Medicine seeks to overcome one of the most fundamental fragilities of being human, the fragility of good health. No matter how robust our current state of health, we are inevitably susceptible to future illness and disease, while current disease serves to remind us of various frailties inherent in the human condition. This article examines the relationship between fragility and uncertainty with regard to health, and argues that there are reasons to accept rather than deny at least some forms (...) of uncertainty. In situations of current ill health, both patients and doctors seek to manage this fragility through diagnoses that explain suffering and provide some certainty about prognosis as well as treatment. However, both diagnosis and prognosis are inevitably uncertain to some degree, leading to questions about how much uncertainty health professionals should disclose, and how to manage when diagnosis is elusive, leaving patients in uncertainty. We argue that patients can benefit when they are able to acknowledge, and appropriately accept, some uncertainty. Healthy people may seek to protect the fragility of their good health by undertaking preventative measures including various tests and screenings. However, these attempts to secure oneself against the onset of biological fragility can cause harm by creating rather than eliminating uncertainty. Finally, we argue that there are good reasons for accepting the fragility of health, along with the associated uncertainties. (shrink)

This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek (...) thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This new edition features an entirely new preface by Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)

In _The Fragility of Things_, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to (...) Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. (shrink)

Ordinary common knowledge is formally expressed by strong probabilistic common belief. How strong exactly? The question can be answered by drawing from the similar equivalence, recently explored, between plain and probabilistic individual beliefs. I argue that such a move entails that common knowledge displays a double fragility: as a description of a collective state and as a phenomenon, because it can respectively disappear as group size increases, or more worryingly as the epistemic context changes. I argue that despite this (...) latter fragility, the effects of common knowledge on action are robust. Unfortunately, this in turn leads to a third fragility, that of the concept of common knowledge, which threatens to collapse on probabilistic common belief. This also reveals a disanalogy between the individual and the collective cases. I finally pinpoint the subtle difference entailed by the two concepts, expressed in terms of the attitude towards contrary evidence or of the agents’ awareness. As a result, common knowledge can be defended as a concept, which refers to a fragile yet distinct collective attitude. (shrink)

Loss of the Y‐chromosome is a common feature of species with chromosomal sex determination. However, our understanding of why some lineages frequently lose Y‐chromosomes while others do not is limited. The fragile Y hypothesis proposes that in species with chiasmatic meiosis the rate of Y‐chromosome aneuploidy and the size of the recombining region have a negative correlation. The fragile Y hypothesis provides a number of novel insights not possible under traditional models. Specifically, increased rates of Y aneuploidy may impose positive (...) selection for (i) gene movement off the Y; (ii) translocations and fusions which expand the recombining region; and (iii) alternative meiotic segregation mechanisms (achiasmatic or asynaptic). These insights as well as existing evidence for the frequency of Y‐chromosome aneuploidy raise doubt about the prospects for long‐term retention of the human Y‐chromosome despite recent evidence for stable gene content in older non‐recombining regions. (shrink)

In this article thinking on corporate social responsibility is compared with the dominant political theory of the market: theneoclassical theory. The comparison shows that thinking on CSR fundamentally collides with that theory. For example, their respectivenormative views on man are incompatible, as are their respective views on the modus operandi of the market. Given that CSR is desirable it follows that a new political theory of the market is needed. This article suggests some initial steps toward developing that new political (...) theory of the market. For example, it defends the proposition that the neoclassical idea of the market as a harmonic sphere must be replaced by the idea of the market as a fragile system. (shrink)

Recognizing the potential hidden artistic contributions of persons with dementia opens new opportunities for interpretation and potential communication. This visual essay explores the authors’ responses to the fragile objects of art produced by a person with severe dementia and examines what may be learned from them.

