Technological advances in veterinary medicine have produced considerable progress in the diagnosis and treatment of numerous diseases in animals. At the same time, veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and owners of animals face increasingly complex situations that raise questions about goals of care and correct or reasonable courses of action. These dilemmas are frequently controversial and can generate conflicts between clients and health care providers. In many ways they resemble the ethical challenges confronted by human medicine and that spawned the creation of (...) clinical ethics committees as a mechanism to analyze, discuss, and resolve disagreements. The staff of the North Carolina State University Veterinary Hospital, a specialty academic teaching institution, wanted to investigate whether similar success could be achieved in the tertiary care veterinary setting. We discuss the background and rationale for this method, as well as the approach that was taken to create a clinical ethics committee. (shrink)

Meiotic recombination is one of the main sources of genetic variation, a fundamental factor in the evolutionary adaptation of sexual eukaryotes. Yet, the role of variation in recombination rate and other recombination features remains underexplored. In this review, we focus on the sensitivity of recombination rates to different extrinsic and intrinsic factors. We briefly present the empirical evidence for recombination plasticity in response to environmental perturbations and/or poor genetic background and discuss theoretical models developed to explain how such plasticity could (...) have evolved and how it can affect important population characteristics. We highlight a gap between the evidence, which comes mostly from experiments with diploids, and theory, which typically assumes haploid selection. Finally, we formulate open questions whose solving would help to outline conditions favoring recombination plasticity. This will contribute to answering the long‐standing question of why sexual recombination exists despite its costs, since plastic recombination may be evolutionary advantageous even in selection regimes rejecting any non‐zero constant recombination. (shrink)

Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behavior. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental diversity, have mostly been studied individually. However, cross-cultural studies allow us to extrapolate forager-wide trends in how, when, and from whom hunter-gatherer children learn their subsistence skills. We perform a meta-ethnography, which allows us (...) to systematically extract, summarize, and compare both quantitative and qualitative literature. We found 58 publications focusing on learning subsistence skills. Learning begins early in infancy, when parents take children on foraging expeditions and give them toy versions of tools. In early and middle childhood, children transition into the multi-age playgroup, where they learn skills through play, observation, and participation. By the end of middle childhood, most children are proficient food collectors. However, it is not until adolescence that adults (not necessarily parents) begin directly teaching children complex skills such as hunting and complex tool manufacture. Adolescents seek to learn innovations from adults, but they themselves do not innovate. These findings support predictive models that find social learning should occur before individual learning. Furthermore, these results show that teaching does indeed exist in hunter-gatherer societies. And, finally, though children are competent foragers by late childhood, learning to extract more complex resources, such as hunting large game, takes a lifetime. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider how the notion of metalinguistic negotiation interacts with various theories of generics. The notion of metalinguistic negotiation we discuss stems from previous work from two of us (Plunkett and Sundell). Metalinguistic negotiations are disputes in which speakers disagree about normative issues concerning language, such as issues about what a given word should mean in the relevant context, or which of a range of related concepts a word should express. In a metalinguistic negotiation, speakers argue about (...) such issues implicitly, via competing “metalinguistic” usages of terms. Here, we argue that some disputes involving generics are best thought of as metalinguistic negotiations, and that these cases can be illuminating for our more general theorizing about generics. Specifically, we argue that the “contextualist” theory of generics that one of us (Sterken) has developed in other work is best equipped to account for these metalinguistic negotiations, relative to other leading views of generics. We thus argue for a “package deal” view of generics: a view that combines Plunkett and Sundell’s account of metalinguistic negotiation with Sterken’s contextualist view of generics. (shrink)

Recent years have seen renewed interest in the semantics of generics. And a relatively mainstream view in this work is that the semantics of generics must appeal to kinds. But what are kinds? Can we learn anything about their nature by looking at how semantic theories of generics appeal to them? In this article, we overview recent work on the semantics of generics and consider their consequences for our understanding of the metaphysics of kinds.

