenfeld & Herrmann, 1982; Silver, 1979, 1981). Second, (...) the problem representations produced by experts and novices appear to reflect differences in the way the two groups organize their knowledge bases. Although both groups appear to represent their problem-solving knowledge in terms of problem classes, or categories, expert categories tend to be defined in terms of deep structural features, whereas novice categories tend to be defined in terms of surface features (Adelson, 1981; Chase & Simon, 1973; Chi et al., 1981; Schoenfeld &. Herrmann, 1982; Silver, 1979, 1981). Because of this differential organization, experts are more likely than novices to retrieve solution-relevant information from their categories when constructing problem representations. (shrink)

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A cornerstone of economic theory is that rational agents are self-interested, yet a decade of research in experimental economics has shown that economic decisions are frequently driven by concerns for fairness, equity, and reciprocity. One aspect of other-regarding behavior that has garnered attention is noblesse oblige, a social norm that obligates those of higher status to be generous in their dealings with those of lower status. The results of a cross-cultural study are reported in which marked noblesse oblige was observed (...) on a reciprocal-contract decision-making task. Participants from seven countries that vary along hierarchical and individualist/collectivist social dimensions were more tolerant of non-reciprocation when they adopted a high-ranking perspective compared with a low-ranking perspective. (shrink)

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Although standard ethical views categorize intentional torture as morally wrong, the ticking time bomb scenario is frequently offered as a legitimate counter-example that justifies the use of torture. In this scenario, a bomb has been placed in a city by a terrorist, and the only way to defuse the bomb in time is to torture a terrorist in custody for information. TTB scenarios appeal to a utilitarian “greater good” justification, yet critics maintain that the utilitarian structure depends on a questionable (...) set of hidden assumptions. Three experiments were conducted to investigate endorsement of torture when these hidden assumptions were violated. In Experiment 1, results indicated that endorsement varied as a function of the success likelihood of torture and its alternatives. In Experiment 2, people found torture to be more acceptable, less wrong, and more obligatory when the suspect in custody was described as a “terrorist” than when he was described simply as an individual, and when he was described as culpable as opposed to innocent. These results are more consistent with retributive justice than utilitarian “greater good” concerns. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that utilitarian decision profiles were not associated with lower levels of empathic concern but were instead associated with personal distress and the ability to transpose oneself into a fictitious character's experience. Across the three experiments, deontologists were more likely to reject torture than utilitarians. (shrink)

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It is commonly supposed that evolutionary explanations of cognitive phenomena involve the assumption that the capacities to be explained are both innate and modular. This is understandable: independent selection of a trait requires that it be both heritable and largely decoupled from other ”nearby’ traits. Cognitive capacities realized as innate modules would certainly satisfy these contraints. A viable evolutionary cognitive psychology, however, requires neither extreme nativism nor modularity, though it is consistent with both. In this paper, we seek to show (...) that rather weak assumptions about innateness and modularity are consistent with evolutionary explanations of cognitive capacities. Evolutionary pressures can affect the degree to which the development of a capacity is canalized by biasing acquisition/learning in ways that favor development of concepts and capacities that proved adaptive to an organism’s ancestors. (shrink)

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Certain recurring themes have emerged from research on intelligent behavior from literatures as diverse as developmental psychology, artificial intelligence, human reasoning and problem solving, and primatology. These themes include the importance of sensitivity to goal structure rather than action sequences in intelligent learning, the capacity to construct and manipulate hierarchically embedded mental representations, and a troubling domain specificity in the manifestation of each.

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The ancient Egyptians and Dogon conceive that all elements of the universe operate in harmony. Therefore, the manner in which the Egyptians and Dogon express and experience their cosmologies must agree with this harmony. Using an African-centered approach, this study examines three key factors that define both cosmologies and allow for the full expression of harmony. The first key is Maat. Maat is the Egyptian principle of balance, order, justice, and harmony and is the fundamental descriptive characteristic of the universe (...) for the Egyptians and Dogon. The second key is myth. Myth discloses the sacred world. To the Dogon, myth represents the ultimate revelation of knowledge. In Egypt, creation narratives are told as myths. The third key is Nature. Nature provides the symbols, forms, images, behaviors, and objects used to express the cosmology. This study describes the place where these three factors converge. To do this, a multidisciplinary approach from philosophy, art, myth, and culture is used to provide context, because all have greatly influenced the perception of myth in culture. The articulation of Egyptian and Dogon stories of the universe is a feast for the tactile senses, challenging the mind, and able to be experienced through the simple activities of daily living. This study brings this to light. (shrink)

