Tal Axelrod
thehill.com
Originally posted February 15, 2019
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said Friday the panel believes two attorneys for President Trump may have given false information to government ethics officials.
Cummings said the panel has reviewed newly uncovered documents from the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) suggesting Trump's personal lawyer Sheri Dillon and former White House lawyer Stefan Passantino gave false info about hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
“It now appears that President Trump’s other attorneys — at the White House and in private practice — may have provided false information about these payments to federal officials,” Cummings wrote in a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.
Cummings said Dillon “repeatedly stated to federal officials at OGE that President Trump never owed any money to Mr. Cohen in 2016 and 2017” and Passantino falsely told officials that Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen had a “retainer agreement.”
The info is here.
Monday, February 18, 2019
State ethics director resigns after porn, misconduct allegations
Richard Belcher
WSB-TV2
Originally published February 8, 2019
The director of the state Ethics Commission has resigned -- with a $45,000 severance -- and it’s still unknown whether accusations against him have been substantiated.
In January, Channel 2 Action News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the story that staff members at the Ethics Commission wrote letters accusing Stefan Ritter of poor work habits and of watching pornography in the office.
Ritter was placed on leave with pay to allow time to investigate the complaints.
Ritter continued to draw his $181,000 salary while the accusations against him were investigated, but he and the commission cut a deal before the investigation was over.
The info is here.
WSB-TV2
Originally published February 8, 2019
The director of the state Ethics Commission has resigned -- with a $45,000 severance -- and it’s still unknown whether accusations against him have been substantiated.
In January, Channel 2 Action News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the story that staff members at the Ethics Commission wrote letters accusing Stefan Ritter of poor work habits and of watching pornography in the office.
Ritter was placed on leave with pay to allow time to investigate the complaints.
Ritter continued to draw his $181,000 salary while the accusations against him were investigated, but he and the commission cut a deal before the investigation was over.
The info is here.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Physician burnout now essentially a public health crisis
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey
Boston Globe
Originally posted January 17, 2019
Physician burnout has reached alarming levels and now amounts to a public health crisis that threatens to undermine the doctor-patient relationship and the delivery of health care nationwide, according to a report from Massachusetts doctors to be released Thursday.
The report — from the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — portrays a profession struggling with the unyielding demands of electronic health record systems and ever-growing regulatory burdens.
It urges hospitals and medical practices to take immediate action by putting senior executives in charge of physician well-being and by giving doctors better access to mental health services. The report also calls for significant changes to make health record systems more user-friendly.
While burnout has long been a worry in the profession, the report reflects a newer phenomenon — the draining documentation and data entry now required of doctors. Today’s electronic record systems are so complex that a simple task, such as ordering a prescription, can take many clicks.
The info is here.
Boston Globe
Originally posted January 17, 2019
Physician burnout has reached alarming levels and now amounts to a public health crisis that threatens to undermine the doctor-patient relationship and the delivery of health care nationwide, according to a report from Massachusetts doctors to be released Thursday.
The report — from the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — portrays a profession struggling with the unyielding demands of electronic health record systems and ever-growing regulatory burdens.
It urges hospitals and medical practices to take immediate action by putting senior executives in charge of physician well-being and by giving doctors better access to mental health services. The report also calls for significant changes to make health record systems more user-friendly.
While burnout has long been a worry in the profession, the report reflects a newer phenomenon — the draining documentation and data entry now required of doctors. Today’s electronic record systems are so complex that a simple task, such as ordering a prescription, can take many clicks.
The info is here.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
There’s No Such Thing as Free Will
Stephen Cave
The Atlantic
Originally published June 2016
Here is an excerpt:
What is new, though, is the spread of free-will skepticism beyond the laboratories and into the mainstream. The number of court cases, for example, that use evidence from neuroscience has more than doubled in the past decade—mostly in the context of defendants arguing that their brain made them do it. And many people are absorbing this message in other contexts, too, at least judging by the number of books and articles purporting to explain “your brain on” everything from music to magic. Determinism, to one degree or another, is gaining popular currency. The skeptics are in ascendance.