We claim that a moral obligation to take climate leadership by means of unilateral mitigation depends on the existence of a plausible follow-the-leader mechanism whereby unilateral mitigation by some increases the probability of sufficient mitigation by others to avert catastrophic climate impacts. By understanding these mechanisms, we can better articulate the obligation for climate leadership across various sectors, from government to individual actors, in the fight against climate change. [Open access].

Behavioral genetics and cultural evolution have both revolutionized our understanding of human behavior – largely independent of each other. Here, we reconcile these two fields under a dual inheritance framework, offering a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between genes and culture. Going beyond typical analyses of gene–environment interactions, we describe the cultural dynamics that shape these interactions by shaping the environment and population structure. A cultural evolutionary approach can explain, for example, how factors such as rates of innovation and (...) diffusion, density of cultural subgroups, and tolerance for behavioral diversity impact heritability estimates, thus yielding predictions for different social contexts. Moreover, when cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, and the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment. The manner of confounding is specific to a particular society at a particular time, but a WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) sampling problem obscures this boundedness. Cultural evolutionary dynamics are typically missing from models of gene-to-phenotype causality, hindering generalizability of genetic effects across societies and across time. We lay out a reconciled framework and use it to predict the ways in which heritability should differ between societies, between socioeconomic levels, and other groupings within some societies but not others, and over the life course. An integrated cultural evolutionary behavioral genetic approach cuts through the nature–nurture debate and helps resolve controversies in topics such as IQ. (shrink)

We discuss the relationship between expertise, expert authority, and trust in the case of vaccine research and policy, with a particular focus on COVID-19 vaccines. We argue that expert authority is not merely an epistemic notion, but entails being trusted by the relevant public and is valuable if it is accompanied by expert trustworthiness. Trustworthiness requires, among other things, being transparent, acknowledging uncertainty and expert disagreement (e.g., around vaccines’ effectiveness and safety), being willing to revise views in response to new (...) evidence, and being clear about the values that underpin expert recommendations. We explore how failure to acknowledge expert disagreement and uncertainty can undermine trust in vaccination and public health experts, using expert recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines as a case study. (shrink)

BackgroundHumanitarian crises and emergencies, events often marked by high mortality, have until recently excluded palliative care—a specialty focusing on supporting people with serious or terminal illness or those nearing death. In the COVID-19 pandemic, palliative care has received unprecedented levels of societal attention. Unfortunately, this has not been enough to prevent patients dying alone, relatives not being able to say goodbye and palliative care being used instead of intensive care due to resource limitations. Yet global guidance was available. In 2018, (...) the WHO released a guide on‘Integrating palliative care and symptom relief into the response to humanitarian emergencies and crises’—the first guidance on the topic by an international body.AimsThis paper argues that while a landmark document, the WHO guide took a narrowly clinical bioethics perspective and missed crucial moral dilemmas. We argue for adding a population-level bioethics lens, which draws forth complex moral dilemmas arising from the fact that groups having differential innate and acquired resources in the context of social and historical determinants of health. We discuss dilemmas concerning: limitations of material and human resources; patient prioritisation; euthanasia; and legacy inequalities, discrimination and power imbalances.ImplicationsIn parts of the world where opportunity for preparation still exists, and as countries emerge from COVID-19, planners must consider care for the dying. Immediate steps to support better resolutions to ethical dilemmas of the provision of palliative care in humanitarian and emergency contexts will require honest debate; concerted research effort; and international, national and local ethical guidance. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to explore various ways of thinking about the concept of manipulation in order to capture both current and potentially future instances of machine manipulation, manipulation on the part of everything from the Facebook advertising algorithm to super-intelligent AGI. Three views are considered: a conservative one, which slightly tweaks extant influence-based theories of manipulation; a dismissive view according to which it doesn't matter much if machines are literally manipulative, provided we can classify them as so (...) doing to make sense of our interactions with them; and an ameliorative analysis, according to which we should change our concept of manipulation better to make sense of machine manipulation. We tentatively favor the latter. (shrink)