In a recent volume titled Demande (Expectation), containing texts written over a period of more than thirty years, but each devoted to different aspects of the relationship between philosophy and literature, Jean-Luc Nancy offers a suggestive account of their mutual genesis and ongoing dialogue in order to underline the way in which, beyond their apparent dialectical reciprocity, philosophy and literature are each inseparable from the unanswered and unanswerable questions they ask themselves and each other. Both, in other words, are said (...) to belong to the “in-between,” that fragile zone of undecidability that, according to Nancy’s reading of Kant, is a salient characteristic of all supposed self-identity. This article explores some of the implications of Nancy’s formulation as it affects the seemingly intractable question of myth’s interruption. It considers in particular some of the problematic features, deriving, it argues, from the inescapable fragility of thought itself, that may to be found in Nancy’s sometimes tense and contradictory engagement with the work of Maurice Blanchot, the subject of two important essays in Demande, which raises probing questions of Nancy’s own philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

Critics have charged that Heidegger's account of authenticity is morally nihilistic, that his fundamental ontology is either egocentric or chauvinistic; and many see Heidegger's turn to Nazism in 1933 as following logically from an indifference, and even hostility, to "otherness" in the premises of his early philosophy. In_ The Fragile "We": Ethical Implications of Heidegger's "Being and Time,"_ Lawrence Vogel presents three interpretations of authentic existence--the existentialist, the historicist, and the cosmopolitan--each of which is a plausible version of the personal (...) ideal depicted in _Being and Time._ He then draws parallels between these interpretations and three moments in the contemporary liberal-communitarian debate over the relationship of the "I" and the "We." His book contributes both to a diagnosis of what there is about _Being and Time_ that invites moral nihilism and to a sense of how fundamental ontology might be recast so that "the other" is accorded an appropriate place in an account of human existence. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that while Noë’s actionist approach offers an excellent elaboration of classical approaches to conceptual understanding, it risks underestimating the role of social interactions and relations. Noë’s approach entails a form of body-based individualism according to which understanding is something the mind does all by itself. I propose that we adopt a stronger perspective on the role of sociality and consider the human mind in terms of socially enacted autonomy. On this view, the mind depends constitutively (...) on engaging with and relating to others. As a consequence, conceptual understanding must be seen as a co-achievement. It is a fragile endeavour precisely because it depends not only on the individual but also on the continuous contribution of other subjects. (shrink)

John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus that (...) we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim. (shrink)

This paper explores the principle that knowledge is fragile, in that whenever S knows that S doesn’t know that S knows that p, S thereby fails to know p. Fragility is motivated by the infelicity of dubious assertions, utterances which assert p while acknowledging higher-order ignorance whether p. Fragility is interestingly weaker than KK, the principle that if S knows p, then S knows that S knows p. Existing theories of knowledge which deny KK by accepting a Margin (...) for Error principle can be conservatively extended with Fragility. (shrink)

Interfirm collaboration and trust are topics currently exciting research interest. The literature treats trust as a unitary concept, providing little understanding of those processes that create trust, or are employed by parties relying on trust. I suggest that two distinct forms of trust can be observed in economic exchanges: fragile trust and resilient trust. I define these kinds of trust, speculate on processes by which economic actors learn about them, and explore contexts in which they are likely to be relied (...) upon by economic actors. I conclude with a discussion of implications for practice and scholarship. (shrink)

Are fanatical beliefs rational? This paper examines this question. After outlining two arguments for the rationality of fanatical beliefs, based respectively on what I call the "crippled epistemology" explanation and the "echo chambers" explanation, the paper rejects these arguments by appeal to considerations related to higher-order evidence. Then it explains what defending the rationality of fanatical beliefs actually requires. From this, it derives the practical conclusion that radicalization can be prevented and the growth of fanaticism stalled by preventing the encroachment (...) of "fragile values.". (shrink)

Are fragile majorities capable of opening themselves to deep-rooted and new ethnic and cultural pluralism? What role does education play in this process? Based on ten years of comparative research, Fragile Majorities and Education is a nuanced study of ethnic dominance, linguistic integration of immigrants, and diversity in education. Ethnic relations are often depicted in an oversimplified framework where a clear dominant majority exercises power over various minorities. In many societies worldwide, however, this model does not hold true. In some (...) countries, two or more groups possess relatively equal power to control the state and impose their definitions of the nation, as is the case with Flemish speakers and French speakers in Belgium, and with Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. In other instances, such as in Quebec or Catalonia, clearly identifiable majorities are nonetheless minorities at a larger nation-state level, which creates a situation of ambiguous ethnic dominance. Marie McAndrew analyzes and clarifies these complex situations through the lens of education as a means for both maintaining and transforming ethnic boundaries and identities. Deeply insightful and meticulously researched, Fragile Majorities and Education is a groundbreaking contribution to the field of ethnic studies. (shrink)