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De tout temps, les hommes d'Etat ont eu pour préoccupation majeure de réaliser l'intégration de leurs citoyens. C'est ce souci qui conduit, dès -334, Alexandre le Grand, élève d'Aristote, à l'élaboration d'une pensée unique et universelle pour assurer la cohésion de son Empire à l'échelle planétaire. La pensée devient alors, par sa fonction d'intégration, une entreprise gérée par l'Etat qui la fait évoluer selon des procédés appelés à se transmettre d'Empire à Empire. L'enquête menée par l'auteur, en suivant la formation (...) de la pensée universelle en milieux grec et romain, sa rivalité avec le judaïsme, sa rencontre avec le christianisme et sa confrontation avec l'Islam révèle les enjeux de fond qui expliquent la genèse de la pensée en Occident et les temps forts de son évolution. C'est à la lumière de ces enjeux que se sont trouvés éclairés les grands phénomènes de l'Histoire tels que la construction de l'Europe, les Renaissances et les profondes transformations mentales, culturelles et sociales qu'elles provoquent dans les sociétés d'Occident, l'explosion des hérésies, (des albigeois, des vaudois... ) et leur répression, les guerres saintes (le djihad, les croisades), l'antijudaïsme précurseur de l'antisémitisme, l'inquisition... Poursuivie jusqu'à Saint Louis, l'enquête a confronté l'auteur à trois espaces: l'Orient sunnite et chiite, l'Espagne musulmane et l'Occident chrétien et à plusieurs courants de pensée. En cela cet ouvrage pose un jalon essentiel dans l'exploration de l'histoire de l'Occident dans ses rapports avec l'histoire universelle, l'histoire du Saint-Siège et celle des minorités à laquelleDenise Bonan accorde une grande place. " Autant de sujets de discussion, souligne Jean Glénisson dans sa préface, pour les historiens et les philosophes qui trouveront dans cet ouvrage le lieu de rencontres stimulantes. ". (shrink)

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"Healing the past helps restructure the present, which then becomes the hope for the future." As we approach a new millennium, many of us are fearing for the future while hungering for a vision of our place in a sacred whole. The immense changes of the last hundred years have severed our sense of connection to a spiritual lineage that gave past generations the strength to meet life's challenges and bequeath wisdom to their descendants. In this inspirational yet down-to-earth book, (...) renowned healer and lecturerDenise Linn draws on her own story, as well as her Native American heritage and other ancient cultures, to guide you through acts of personal power that can reopen the wellspring of ancestral wisdom within you. By finding your roots and honoring your forebears--biological or adoptive, ethnic, cultural, mythological, and spiritual--you take your place as both a descendant and an ancestor. Defining who your ancestors are is a journey of self-discovery. Discovering who you are helps you break free from negative family patterns, embrace the positive, and create your own unique traditions. By fashioning a spiritual legacy through loving acts, you create energy to empower your future descendants. This fascinating guide teaches you to - Get in touch with the strength and spirit of your ancestors - Explore your personal myth - Restructure your past - Heal the family tree - Speak to your descendants through the art of giving - Revive rituals and create traditions for the twenty-first century With real-life stories and practical, easy-to-use exercises and meditations, Sacred Legacies shows how the choices we make in our own lives--however small--can forge a link with the future and help create a powerful new reality for all humanity and the planet. (shrink)

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Nonhuman animals are widely used in psychological research and the level of suffering and death is high. This is usually said to be justified by appealing to the scientific merit of the research. This article looks at notions of scientific merit, queries whether they are as clear-cut as commonly supposed, and argues that with contemporary conceptions it is too easy for any research to count as meritorious. A tightening of the notion of scientific merit is suggested, providing a ground for (...) rejection of certain psychological research. (shrink)