In a project The Hastings Center is now running on the future of prenatal testing, we are encountering clear examples, both in established law and in the practices of individual providers, of failures to respect women's reproductive autonomy: when testing is not offered to certain demographics of women, for instance, or when the choices of women to terminate or continue pregnancies are prohibited or otherwise not supported. But this project also raises puzzles for reproductive autonomy. We have learned that some (...) clinicians and patients do not discuss the fact that prenatal testing can lead to a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy—they just don't talk about it. And while the decision whether to agree to prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is to be made with women's free and informed consent, many screening tests have been routinized in such a way that some women do not even recall agreeing to testing, while others feel that agreeing to testing is what their clinicians expect of them or that the testing is necessary to protect themselves and their families from the significant financial hardship of raising a child with a disability. In the face of these pressures, can one really say that women are freely choosing to undergo testing or are freely choosing to continue or terminate a pregnancy following receipt of test results? The reality of these pressures is requiring us to consider expanding the scope of our investigation beyond the clinical encounter to the broader context—to think harder about what reproductive autonomy means and how best to enhance it. (shrink)

Moral and social philosophers often assume that humans beings are and ought to be autonomous. This tradition of individualism, or atomism, underlies many of our assumptions about ethics and law; it provides a legitimating framework for liberal democracy and free market capitalism. In this powerful book, David Weissman argues against atomistic ontologies, affirming instead that all of reality is social. Every particular is a system created by the reciprocal causal relations of its parts, he explains. Weissman formulates an (...) original metaphysics of nature that remains true to what is known through the empirical sciences, and he applies his hypothesis to a range of topics in psychology, morals, sociology, and politics. The author contends that systems are sometimes mutually independent, but many systems-human ones especially-are joined in higher order systems, such as families, friendships, businesses, and states, that are overlapping or nested. Weissman tests this schematic claim with empirical examples in chapters on persons, sociality, and value. He also considers how the scheme applies to particular issues related to deliberation, free speech, conflict, and ecology. (shrink)

Many of the things we do, we do together with other people. Think of carpooling and playing tennis. In the past two or three decades it has become increasingly popular to analyze such collective actions in terms of collective intentions. This volume brings together ten new philosophical essays that address issues such as how individuals succeed in maintaining coordination throughout the performance of a collective action, whether groups can actually believe propositions or whether they merely accept them, and what kind (...) of evidence, if any, disciplines such as cognitive science and semantics provide in support of irreducibly collective states.The theories of the Big Four of collective intentionality -- Michael Bratman, Raimo Tuomela, John Searle, and Margaret Gilbert -- and the Big Five of Social Ontology -- which in addition to the Big Four includes Philip Pettit -- play a central role in almost all of these essays. Drawing on insights from a wide range of disciplines including dynamical systems theory, economics, and psychology, the contributors develop existing theories, criticize them, or provide alternatives to them.Several essays challenge the idea that there is a straightforward dichotomy between individual and collective level rationality, and explore the interplay between these levels in order to shed new light on the alleged discontinuities between them. These contributions make abundantly clear that it is no longer an option simply to juxtapose analyses of individual and collective level phenomena and maintain that there is a discrepancy. Some go as far as arguing that on closer inspection the alleged discontinuities dissolve. (shrink)

Binding theory (e.g., Chomsky, 1981) has played a central role in both syntactic theory and models of language processing. Its constraints are designed to predict that the referential domains of pronouns and reflexives are nonoverlapping, that is, are complementary; these constraints are also thought to play a role in online reference resolution. The predictions of binding theory and its role in sentence processing were tested in four experiments that monitored participants' eye movements as they followed spoken instructions to have a (...) doll touch a picture belonging to another doll. The instructions used pronouns and reflexives embedded in picture noun phrases (PNPs) containing possessor phrases (e.g., Pick up Ken. Have Ken touch Harry's picture of himself). Although the interpretations assigned to pronouns were generally consistent with binding theory, reflexives were frequently assigned interpretations that violated binding theory. In addition, the timing and pattern of eye movements were inconsistent with models of language processing that assume that binding theory acts as an early filter to restrict the referential domain. The interpretations assigned to reflexives in PNPs with possessors suggest that they are binding‐theory‐exempt logophors, a conclusion that unifies the treatment of reflexives in PNPs. (shrink)