The appreciation, conservation, and reconstruction of ruins, deteriorating buildings, and archaeological sites of historical, religious or cultural value, as well as their safeguarding, lead to a complex set of issues and considerations. This brief paper suggests that a deeper understanding of the various models of heritage management can enhance acceptance of the different practices of heritage care. The fragility of heritage sites and of heritage models urges us to look for viable answers to global ethical and aesthetic questions regarding (...) the management of heritage sites. (shrink)

We prove various theorems about the preservation and destruction of the tree property at ω2. Working in a model of Mitchell [9] where the tree property holds at ω2, we prove that ω2 still has the tree property after ccc forcing of size \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\aleph_1}$$\end{document} or adding an arbitrary number of Cohen reals. We show that there is a relatively mild forcing in this same model which destroys the tree property. Finally we (...) prove from a supercompact cardinal that the tree property at ω2 can be indestructible under ω2-directed closed forcing. (shrink)

Laver [L] and others [G-S] have shown how to make the supercompactness or strongness of κ indestructible by a wide class of forcing notions. We show, alternatively, how to make these properties fragile. Specifically, we prove that it is relatively consistent that any forcing which preserves $\kappa^{<\kappa}$ and κ+, but not P(κ), destroys the measurability of κ, even if κ is initially supercompact, strong, or if I1(κ) holds. Obtained as an application of some general lifting theorems, this result is an (...) "inner model" type of theorem proved instead by forcing. (shrink)

George Eliot often uses the language of determinism in her novels, but we do not understand her view very well by treating such phrasing as addressing debates about the freedom of will directly. Instead she uses seemingly deterministic terms, like the ‘law of consequences', to depict and analyse a particular problem in moral psychology: those instances where we ourselves make it impossible to act on our own best judgements. When we fail to act on our best judgement, this has downstream (...) effects, since it can produce a gap between prudential rationality and one's all-things-considered judgement. Surveying depictions of this problem in Silas Marner, Adam Bede, and Romola, I argue that it's a revealing problem for Eliot’s larger view, bringing together her objections to consequentialism, her recognition of the fragility of virtue, and her account of the role of sympathy in practical deliberation. (shrink)

Fragile X‐linked mental retardation is an enigmatic inheritable syndrome in which severe mental retardation, a cytogenetically detectable fragile site at Xq27.3 (FraX) and a number of dysmorphic features are associated. Genetic analysis shows that the mode of inheritance is more complex than a straightforward X‐linked recessive trait and probably involves a two‐step process for which several models have been proposed. Early attempts ‘at cloning the fragile site’ provided several DNA segments lying in its general vicinity, and large scale DNA mapping (...) methods were extensively applied in an effort to generate maps including this region. These efforts were complemented by more focussed methods such as microdissection; together these approaches have now provided a number of DNA segments within a 5cM interval around FraX, and with the help of these new probes the site is indeed being cloned. Unravelling the nature of the sequence(s) responsible for the mental retardation syndrome will probably take some time, however. (shrink)

The title of Georg Essen’s recent book sounds like an oxymoron: Fragile Souveränität—how can ‘sovereignty’ be ‘fragile’? Sovereignty has been regarded as one of the strongest powers in the history...

