Adaptation and Moral Realism

Conventional wisdom has it that evolution makes a sham of morality, even if morality is an adaptation. I disagree. I argue that our best current adaptationist theory of meaning offers objective truth conditionsfor signaling systems of all sorts. The objectivity is, however, relative to species – specifically to the adaptive history of the signaling system in question. While evolution may not provide the kind of species independent objective standards that (e.g.) Kantians desire, this should be enough for the practical work of justifying our confidence in the objectivity of moral standards. If you believe morality is an adaptation, you should be a moral realist.     

Moral Realism and Teleosemantics

William Harms has argued that if human morality is the product ofnatural selection, moral realism will follow. The thesis that hethinks allows this bridge is teleosemantics. This argument ismistaken. Even granting both premises, forms of radical moralnon-realism remain viable, since the utterance of mistaken statements(or commands) may enhance reproductive fitness.     

The Nature and Value of Bioethics Expertise

In this article, I address the extent to which experts in bioethics can contribute to healthcare delivery by way of aid in clinical decision‐making and policy‐formation. I argue that experts in bioethics are moral experts, in that their substantive moral views are more likely to be correct than those of non‐bioethicists, all else being equal, but that such expertise is of use in a relatively limited class of cases. In so doing, I respond to two recent arguments against the view that bioethicists are moral experts, one by Christopher Cowley and another by David Archard. I further argue that bioethics experts have significant additional contributions to make to healthcare delivery, and highlight a hitherto neglected aspect of that contribution: amelioration of moral misconception among clinicians. I describe in detail several aspects of moral misconception, and show how the bioethicist is in a prime position to resolve that sort of error.     

Afterword: Dark Anthropology in Papua New Guinea?

Ranging from colonial modernism to postcolonial disappointment, the papers in this collection explore the possibilities of Dark Anthropology and an Anthropology of the Good in Papua New Guinea. With these two prospects in mind, I consider what these papers tell us about the situations of rural people on the peripheries of large resource projects and those in ‘Last Places’ bypassed by development and the State. In all of these cases, difficult predicaments entail hardship or suffering, but are also met with responses seeking to realise varying versions of the good. This, in turn, prompts further questions about which and whose good are at issue amid a plurality of values. I conclude by suggesting that the ensemble of papers offers a retrospective on local versions of modernity as possibility contends with experience.     

基于博弈论的护理管理道德风险控制分析

护理管理过程中的委托代理关系及信息不对称性可能导致道德风险的存在,由此可能引发护患冲突,影响医院的品牌信誉和经济效益。以博弈论为研究方法,对护理管理过程中护理管理部门与护理人员之间和患者与护理人员之间存在的道德风险进行了博弈分析,找出了两种关系下博弈双方的混合战略纳什均衡。护理部与护理人员之间的混合战略纳什均衡是α=D/E与β=（E－B）/E,患者与护理人员之间的混合战略纳什均衡是γ=T/U与δ=（U＋R）/U。为持续维持护理管理中稳定均衡的博弈关系,医院应该采取措施加强道德风险的管理与防范,并开展延续护理服务,政府主导人力资源的配置改革并进行干预。