The authors suggest creating a scheme that offers new incentives for research on diseases disproportionately affecting the poor, with the goal of making development of neglected disease vaccines a lucrative endeavor for pharmaceutical companies.

Sedlakova and Traschel argue that conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) is more than a mere tool, but not quite an agent, as it “simulates having a therapeutic conversation [but] does not re...

Rachel de Villeneuve La lettre fut le moyen pour Paul de garder le contact avec les premières communautés judéo-chrétiennes, ou parfois d’en créer un, comme pour la communauté de Rome. De nombreuses études ont bien montré la force présentielle qu’ont exercée les missives pauliniennes. Cet article veut pousser plus loin l’idée de la lettre-présence en posant l’hypothèse que c’est aussi un visage, une figure de l’apôtre, qui se dessine grâce à la lecture de chaque lettre. Paul parvient à imposer (...) une présence qui témoigne de son message et de son expérience. Nous proposerons en ce sens le concept de visage épistolaire, et nous montrerons à travers Romains comment émerge ce visage, et surtout ce qu’il exprime pour compléter le message transmis. (shrink)

People frequently gesture when a word is on the tip of their tongue (TOT), yet research is mixed as to whether and why gesture aids lexical retrieval. We tested three accounts: the lexical retrieval hypothesis, which predicts that semantically related gestures facilitate successful lexical retrieval; the cognitive load account, which predicts that matching gestures facilitate lexical retrieval only when retrieval is hard, as in the case of a TOT; and the motor movement account, which predicts that any motor movements should (...) support lexical retrieval. In Experiment 1 (a between‐subjects study; N = 90), gesture inhibition, but not neck inhibition, affected TOT resolution but not overall lexical retrieval; participants in the gesture‐inhibited condition resolved fewer TOTs than participants who were allowed to gesture. When participants could gesture, they produced more representational gestures during resolved than unresolved TOTs, a pattern not observed for meaningless motor movements (e.g., beats). However, the effect of gesture inhibition on TOT resolution was not uniform; some participants resolved many TOTs, while others struggled. In Experiment 2 (a within‐subjects study; N = 34), the effect of gesture inhibition was traced to individual differences in verbal, not spatial short‐term memory (STM) span; those with weaker verbal STM resolved fewer TOTs when unable to gesture. This relationship between verbal STM and TOT resolution was not observed when participants were allowed to gesture. Taken together, these results fit the cognitive load account; when lexical retrieval is hard, gesture effectively reduces the cognitive load of TOT resolution for those who find the task especially taxing. (shrink)

People sometimes disagree about who owns which objects, and these ownership dilemmas can lead to costly disputes. We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying people's judgments about finder versus landowner cases, in which a person finds an object on someone else's land. We test psychological hypotheses motivated directly by three major principles that govern these cases in the law. The results show that people are more likely to favor the finder when the object is in a public space compared to a (...) private space. We find mixed support for the hypothesis that people are less likely to favor a finder who is employed by the landowner. Last, we find no support for the hypothesis that people are more likely to favor finders for objects located above ground compared to below ground. We discuss implications for psychological theories of ownership and potential applications to property law. (shrink)