I argue in this paper that habits of moral attention, such as those that sustain racism and xenophobia, should be understood as attempts to deflect responsibility as Levinas describes it. The provocation to responsibility is fragile in the face of these moral habits, which separate the morally considerable from the morally inconsiderable. But in its traumatic quality, responsibility cannot be deflected entirely—it impacts the self prior to and outside of our attempts to manage our obligations. Levinas’s description of the interaction (...) between the conatus and responsibility should thus be read as a supplement to critical race theory, as an account that recognizes the power of moral habits but also the constant possibility of their interruption. (shrink)

"The Fragility of Consciousness is the first published collection of his essays and contains several of his best known writings as well as unpublished work. The essays in this volume exhibit a long interdisciplinary engagement with the relationship between faith and reason in the context of the crisis of culture that has marked twentieth- and twenty-first century thought and practice. Frederick G. Lawrence, with his profound and generous commitment to the intellectual life of the church, has produced a body (...) of work that engages with Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Ricoeur, Strauss, Voegelin, and Benedict XVI among others. These essays also explore various themes such as the role of religion in a secular age, political theology, economics, neo-Thomism, Christology, and much more. In an age marked by social, cultural, political, and ecclesial fragmentation, Lawrence models a more generous way--one that prioritizes friendship, conversation, and understanding above all else."--. (shrink)

Sounding Fragilities enacts a polyphony of writing on contemporary composition, music and performing arts in relation to music theatre. Co-edited by a theatre and performance scholar and by a composer and artistic researcher, this anthology considers its field of investigation through the lens of positionalities. Irene Lehmann and Pia Palme invite readers into intimate encounters with an artist's practice, feminist and queer perspectives, and personal explorations into aspects of musicology, theatre studies, technology and ecology. By presenting female* composers who write (...) with/through/about their own practice, Sounding Fragilities is a remarkable contribution to an interdisciplinary debate around the agency of artistic research. With this synthesis, the editors evaluate how moving beyond the binary of art and science reveals the rich yet fragile territories of artistic knowledge-production and literacy in music theatre. Sounding Fragilities: An Anthology brings together essays, discussions and interventions on contemporary music, dance and music theatre to offer a polyphony of new approaches to listening, watching, composing and performing. Artistic and academic researchers present reflections and insights into the fragilities of artistic materials, collaborations and the communities that build around live performances. Challenging the idea of isolated composers, choreographers, audience members and academic researchers, they stress instead the interconnectedness of these positions as indispensable elements of thriving performance and research. This feature of all live performance is envisaged by several of the book's contributors as linked to political, democratic thought and ecological or feminist thinking. (shrink)

It is perhaps our noblest cause, and certainly one of our oldest: to end suffering. Think of the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, or Marcus Aurelius: stoically composed figures impervious to the torments of the wider world, living their lives in complete serenity—and teaching us how to do the same. After all, isn’t a life free from suffering the ideal? Isn’t it what so many of us seek? Absolutely not, argues Todd May in this provocative but compassionate book. In a moving examination (...) of life and the trials that beset it, he shows that our fragility, our ability to suffer, is actually one of the most important aspects of our humanity. May starts with a simple but hard truth: suffering is inevitable. At the most basic level, we suffer physically—a sprained ankle or a bad back. But we also suffer insults and indifference. We suffer from overburdened schedules and unforeseen circumstances, from moral dilemmas and emotional heartaches. Even just thinking about our own mortality—the fact that we only live one life—can lead us to tremendous suffering. No wonder philosophies such as Buddhism, Taosim, Stoicism, and even Epicureanism—all of which counsel us to rise above these plights—have had appeal over the centuries. May highlights the tremendous value of these philosophies and the ways they can guide us toward better lives, but he also exposes a major drawback to their tenets: such invulnerability is too emotionally disengaged from the world, leading us to place too great a distance between ourselves and our experience. Rather than seeking absolute immunity, he argues most of us just want to hurt less and learn how to embrace and accept what suffering we do endure in a meaningful way. Offering a guide on how to positively engage suffering, May ultimately lays out a new way of thinking about how we exist in the world, one that reassures us that our suffering, rather than a failure of physical or psychological resilience, is a powerful and essential part of life itself. (shrink)

The theoretical framework adopted in the exact sciences, for constructing and testing deterministic theories on the one hand, and modelling and analysis of observed phenomena on the other, is often implicitly assumed to be that of structural stability. In view of recent developments in nonlinear dynamics, it is argued here that in general it may not be possible to assume strict determinism and structural stability simultaneously; either strict determinism holds, in which case the fragility framework may turn out to (...) be the appropriate framework for the study of certain phenomena in the exact sciences, or ‘structural stability’ is restored at the expense of introducing stochasticity. In this sense a certain degree of indeterminacy may be unavoidable even at the classical level. (shrink)

