The Puzzle of Pure Moral Motivation

People engage in pure moral inquiry whenever they inquire into the moral features of some act, agent, or state of affairs without inquiring into the non-moral features of that act, agent, or state of affairs. This chapter argues that ordinary people act rationally when they engage in pure moral inquiry, and so any adequate view in metaethics ought to be able to explain this fact. The Puzzle of Pure Moral Motivation is to provide such an explanation. This chapter argues that each of the standard views in metaethics has trouble providing such an explanation. Discussion of why reveals that a metaethical view can provide such an explanation only if it meets two constraints: it allows ordinary moral inquirers to know the essences of moral properties, and the essence of each moral property makes it rational to care for its own sake whether that property is instantiated

Aporetic Rhetoric: The Use of Uncertainty in Healthcare Contexts

This project examines how uncertainty is rhetorically deployed in healthcare contexts. Investigating four major healthcare contexts, I study how different forms of uncertainty produce distinct rhetorical effects and consequences. In Chapter 1, I explore how the haphazard use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war makes it difficult for veterans to prove their exposure to this deadly chemical. In Chapter 2, I examine the rhetorical strategies of mental illness skeptics and denialists, looking at how each deploys uncertainty in different and related ways. In Chapter 3, I investigate the intersection between design, emotion, and uncertainty as it appears in the patient experience process. Finally, in Chapter 4, I look at different methods of theory-building in addiction science, and argue that how theories wrangle with uncertainty lends them different virtues and vulnerabilities. Concluding, I suggest that the rhetorical use of uncertainty has “pharmaceutical” qualities, an argument that ups the stakes for both rhetoric and healthcare practice and theory

Severe Tricuspid Valve Injury During Right Ventricular Lead Extraction

SCI(E)ARTICLE2626-6283