This development raises uncomfortable—and increasingly nontheoretical—questions: If moral responsibility depends on faith in our own agency, then as belief in determinism spreads, will we become morally irresponsible? And if we increasingly see belief in free will as a delusion, what will happen to all those institutions that are based on it?
(cut)
Determinism not only undermines blame, Smilansky argues; it also undermines praise. Imagine I do risk my life by jumping into enemy territory to perform a daring mission. Afterward, people will say that I had no choice, that my feats were merely, in Smilansky’s phrase, “an unfolding of the given,” and therefore hardly praiseworthy. And just as undermining blame would remove an obstacle to acting wickedly, so undermining praise would remove an incentive to do good. Our heroes would seem less inspiring, he argues, our achievements less noteworthy, and soon we would sink into decadence and despondency.
The info is here.
The Atlantic
Originally published June 2016
Here is an excerpt:
What is new, though, is the spread of free-will skepticism beyond the laboratories and into the mainstream. The number of court cases, for example, that use evidence from neuroscience has more than doubled in the past decade—mostly in the context of defendants arguing that their brain made them do it. And many people are absorbing this message in other contexts, too, at least judging by the number of books and articles purporting to explain “your brain on” everything from music to magic. Determinism, to one degree or another, is gaining popular currency. The skeptics are in ascendance.
This development raises uncomfortable—and increasingly nontheoretical—questions: If moral responsibility depends on faith in our own agency, then as belief in determinism spreads, will we become morally irresponsible? And if we increasingly see belief in free will as a delusion, what will happen to all those institutions that are based on it?
(cut)
Determinism not only undermines blame, Smilansky argues; it also undermines praise. Imagine I do risk my life by jumping into enemy territory to perform a daring mission. Afterward, people will say that I had no choice, that my feats were merely, in Smilansky’s phrase, “an unfolding of the given,” and therefore hardly praiseworthy. And just as undermining blame would remove an obstacle to acting wickedly, so undermining praise would remove an incentive to do good. Our heroes would seem less inspiring, he argues, our achievements less noteworthy, and soon we would sink into decadence and despondency.
The info is here.
Friday, February 15, 2019
The Economic Effects of Facebook
Mosquera, Roberto, Odunowo, Mofioluwasademi, and others
December 1, 2018.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3312462
Abstract
Social media permeates many aspects of our lives, including how we connect with others, where we get our news and how we spend our time. Yet, we know little about the economic effects for users. Using a large field experiment with over 1,765 individuals, we document the value of Facebook to users and its causal effect on news consumption and awareness, well-being and daily activities. Participants reveal how much they value one week of Facebook usage and are then randomly assigned to a validated Facebook restriction or normal use. Those who are off Facebook for a week reduce news consumption, are less likely to recognize politically-skewed news stories, report being less depressed and engage in healthier activities. One week of Facebook is worth $25, and this increases by 15% after experiencing a Facebook restriction (26% for women), reflecting information loss or that using Facebook may be addictive.
Ethical/Clinical Question: Knowing this research, is it ethical and clinically appropriate to recommend depressed patients to stop using Facebook?
December 1, 2018.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3312462
Abstract
Social media permeates many aspects of our lives, including how we connect with others, where we get our news and how we spend our time. Yet, we know little about the economic effects for users. Using a large field experiment with over 1,765 individuals, we document the value of Facebook to users and its causal effect on news consumption and awareness, well-being and daily activities. Participants reveal how much they value one week of Facebook usage and are then randomly assigned to a validated Facebook restriction or normal use. Those who are off Facebook for a week reduce news consumption, are less likely to recognize politically-skewed news stories, report being less depressed and engage in healthier activities. One week of Facebook is worth $25, and this increases by 15% after experiencing a Facebook restriction (26% for women), reflecting information loss or that using Facebook may be addictive.
Ethical/Clinical Question: Knowing this research, is it ethical and clinically appropriate to recommend depressed patients to stop using Facebook?