This article analyzes Heidegger’s Paris lecture, “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” in an attempt to understand the historical “task” that Heidegger seeks to examine when confronted with the agony of philosophy today. I attempt to valorize the understanding of time and history that Heidegger stages in his reading by demonstrating its entrance to be radical and novel with respect to other moments in Heidegger’s production: history here is not of “destiny”, that is, it does not coincide (...) with the appropriating orientation of man in time already presented in Heidegger’s other texts; rather, it is understood on the basis of the opening to the future that fragilizes and suspends all hope and all historical resolution. History is thought here as the desertification of present times, the completion of metaphysical nihilism, in which there opens at the same time a “perhaps” that, repeated many times throughout the lecture, takes up in all its complexity the problem of the future’s coming, of the extraordinary, of the opening, that is, of what, from the future, exceeds destiny. (shrink)

The fragility of democracy and the political aesthetics of public art -- Voices and places: the space of public art and Wodiczko's the homeless projection -- Democracy's "empty place": Rawls's political liberalism and Derrida's democracy to come -- Public art's "plain tablet": the political aesthetics of contemporary art -- Democracy and public art: Badiou and Ranciere -- The political aesthetics of Chicago's Millennium Park -- The political aesthetics of New York's National 9/11 Memorial -- Public art as an act (...) of citizenship -- Badiou on "being and the void.". (shrink)

Fragile X syndrome is the most common cause of inherited mental retardation in humans. The fragile X gene (FMR1) has been cloned and the mutation causing the disease is known. The molecular basis of the disease is an expansion of a trinucleotide repeat sequence (CGG) present in the first exon within the 5′ untranslated region of the FMR1 gene. Affected individuals have repeat CGG sequences of above 200. As a result the gene is not producing protein. It has been shown (...) that the FMR1 protein has RNA binding activity, but the function of this RNA binding activity is not known. The timing and mechanism of repeat amplification are not yet understood. An animal model for fragile X syndrome has been generated, which can be used to study the clinical and biochemical abnormalities caused by absence of FMR1 protein product. (shrink)

Academics are confronted with multiple and conflicting narratives as to what it is to be an academic. Their identities, however, are not entirely of their own making. Through a qualitative study, and deploying a social realist perspective, this paper analyses academic identities in Chile and attempts to locate the patterns of identity in the context of a marketised higher education system. The data were collected in both a state and a private university. The results suggest that distinct kinds of fragilities (...) may be emerging among Chilean academics (ontological and contractual fragilities). These two fragilities can be traced to the attendant structures of the university system at an institutional level (reputational fragility in the public sector and a branding fragility in the private sector). The paper concludes by observing that, although the power of the structures is considerable, there are still spaces for agentic responses. (shrink)

This article explores the role of second-order anger in the formation of resistant feminist space through the work of María Lugones and Sara Ahmed. I argue that this incommunicative form of anger can operate as a bridge between two senses of resistant spatiality in Lugones, connecting the hangout, which is a collective and transgressive space for alternative sense making, and the cocoon, which is a solitary and germinative space of tense internal transformation. By weaving connections with Ahmed’s concept of feminist (...) fragile sheltering, I demonstrate that the insulating character of second-order anger need not be equated with spatial solitude. Rather, given its orientation toward a future becoming away from oppressed subjectivity, germinative cocooning can be understood as constitutive of collective, feminist, and resistant spaces. I conclude, therefore, that feminist spaces ought to shelter second-order angers and embrace fragility as a condition of resistant transformation. (shrink)

This paper explores civility as a virtue for individuals within the sphere of civil society. Civil society is conceived as consisting of voluntary associations regulated by persuasion, praise, and shame. The virtue of civility is a key value for members of the associations of civil society. The paper considers circumstances in which institutions of civil society breakdown and in which unscrupulous and un-civil operators take advantage of more civil members. While admitting that civility is a fragile virtue, the paper concludes (...) that best solution to threats to civility is to avoid cynicism and to cultivate common-sense moral behavior that models civility. (shrink)