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Although we theorize that nurses ‘make a difference’ to patient outcomes and speculate that this happens because nurses ‘care’, there is so far little evidence to support this nebulous claim. Efforts to promote care as the defining characteristic of nursing, and an ‘ethic of care’ as the ethical basis of nursing, have sparked debate within the discipline. This debate has resulted in a polarization that has effectively stalled productive discourse on the issues. Moreover, the focus on care has been at (...) the expense of understanding the true nature of the relationship between caring and the broader base of ethical knowledge that underpins nursing and that must underpin nursing if it is a viable practice profession. This paper used the framework of philosophical argument to explore the moral and ethical foundations of nursing from the perspective of personal and public morals, and responsive nurse–patient relationships as the reflection of ethical nursing knowledge. The foundation of ethical nursing knowledge is the personal moral sense that resides within the individual and that nurses hold in common with others. Personal moral knowledge is transformed into disciplinary ethical knowledge specific to nursing through disciplinary consensus. Responsive relationships are conceptualized in the nursing literature as founded on three essential elements: respect, trust, and mutuality. These three elements are grounded in ethical nursing knowledge; therefore responsive nurse–patient relationships reflect both personal moral knowledge and disciplinary ethical knowledge. By facilitating the articulation of ethical nursing knowledge in practice, responsive relationships connect theory, ethical knowledge, and clinical outcomes. (shrink)

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An important contribution of Alan Patten’s Equal Recognition is the conception of neutrality that grounds his defence of minority cultural rights. Built in to his conception of neutrality of treatment is a notion of ‘fairness’ whose effect is to provide an upfront, across the board limitation on the demands cultural minorities may legitimately make on the rest of society. There must be limits on the duty to accommodate, but it obscures more than it illuminates to build this into the content (...) of the right to equal recognition itself. We see more clearly what is at stake in these conflicts by articulating the value of self-determination independently and taking account of necessary limits to its satisfaction as part of a second-stage analysis of what duties may be claimed and against whom. Familiar principles of discrimination law exemplify this alternative model. This presents the interest in self-determination more robustly, while acknowledging that the claims of duty arising out of it are defeasible. The result is a more flexible and nuanced exploration of the complex moral issues involved when fundamental interests clash. (shrink)

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A new research area linked to ethics, virtues, and morality is servant leadership. Scholars are currently seeking publication outlets as critics debate whether this new leadership theory is significantly distinct, viable, and valuable for organizational success. The aim of this study was to identify empirical studies that explored servant leadership theory by engaging a sample population in order to assess and synthesize the mechanisms, outcomes, and impacts of servant leadership. Thus, we sought to provide an evidence-informed answer to how does (...) servant leadership work, and how can we apply it? We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), a methodology adopted from the medical sciences to synthesize research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. A disciplined screening process resulted in a final sample population of 39 appropriate studies. The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed: (a) there is no consensus on the definition of servant leadership; (b) servant leadership theory is being investigated across a variety of contexts, cultures, and themes; (c) researchers are using multiple measures to explore servant leadership; and (d) servant leadership is a viable leadership theory that helps organizations and improves the well-being of followers. This study contributes to the development of servant leadership theory and practice. In addition, this study contributes to the methodology for conducting SLRs in the field of management, highlighting an effective method for mapping out thematically, and viewing holistically, new research topics. We conclude by offering suggestions for future research. (shrink)

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The main contention of this paper is that the underlying aim behind efforts to integrate ethics into the business school curriculum is in order to motivate and enable future business leaders to manage ethically and respond effectively to the challenges of sustainable development. Conceptualising ethics education in terms of eliciting behavioural change enables access into the insights provided by social psychological research into factors affecting behaviour, such as self-efficacy, subjective norms, knowledge, awareness, attitudes and role models. MSc students studying entrepreneurship (...) applied their entrepreneurial skills to help social enterprises achieve their objectives as part of their assessed coursework. With reference to a content analysis of their reflections, it is argued that such placements address these key factors identified as predicting behavioural change in a way that more traditional pedagogies cannot. (shrink)

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The purpose of this research paper is to identify which types of corporate philanthropy (CP): cause-related marketing (CRM) or sponsorship, create higher moralcapital under two conditions: proactive or reactive (following a scandal). Results showed that CP created higher moral capital for a proactive company than for a reactive company. Both CRM and sponsorship were perceived as more sincere in the proactive company than the reactive company. However, CRM was seen as self-serving in the reactive company, but not the proactive company. (...) The study demonstrated that companies need to take into account the different types of CP, as it has an effect on their moral capital. Socially proactive firms should engage in both CRM and sponsorship philanthropy, as both types can generate high moral capital, which creates better company reputation. However, CP may not be the most effective or appropriate strategy for creating moral capital following negative publicity. (shrink)