‘Science and the Good’ Review: The Anatomy of Morality
Julian Baggini
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published Jan. 15, 2019
Here is the conclusion of this book review:
But the authors’ core idea here—that if morality lacks some ultimate, non-natural basis, then it isn’t really morality—is a hangover from a Christian-Platonic way of thinking. For evidence that there is another way, look to China. There the ethics of an entire civilization has for millennia been based on a Confucian philosophy that concerns itself with how we live good lives and create an orderly society in the here and now—without pointing to a metaphysical realm for justification. Messrs. Hunter and Nedelisky rule out the possibility that what we understand as morality in the West might be revisable without our losing what is most essential about it.
They are right, however, to warn that such a deflated morality—concerned primarily with the pragmatics of social harmony—risks becoming a “sophisticated intellectualization for our pervasive regime of instrumental rationality.” Their important and timely book reminds us that ethics at its best challenges rather than justifies the status quo, which is why a purely descriptive science of ethics is never enough.
The info is here.
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published Jan. 15, 2019
Here is the conclusion of this book review:
But the authors’ core idea here—that if morality lacks some ultimate, non-natural basis, then it isn’t really morality—is a hangover from a Christian-Platonic way of thinking. For evidence that there is another way, look to China. There the ethics of an entire civilization has for millennia been based on a Confucian philosophy that concerns itself with how we live good lives and create an orderly society in the here and now—without pointing to a metaphysical realm for justification. Messrs. Hunter and Nedelisky rule out the possibility that what we understand as morality in the West might be revisable without our losing what is most essential about it.
They are right, however, to warn that such a deflated morality—concerned primarily with the pragmatics of social harmony—risks becoming a “sophisticated intellectualization for our pervasive regime of instrumental rationality.” Their important and timely book reminds us that ethics at its best challenges rather than justifies the status quo, which is why a purely descriptive science of ethics is never enough.
The info is here.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Sex talks
Rebecca Kukla
aeon.co
Originally posted February 4, 2019
Communication is essential to ethical sex. Typically, our public discussions focus on only one narrow kind of communication: requests for sex followed by consent or refusal. But notice that we use language and communication in a wide variety of ways in negotiating sex. We flirt and rebuff, express curiosity and repulsion, and articulate fantasies. Ideally, we talk about what kind of sex we want to have, involving which activities, and what we like and don’t like. We settle whether or not we are going to have sex at all, and when we want to stop. We check in with one another and talk dirty to one another during sex.
In this essay I explore the language of sexual negotiation. My specific interest is in what philosophers call the ‘pragmatics’ of speech. That is, I am less interested in what words mean than I am in how speaking can be understood as a kind of action that has a pragmatic effect on the world. Philosophers who specialise in what is known as ‘speech act theory’ focus on what an act of speaking accomplishes, as opposed to what its words mean. J L Austin developed this way of thinking about the different things that speech can do in his classic book, How To Do Things With Words (1962), and many philosophers of language have developed the idea since.
The info is here.
Happy Valentine's Day
aeon.co
Originally posted February 4, 2019
Communication is essential to ethical sex. Typically, our public discussions focus on only one narrow kind of communication: requests for sex followed by consent or refusal. But notice that we use language and communication in a wide variety of ways in negotiating sex. We flirt and rebuff, express curiosity and repulsion, and articulate fantasies. Ideally, we talk about what kind of sex we want to have, involving which activities, and what we like and don’t like. We settle whether or not we are going to have sex at all, and when we want to stop. We check in with one another and talk dirty to one another during sex. In this essay I explore the language of sexual negotiation. My specific interest is in what philosophers call the ‘pragmatics’ of speech. That is, I am less interested in what words mean than I am in how speaking can be understood as a kind of action that has a pragmatic effect on the world. Philosophers who specialise in what is known as ‘speech act theory’ focus on what an act of speaking accomplishes, as opposed to what its words mean. J L Austin developed this way of thinking about the different things that speech can do in his classic book, How To Do Things With Words (1962), and many philosophers of language have developed the idea since.
The info is here.
Happy Valentine's Day
Can artificial intelligences be moral agents?