Sparked by the recent threats to an open and pluralistic society in both Europe and the United States, The Fragility of Tolerant Pluralism is an exploration of social and political philosophy. Using the early sixteenth century as a lens to view our own struggles with multiple visions of a good society, the book looks at tolerant pluralism in the light of the twin challenges of resurgent nationalisms and Islamist terrorism. The book makes a case not only for social toleration, (...) but for a deep pluralism that both values and celebrates difference. It also suggests that the radical sects in Europe in the early sixteenth-century challenged the political and religious monisms of both Catholic and Protestant territories, hence planting the seeds of tolerant pluralism. The struggles faced in the sixteenth-century both reflect and inform our own pressing concerns today and as such, The Fragility of Tolerant Pluralism draws six lessons for our current situation. (shrink)

The possibility of social and technological collapse has been the focus of science fiction tropes for decades, but more recent focus has been on specific sources of existential and global catastrophic risk. Because these scenarios are simple to understand and envision, they receive more attention than risks due to complex interplay of failures, or risks that cannot be clearly specified. In this paper, we discuss the possibility that complexity of a certain type leads to fragility which can function as (...) a source of catastrophic or even existential risk. The paper first reviews a hypothesis by Bostrom about inevitable technological risks, named the vulnerable world hypothesis. This paper next hypothesizes that fragility may not only be a possible risk, but could be inevitable,and would therefore be a subclass or example of Bostrom’s vulnerable worlds. After introducing the titular fragile world hypothesis, the paper details the conditions under which it would be correct, and presents arguments for why the conditions may in fact may apply. Finally, the assumptions and potential mitigations of the new hypothesis are contrasted with those Bostrom suggests. (shrink)

As the prevalence of conflict and fragility continue to rise around the world, research is increasingly heralded as a solution. However, current ethical guidelines for working in areas suffering from institutional and social fragility, insecurity or violent conflict have been heavily critiqued as highly abstract; focussed only on data collection; detached from the realities of academia in the Global South; and potentially extractive. This article seeks to respond to that assessment by spotlighting some of the most prevalent challenges (...) researchers face in the pursuit of ethical working practices. It explores the material and epistemic injustices that often shape and underpin research structures and relationships in these contexts. The paper draws on the authors’ experiences of research in conflict-affected and fragile contexts over the last fifteen years and on workshop discussions with researchers based in fragile and conflict-affected contexts conducted in Amman, Bogotá and Dhaka in 2019-2020. The paper works from the premise that achieving ethical research in fragile spaces is not dependent solely on activity at the site of research, but also on decisions made across the entire ecosystem of a research project. It therefore interrogates the full research landscape, from funding models, to research design (including research topics, partnerships, methods, participant selection, and researcher positionality), to dissemination plans and ethical gatekeeping. The paper critically reflects on inequities in the processes of knowledge production about conflict and fragility and the key ethical challenges that researchers encounter. It highlights the need for further guidance, support and accountability to ensure ethical research practices. (shrink)

Few discussions of the ethics of mitochondrial ‘replacement’ techniques have drawn significant ethical distinctions between the two approaches now legal in the U.K. However, Anthony Wrigley, Stephen Wilkinson and John Appleby have together argued that under some circumstances pronuclear transfer (PNT) may be in better ethical standing than maternal spindle transfer (MST). They base their conclusion on what they allege to be different implications of the techniques with respect to non‐identity considerations, which they ground on a version of origin essentialism. (...) I raise a series of problems for their argument, which have cautionary implications for invocations of origin essentialism that go beyond specialized debates regarding MST and PNT. I argue that (i) origin essentialism is a fragile foundation for non‐identity considerations; (ii) gametic essentialism, which Wrigley et al. believe licenses their claims, is more questionable than origin essentialism; (iii) gametic essentialism does not straightforwardly justify their conclusion; and (iv) their conclusion in fact relies on an especially dubious position that we can call chromosomal origin essentialism. No good reasons have yet been supplied to distinguish PNT from MST on ethical grounds, and one should be wary of basing claims with practical impact on fragile foundations relating to origin essentialism. (shrink)