In a spirit of collegial support, this paper argues that Beckett and Hager’s theoretical justification and empirical exemplifications do not do full justice to the complexity of group or team learning. We firstly reaffirm our support for the theoretical argument Becket and Hager make, though expressing some reservations about Complexity Theory, to explain the taken-for-granted assumptions that learning by an individual is the paradigm case of learning and that context plays a minimal role in this process. Drawing on our joint (...) and separate work, we demonstrate that Becket and Hager’s argument is less radical than it may initially seem because it is predicated on: (i) cognitive-bounded rather than “distributed” or “extended” conception of mind; (ii) material rather than a “immaterial” conception of activity; and (iii) co-present rather than a “fractional” or “connective” conception of ontology. Despite making this critique, we conclude by making the case that we are adding further substance to Becket and Hager’s overarching argument and, in doing so, encouraging them to be more radical about how they conceptualise the complexity of learning. (shrink)

Resisting Contextual Information: You Can't Put a Salient Meaning Down Two experiments support the graded salience hypothesis, which assumes that early processing involves distinct mechanisms-linguistic and contextual-that do not interact but run parallel. While contextual processes make up an integrative, top-down mechanism that benefits from linguistic and extra-linguistic information, the linguistic mechanism is modular. Using Vu et al.'s materials, Experiment 1 shows that the sentential position of a target word is crucial for the operation of the global, predictive mechanism, whose (...) effects, accumulated in prior discourse, mask lexical effects in final, but not in initial position. Experiment 2 shows that even in a sentential position that favors contextual effects, lexical access is not affected: Salient meanings are activated upon encounter of the lexical stimulus, regardless of contextual information to the contrary. Taken together, these findings argue against direct access models, which suggest that context can selectively activate the appropriate meaning, regardless of salience. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in inadequately prioritized healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries such as Kenya. In this prolonged pandemic, nurses and midwives working at the frontline face multiple ethical problems, including their obligation to care for their patients and the risk for infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Despite the frequency of emergencies in Africa, there is a paucity of literature on ethical issues during epidemics. Furthermore, nursing regulatory bodies in African countries such as Kenya (...) have primarily adopted a Western code of ethics that may not reflect the realities of the healthcare systems and cultural context in which nurses and midwives care for patients. In this article, we discuss the tension between nurses’ and midwives’ duty of care and resource allocation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need to clarify nurses’ and midwives’ rights and responsibilities, especially in the current political setting, limited resources, and ambiguous professional codes of ethics that guide their practice. (shrink)

Work on farms and in restaurants is characterized by highly gendered and racialized divisions of labor, low wages, and persistent inequalities. Gender, race, and ethnicity often determine the spaces where people work in the food system. Although some research focuses on gendered divisions of labor in restaurants and on farms, few efforts look more broadly at intersectional inequalities in food work. Our study examines how inequality is perpetuated through restaurant and farm work in the United States and, specifically, how gender (...) and race/ethnicity influence where people work, their tasks and responsibilities, and their work experiences. In describing restaurant work, people in the restaurant industry typically refer to the front and back of the house to distinguish between different working spaces, jobs, and workers. We use this spatial metaphor of front and back of the house to analyze intersectional inequalities of food work in restaurants and on farms. The data derive from conversations with 63 restaurant and farm owners, managers, and workers in California and Pennsylvania. Our findings suggest that gendered and racialized bodies often define who works in the front and back of the “house,” and that owners and workers often naturalize gender and racial divisions of labor in food work. Despite these patterns, we found evidence of attempts to reduce these inequalities on farms and in restaurants. (shrink)

Moral injury has primarily been studied from a clinical perspective to assess, diagnose and treat the outcomes of morally injurious experiences in healthcare and military settings. Little is known about the lived experiences of those who have had their moral values transgressed in business settings. Public scandals such as Enron suggest that moral injury may also occur in for-profit business settings. In this qualitative study, we examine the lived experiences of 16 employees in for-profit business organisations who identified as having (...) suffered moral injury. Using semi-structured narrative interviews, our findings offer insights into the values that employees feel are transgressed and the pathways between morally injurious experiences and the long-term outcomes. Based on our findings, we propose a conceptual pathway to moral injury, which suggests that experiencing moral transgressions has a profound impact on employees as they feel a threat to their “good-me” identity, however, employees employ various coping strategies to minimise the impact during the event. Employees exited the organisation and often changed career paths to protect themselves from further injury and to make up for moral failure. This study advances our understanding of the experience of moral injury in business settings and the pathway explaining how and why people react differently to moral transgressions. (shrink)