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Word problems are notoriously difficult to solve. We suggest that much of the difficulty children experience with word problems can be attributed to difficulty in comprehending abstract or ambiguous language. We tested this hypothesis by (1) requiring children to recall problems either before or after solving them, (2) requiring them to generate f'mal questions to incomplete word problems, and (3) modeling performance pattems using a computer simulation. Solution performance was found to be systematically related to recall and question generation performance. (...) Correct solutions were associated with accurate recall of the problem structure and with appropriate question generation. Solution "errors" were found to be correct solutions to miscomprehended problems. Word problems that contained abstract or ambiguous language tended to be miscomprehended more often than those using simpler language, and there was a great deal of systematicity in the way these problems were miscomprehended. Solution error pattems were successfully simulated by manipulating a computer model’s language comprehension strategies, as opposed to its knowledge of logical set relations. o was.. (shrink)

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The Michigan Department of Community Health stores almost 4 million dried blood spot specimens in the Michigan Neonatal Biobank. DBS are collected from newborns under a mandatory public health program to screen for serious conditions. At 24 to 36 hours of age, a few drops of blood are taken from the baby’s heel and placed on a filter paper card. The card is sent to the state public health laboratory for testing. After testing, MDCH retains the spots indefinitely for the (...) personal use of the patient and also, pursuant to a 2000 law, for possible research. (shrink)

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In theory, a human rights framework should protect and guarantee the equal provision of care and rights of all people. In practice, however, the universality that underlies human rights is enacted through citizenship rights, which rely on the individual politically ‘belonging’ to a nation-state.