It is customarily assumed that paracomplete and paraconsistent solutions to liar paradoxes require a logical system weaker than classical logic. That is, if a logic is not fragile to liar paradoxes, it must be logically weaker than classical logic. Defenders of classical logic argue that the losses of weakening it outweigh the gains. Advocates of paracomplete and paraconsistent solutions disagree. We articulate the notion of fragility with respect to the liar paradox and show that it can be disentangled from (...) logical strength. Strength and resilience to paradox do not force a trade-off with respect to liars: there can be logics which are not weaker than classical logic and are solid to the liar. (shrink)

The problem of objective threats and subjective experiences of fragility, insecurity of human life in the conceptual opposition to the boundlessness of the life force of humanity as a global community is discussed. Modernity multiplies both risks and threats, as well as the protection and omnipotence of man, leaving the individual a wide space of self-determination, in which, however, dangerous tendencies independent of man continue to persist. They are connected both with the progress of the technical and intellectual environment, (...) and with unexpected outbursts of militarism and political arbitrariness. (shrink)

According to a widely accepted conceptual model, principles play essential roles in moral reasoning: it is asserted that they hold universally and cannot be avoided in the justification of human action and belief. This paper challenges that view. It argues that, though some principles play such substantive roles, most do not. They can be characterized instead as being fragile or defeasible, i.e., they are capable of being weakened, voided or undone. The claim is made that it is the pressures exerted (...) by particular cases of moral dilemmas that are the sources of such fragility. The paper contains detailed examples illustrating how the process of defeasibility, including a retreat into moral vacuity, arises from such pressures. (shrink)

This article argues for a shift in evolutionary metaphor-from fitness and the elimination of the less fit to fragility and passage through fragile periods of change. Childhood, for example, can be viewed as state of protected weakness, allowing time for more neural development, learning, and play. Similarly, evolutionary change can be released precisely when competitive pressure is relaxed. The fragility of evolution in time extends to several biological domains. The genetic system exhibits a surprising fluidity, whether from mobile (...) genetic elements or hypermutation due to stress. Through gene duplication, organisms build up redundancy, which can more readily diverge into novelty. With endo-symbiosis one organism becomes incorporated into another, merging genomes, membranes, and metabolisms. As a result novel structures and genetic restructuring occur, making for profound evolutionary change. In a sexual life cycle, gametes within a species group fuse and amplify subtle variation. Hybridization, or unions between atypical sexual partners, can cause instant speciation and an instability that leads to more evolution. With development organisms go through rapid morphological change and sensitive transition phases. Importantly, dissociation of developmental modules in both temporal and spatial ways allow for evolutionary novelty to emerge. Several lines of evidence lead to the hypothesis that the organism's inner matrix can respond to stresses and help shape a fluid genome. In a second article, three more biological domains will be examined, in which organisms and environment more obviously interpenetrate: the remarkably plastic neural/behavioral system, novel synergisms between organisms, and the multiple, complex dynamics of ecosystems-all of which help to generate life's outstanding diversity. Last, the protection of fragile human populations will be discussed. (shrink)

Frailty has recently become a medical category with physical symptoms that define its diagnosis. This paper uses the resources of an ethics of care to analyze the relationship between frailty and fragility or vulnerability, the positives of frailty becoming a diagnostic category, and some problematic aspects of the same process.

This article analyzes narratives about living with HIV/ AIDS amid stigma, using the notion of “fragile stories” to further detail the linguistic practices through which people narrate experiences in danger of not being told. The article is based on fieldwork in 2008 in Durban, South Africa with a Zulu gospel choir in which all group members are living with HIV/AIDS. Close analysis of recorded narratives demonstrates how institutional story frameworks and the normative performance of gender helped storytellers to breach boundaries (...) drawn by stigma. The article consolidates research on narrative tellability and fragile stories, verbal art, and stigma. The article has implications for research amid stigma, advocating linguistic analysis of narrative to emphasize the relationship between stories told and life events involving stigmatization. (shrink)

Ferrarese develops our thinking about the social conditions of caring for others, while arguing for an understanding of morality that is materialist and political - always-already political.