This Handbook brings together philosophical work on how language shapes, and is shaped by, social and political factors. Its 24 chapters were written exclusively for this volume by an international team of leading researchers, and together they provide a broad expert introduction to the major issues currently under discussion in this area. The volume is divided into four parts: Part I: Methodological and Foundational Issues Part II: Non-ideal Semantics and Pragmatics Part III: Linguistic Harms Part IV: Applications The parts, and (...) chapters in each part, are introduced in the volume's General Introduction. A list of Works Cited concludes each chapter, pointing readers to further areas of study. The Handbook is the first major, multi-authored reference work in this growing area and essential reading for anyone interested in the nature of language and its relationship to social and political reality. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the recent creation of “iBlastoids,” which are 3-D structures that resemble early human embryos prior to implantation which formed via self-organization of reprogrammed ad...

Chronic diseases are major causes of health inequalities. Community nurses can potentially make large contributions to chronic illness prevention and management in Israel but may be obstructed by professional dominance of physicians. However, insufficient research exists about community nursing in Israel, and how it may differ from other countries. This study aims to document chronic disease‐related community nursing roles in Israel, identify changes and trends in community nursing roles that may increase social justice, and understand how the roles and trends (...) in community health nursing in Israel may differ from developments in other countries. In‐depth interviews were performed with 55 Israeli health system professionals, and 692 nurse care‐givers were asked open‐ended questions. Interview answers were analyzed to find themes and trends. The study found that community nurse roles in Israel have expanded, especially for chronic disease control. Commonalities exist with countries such as the United States and the UK, albeit with important differences. However, continued conflicts with physicians exist, which can limit nurses' contributions to reducing health inequalities. Community nurses' importance is growing. Enabling them to overcome professional dominance and improve chronic disease control can help reduce health inequalities in Israel and elsewhere. (shrink)

Visual working memory is a construct hypothesized to store a small amount of accurate perceptual information that can be brought to bear on a task. Much research concerns the construct's capacity and the precision of the information stored. Two prominent theories of VWM representation have emerged: slot-based and continuous-resource mechanisms. Prior modeling work suggests that a continuous resource that varies over trials with variable capacity and a potential to make localization errors best accounts for the empirical data. Questions remain regarding (...) the variability in VWM capacity and precision. Using a novel eye-tracking paradigm, we demonstrate that VWM facilitates search and exhibits effects of fixation frequency and recency, particularly for prior targets. Whereas slot-based memory models cannot account for the human data, a novel continuous-resource model does capture the behavioral and eye tracking data, and identifies the relevant resource as item activation. (shrink)

We investigated family members’ lived experience of Parkinson’s disease aiming to investigate opportunities for well-being. A lifeworld-led approach to healthcare was adopted. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore in-depth interviews with people living with PD and their partners. The analysis generated four themes: It’s more than just an illness revealed the existential challenge of diagnosis; Like a bird with a broken wing emphasizing the need to adapt to increasing immobility through embodied agency; Being together with PD exploring the kinship (...) within couples and belonging experienced through support groups; and Carpe diem! illuminated the significance of time and fractured future orientation created by diagnosis. Findings were interpreted using an existential-phenomenological theory of well-being. We highlighted how partners shared the impact of PD in their own ontological challenges. Further research with different types of families and in different situations is required to identify services required to facilitate the process of learning to live with PD. Care and support for the family unit needs to provide emotional support to manage threats to identity and agency alongside problem-solving for bodily changes. Adopting a lifeworld-led healthcare approach would increase opportunities for well-being within the PD illness journey. (shrink)