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 41-53 [Access article in PDF] Bad WordsDenise Riley Introduction The worst words revivify themselves within us, vampirically. Injurious speech echoes relentlessly, years after the occasion of its utterance, in the mind of the one at whom it was aimed: the bad word, splinterlike, pierces to lodge. In its violently emotional materiality, the word is indeed made flesh and dwells amongst us—often long outstaying its (...) welcome. Old word-scars embody a "knowing it by heart," as if phrases had been hurled like darts into that thickly pulsating organ, but their resonances are not amorous. Where amnesia would help us, we can't forget.This sonorousness of vindictive words might help to characterize how, say, racist speech works on and in its targets. But doesn't such speculation also risk becoming an advocacy for the cultivation of insensitivity on the part of those liable to get hurt—or worse, a criticism of their linguistic vulnerability: "They just shouldn't be so linguistically sensitive"? There's much to be said for studiously practicing indifference. But the old playground chant of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me" was always notoriously untrue. The success of the tactics of indifference will also depend on the vicissitudes of the words' fate in the world, which is beyond my control. I change, too. As the terrain upon which malevolent accusation falls, I am malleable, while the harsh words themselves undergo their own alterations across time, and so their import for me weakens or intensifies accordingly. At times the impact of violent speech may even be recuperable through its own incantation; the repetition of abusive language may be occasionally "redemptive" through the irony of iteration, which may drain the venom out of the original insult and neutralize it by displaying its idiocy. 1 Yet angry interpellation's very failure to always work as intended (since at particular historical moments, I may be able to parody, to weaken by adopting, to corrode its aim), is also exactly what, at other times, works for it. In any event, interpellation operates with a deep indifference as to where the side of the good may lie, and we can't realistically build an optimistic theory of the eventual recuperability of harm. Here there's no guaranteed rationality, nor any inescapable irrationality. Repetition breeds its own confident mishearing, 2 but its volatile alterations lean towards neither automatic amelioration nor inevitable worsening.This observation, though, leaves us with the still largely uninvestigated forensics of spoken injury. Verbal attacks, in the moment they happen, resemble stoning. Isn't it making heavy weather, then, to ask how they do damage: isn't the answer plain, that they hurt just as stones hurt? At the instant of their impact, so they do. Yet the peculiarity of violent words, as distinct from lumps of rock, is their power to resonate within their target for decades after the occasion on which they were weapons. Perhaps an urge for privacy about being maliciously named may perpetuate the words' remorseless afterlife: [End Page 41] [Begin Page 42] I keep what I was told I was to myself, out of reserve, shame, a wish not to seem mawkish and other not-too-creditable reasons such as guarding the word so it can't slip away to be lost in the broad linguistic flood; yet even if I manage to relinquish this fatal stance of nursing my injury, it may well refuse to let go of me. Why, though, should even the most irrational verbal onslaught lodge in us, and why should it stubbornly resist ejection, and defy its own fading? For an accusation to inhere, must its human target already be burdened with her own prehistory of vulnerability, in the shape of some psychic susceptibility; must it even depend on her anticipating readiness to accept or even embrace the accusation that also horrifies? Maybe, then, there's some fatal attraction from the aggression uttered in the present toward earlier established reverberations within us, so that to grasp this phenomenon, we have to leave a linguistic account and turn instead to a prelinguistic... (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 32.1 (2002) 49-62 [Access article in PDF] "What I Want Back is What I Was" Consolation's RetrospectDenise Riley "If a horse in its elation should say 'I am beautiful' it would be bearable" [Epictetus 289]. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, doesn't go on to say that if a human were to utter the same sentiment, it would be unbearable: only that the horse's owner shouldn't try to (...) take credit himself for the gratuitous beauty of his animal, or try to bask in those equine good looks which, if owned by him, aren't his. The horse, though, in its jubilation can get away with boasting.There's a noticeable awkwardness in any mention of human physical beauty; its embarrassment can include a fear of lapsing into that vanity deplored alike by the Old Testament and by some feminisms. This hesitation isn't simply the wish to steer clear of laying arrogant claims to distinction; for someone can say, not boastfully but in the spirit of mentioning a contingent fact, "I used to be a strong swimmer," without the same sheepishness. But there does seem to be something especially stubborn, unmentionable, about beauty's independence. The fact that, as a lost thing, it was never owned isn't enough to characterize faded beauty's discursive peculiarities. For the same holds true, for instance, of youth. It's extremely difficult to feel yourself to be young at the actual time when you are. Certainly I was never a child.These pages skip all but one small aspect of this matter of who or what can claim beauty. They'll look only at an extremely common sentence of regret for lost physical beauty: at the strange bending of time implicit in saying inwardly, "Yes, I suppose in the past I must have been beautiful, as people used to say, although at the time I never saw it." To meditate on this very ordinary thought is by no means to despise it; and it would be foolish to tut over such retrospective self-shaping. This is how the language of self-characterization often operates backwards.1It would be vacuous to condemn our attempts at a little distraction from the approach of death with sentences like "After all, I suppose I must have been something of a beauty when I was young," or at least, where you know you can't make such a claim, the ever-reliable lament "Compared to what I am now, they should have seen me then!" (Indeed such slipping into the retrospective-fantastic mood may be positively benign in another content: for instance, a compensating refusal to treat anyone now as harshly as I was myself treated then. And there could be far riskier contents to a sentence of retrospective "realization" than mere vanity, such as revelation and enlightenment: "now I see that all along I was a favored son of God, though formerly I was blind to this shining truth.") Meanwhile timor mortis is ever at hand, and will only intensify: [End Page 49]The wrinkles which thy glass will truly showOf mouthèd graves will give thee memory.2Still, there's something of a taboo or an unnameability about the gradual erosion of whatever we feel we once had by way of beauty, a silence which, unsurprisingly, persists irrespective of the enormous new industries of repair and regeneration. This anxiety over the eclipse of your looks is exhaustively catered to (and, in the process, magnified) yet is itself a dread scarcely mentioned. How beauty's ordinary loss is silently spoken is a point at which the consolations of illusion meet and fortify the illusions of consolation. If their encounter produces a blankness liable to sink into depressive shame, arguably this adds to an unvoiced vertigo of the everyday; but what more might thinking aloud about it do? 1 The Sentence of Retrospect For the purposes of illustrating this grammar of concessive retrospect, let's imagine a puppet (for the purposes of argument here, a caricature will have to do) oddly equipped with... (shrink)

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Ethics consultants and critical care clinicians reflect on Seattle’s early experience as the United States’ first epicenter of COVID-19. We discuss ethically salient issues confronted at UW Medicin...

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Surgical innovation involves practices, such as new devices, technologies, procedures, or applications, which are novel and untested. Although innovative practices are believed to offer an improvement on the standard surgical approach, they may prove to be inefficacious or even dangerous. This article considers how surgeons considering innovation should reason in the conditions of uncertainty that characterize innovative surgery. What attitude to the unknown risks of innovative surgery should they take? The answer to this question involves value judgments about the acceptability (...) of risk taking when satisfactory scientific information is not available. This question has been confronted in legal contexts, where risk aversion in the form of the precautionary principle has become increasingly influential as a regulatory response to innovative technologies that pose uncertain future hazards. This article considers whether it is appropriate to apply a precautionary approach when making decisions about innovative surgery. (shrink)

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