Does ought imply can?

Most philosophers believe that a person can have an obligation only insofar as she is able to fulfil it, a principle generally referred to as “Ought Implies Can”. Arguably, this principle reflects something basic about the ordinary concept of obligation. However, in a paper published recently in this journal, Wesley Buckwalter and John Turri presented evidence for the conclusion that ordinary people in fact reject that principle. With a series of studies, they claimed to have demonstrated that, in people’s judgements, obligations persist irrespective of whether those who hold them have the ability to fulfil them. We argue in this paper that due to some problems in their design, Buckwalter & Turri’s conclusions may not be warranted. We present the results of a series of studies demonstrating the problems with their design and showing that, with an improved design, people judge that obligation depends on ability after all

Incorporating clinical guidelines through clinician decision-making

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It is generally acknowledged that a disparity between knowledge and its implementation is adversely affecting quality of care. An example commonly cited is the failure of clinicians to follow clinical guidelines. A guiding assumption of this view is that adherence should be gauged by a standard of conformance. At least some guideline developers dispute this assumption and claim that their efforts are intended to inform and assist clinical practice, not to function as standards of performance. However, their ability to assist and inform will remain limited until an alternative to the conformance criterion is proposed that gauges how evidence-based guidelines are incorporated into clinical decisions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The proposed investigation has two specific aims to identify the processes that affect decisions about incorporating clinical guidelines, and then to develop ad test a strategy that promotes the utilization of evidence-based practices. This paper focuses on the first aim. It presents the rationale, introduces the clinical paradigm of treatment-resistant schizophrenia, and discusses an exemplar of clinician non-conformance to a clinical guideline. A modification of the original study is proposed that targets psychiatric trainees and draws on a cognitively rich theory of decision-making to formulate hypotheses about how the guideline is incorporated into treatment decisions. Twenty volunteer subjects recruited from an accredited psychiatry training program will respond to sixty-four vignettes that represent a fully crossed 2 × 2 × 2 × 4 within-subjects design. The variables consist of criteria contained in the clinical guideline and other relevant factors. Subjects will also respond to a subset of eight vignettes that assesses their overall impression of the guideline. Generalization estimating equation models will be used to test the study's principal hypothesis and perform secondary analyses.</p> <p>Implications</p> <p>The original design of phase two of the proposed investigation will be changed in recognition of newly published literature on the relative effectiveness of treatments for schizophrenia. It is suggested that this literature supports the notion that guidelines serve a valuable function as decision tools, and substantiates the importance of decision-making as the means by which general principles are incorporated into clinical practice.</p

Typicality and the Role of the Lebesgue Measure in Statistical Mechanics

Consider a finite collection of marbles. The statement &quot;half the marbles are white&quot; is about counting, and not about the probability of drawing a white marble from the collection. The question is whether nonprobabilistic counting notions such as half, or vast majority can make sense, and preserve their meaning when extended to the realm of the continuum. In this paper we argue that the Lebesgue measure provides the proper non-probabilistic extension, which is as natural, and in a sense uniquely forced, as the extension of the concept of cardinal number to infinite sets by Cantor. To accomplish this a different way of constructing the Lebesgue measure is applied. One important example of a non-probabilistic counting concept is typicality, introduced to statistical physics to explain the approach to equilibrium. A typical property is shared by a vast majority of cases. Typicality is not probabilistic, at least in the sense that it is robust and not dependent on any precise assumptions about the probability distribution. A few dynamica

Tracing the Arrows of Time

noOver the last century there have been a number of proposals to ground both local and cosmic arrows of time: from the Second law to the Growing Block Universe, from Decoherence to Earman’s time-direction heresy. The latter proposal rejects the traditional association of the Second law of thermodynamics with arrows of time. But it seems that notions like entropy and related notions – phase space volumes and typicality – are not easily banned from discussions of temporal arrows. A close reading of Eddington’s thinking on these questions reveals that his views underwent a considerable development. In particular Eddington abandoned his identification of the arrows of time with the increase in entropy and began to see the Second law as a criterion for temporal arrows. In the process, Eddington also developed an argument against Loschmidt’s reversibility objections, in terms of an expanding universe. This latter argument brings his contribution close to contemporary thinking in terms of Liouville’s theorem, the topology of phase space and typicality arguments. Their reliability to deliver arrows of time will therefore be considered. Are there arrows of time? This question is related to the epistemological views of both Eddington and Wheeler. They insisted on the role of inferences in scientific thinking. Physical reality was to be inferred from data (Eddington) or information (Wheeler) about the physical universe. The paper will conclude that the arrows of time are equally to be regarded as conceptual inferences from various physical criteria – not just entropy – which the universe makes available to us