Bartosz Brożek and Bartosz Janik
New Ideas in Psychology
Available online 8 January 2019
Abstract
The paper addresses the question whether artificial intelligences can be moral agents. We begin by observing that philosophical accounts of moral agency, in particular Kantianism and utilitarianism, are very abstract theoretical constructions: no human being can ever be a Kantian or a utilitarian moral agent. Ironically, it is easier for a machine to approximate this idealised type of agency than it is for homo sapiens. We then proceed to outline the structure of human moral practices. Against this background, we identify two conditions of moral agency: internal and external. We argue further that the existing AI architectures are unable to meet the two conditions. In consequence, machines - at least at the current stage of their development - cannot be considered moral agents.
Here is the conclusion:
The second failure of the artificial agents - to meet the internal condition of moral agency - is connected to the fact that their behaviour is not emotion driven. This makes it impossible for them to fully take part in moral practices. A Kantian or a Benthamian machine, acting on a set of abstract rules, would simply be no fit for the complex, culture-dependent and intuition-based practices of any particular community. Finally, both failures are connected: the more human-like machines become, i.e. the more capable they are of fully participating in moral practices, the more likely it is that they will also be recognised as moral agents.
The info is here.
New Ideas in Psychology
Available online 8 January 2019
Abstract
The paper addresses the question whether artificial intelligences can be moral agents. We begin by observing that philosophical accounts of moral agency, in particular Kantianism and utilitarianism, are very abstract theoretical constructions: no human being can ever be a Kantian or a utilitarian moral agent. Ironically, it is easier for a machine to approximate this idealised type of agency than it is for homo sapiens. We then proceed to outline the structure of human moral practices. Against this background, we identify two conditions of moral agency: internal and external. We argue further that the existing AI architectures are unable to meet the two conditions. In consequence, machines - at least at the current stage of their development - cannot be considered moral agents.
Here is the conclusion:
The second failure of the artificial agents - to meet the internal condition of moral agency - is connected to the fact that their behaviour is not emotion driven. This makes it impossible for them to fully take part in moral practices. A Kantian or a Benthamian machine, acting on a set of abstract rules, would simply be no fit for the complex, culture-dependent and intuition-based practices of any particular community. Finally, both failures are connected: the more human-like machines become, i.e. the more capable they are of fully participating in moral practices, the more likely it is that they will also be recognised as moral agents.
The info is here.
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Former San Diego psychiatrist won't see jail time after admitting to sexual contact with patients
Mark Saunders
www.10news.com
Originally posted January 18, 2019
A former San Diego County psychiatrist who admitted to having sexual contact with seven female patients during office visits and sexual battery will not see any jail time.
Leon Fajerman, 75, was not sentenced to any jail time during his sentencing hearing Friday. Instead, the judge ordered Fajerman to serve house arrest for a year, pay an undetermined amount of restitution, and he must register as a sex offender.
He is eligible to have an ankle bracelet removed after six months of house arrest, pending good behavior.
Friday, victim impact statement's were read in court by the victims' attorney, who called the sentencing of no jail time absurd. Jessica Pride, an attorney representing two victims said they suffered from, “post-traumatic stress disorder, they are also suffering from anxiety, night terrors, insomnia, suicidal ideations.”
The info is here.
www.10news.com
Originally posted January 18, 2019
A former San Diego County psychiatrist who admitted to having sexual contact with seven female patients during office visits and sexual battery will not see any jail time.Leon Fajerman, 75, was not sentenced to any jail time during his sentencing hearing Friday. Instead, the judge ordered Fajerman to serve house arrest for a year, pay an undetermined amount of restitution, and he must register as a sex offender.
He is eligible to have an ankle bracelet removed after six months of house arrest, pending good behavior.
Friday, victim impact statement's were read in court by the victims' attorney, who called the sentencing of no jail time absurd. Jessica Pride, an attorney representing two victims said they suffered from, “post-traumatic stress disorder, they are also suffering from anxiety, night terrors, insomnia, suicidal ideations.”
The info is here.
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