Organ transplantation has been central to debates on medical technologies and their complex biopolitical consequences, new forms of medical governance and new opportunities for capital. Attending to transplantation has also opened up new ways of thinking about, acting on and living ‘in’ the body, raising important questions about what it means to be embodied under particular cultural conditions. The specific ways in which a technology like transplantation puts the body parts of some at the disposal of the bodies of others (...) has served to (re)write bodily boundaries, commoditise body parts and reorganise the social relations of exchange, care and responsibility. The controversies that this family of technologies has given rise to are both readable and read as embedded in and expressive of wider forms of conflict and contestation. Putting these controversies and their entanglements centre-stage, this article focuses on the manner in which transplant technologies construct their publics in gendered and socially stratified terms, as they reconstruct the transplanted organ as a new site for the extraction of surplus value. Drawing on data from fieldwork in Mexico, I will examine the catastrophic consequences of transplant medicine for Mexico’s poor, particularly women who bear the burden of care for the country’s predominantly living transplant programme. In carrying the costs (moral, social and economic) their accounts of these processes offer us an important critical vantage point from which to assess the interplay between state, market and the ‘worn’ body in the context of transplantation. (shrink)

Reasons without Rationalism has two related parts, devoted to action theory and ethics, respectively. In the second part, I argue for a close connection between reasons for action and virtues of character. This connection is mediated by the idea of good practical thought and the disposition to engage in it. The argument relies on the following principle, which is intended as common ground: " Reasons: The fact that p is a reason for A to ϕ just in case A has (...) a collection of psychological states, C, such that the disposition to be moved to ϕ by C-and-the-belief-that- p is a good disposition of practical thought, and C contains no false beliefs."In effect, reasons are premises for episodes of sound practical thinking whose other conditions already …. (shrink)

Biological sample and data transfer within and out of Africa is steeped in controversy With the H3Africa project now aiming to establish biobanks in Africa, it is essential that there are ethical and legal governance structures in place to oversee the operation of these biobanks. Such governance is essential to ensuring that donors are protected, that cultural perspectives are respected and that researchers have a ready availability of ethically sourced biological samples.

Genomic biobanking research is undergoing exponential growth in Africa raising a host of legal, ethical and social issues. Given the scientific complexity associated with genomics, there is a growing recognition globally of the importance of science translation and community engagement for this type of research, as it creates the potential to build relationships, increase trust, improve consent processes and empower local communities. Despite this level of recognition, there is a lack of empirical evidence of the practise and processes for effective (...) CE in genomic biobanking in Africa. To begin to address this vacuum, 17 in-depth face to face interviews were conducted with South African experts in genomic biobanking research and CE to provide insight into the process, benefits and challenges of CE in South Africa. Emerging themes were analysed using a contextualised thematic approach. Several themes emerged concerning the conduct of CE in genomic biobanking research in Africa. Although the literature tends to focus on the local community in CE, respondents in this study described three different layers of stakeholder engagement: community level, peer level and high level. Community level engagement includes potential participants, community advisory boards and field workers; peer level engagement includes researchers, biobankers and scientists, while high level engagement includes government officials, funders and policy makers. Although education of each stakeholder layer is important, education of the community layer can be most challenging, due to the complexity of the research and educational levels of stakeholders in this layer. CE is time-consuming and often requires an interdisciplinary research team approach. However careful planning of the engagement strategy, including an understanding of the differing layers of stakeholder engagement, and the specific educational needs at each layer, can help in the development of a relationship based on trust between the research team and various stakeholder groups. Since the community layer often comprises vulnerable populations in low and middle income countries, co-development of innovative educational tools on genomic biobanking is essential. CE is clearly a component of a broader process best described as stakeholder engagement. (shrink)

Kieran Cronin aims in this book to show how a Christian perspective may have something fruitful to contribute to the language of rights. In so doing, he examines some of the complexities involved in using this language, drawing from literature in moral philosophy and jurisprudence in the process. The novelty of his approach lies in the attempt to distinguish two complimentary aspects within metaethics, aspects which the author calls the 'discursive' and the 'imaginative'. Cronin regards the use of models (which (...) are extended metaphors) as providing a bridge between these two aspects, and the imaginative metaethics which emerges is seen to be rich in possibilities for both secular and Christian understandings of rights-talk. (shrink)

South Africa has made great progress in the development of HIV/AIDS testing, treatment and prevention campaigns. Yet, it is clear that prevention and treatment campaigns alone are not enough to bring this epidemic under control.

Argues for a conception of reasons as premises of practical reasoning. This conception is applied to questions about ignorance, advice, enabling conditions, "ought," and evidence.

Argues that we know without observation or inference at least some of what we are doing intentionally and that this possibility must be explained in terms of knowledge-how. It is a consequence of the argument that knowing how to do something cannot be identified with knowledge of a proposition.

In this collection, Kieran Setiya explores the place of agency in ethics, arguing for a causal theory of intentional action on which it is understood through the knowledge embodied in our intentions, and against the rationalist project of deriving norms of practical reason from the nature of the will.

Argues that, in acting for a reason, one takes that reason to explain one's action, not to justify it: reasons for acting need not be seen "under the guise of the good". The argument turns on the need to explain the place of "practical knowledge" - knowing what one is doing - in intentional action. A revised and expanded version of this material appears in Part One of "Reasons without Rationalism" (Princeton, 2007).

Argues from the possibility of basic intentional action to a non-propositional theory of knowing how. The argument supports a broadly Anscombean conception of the will as a capacity for practical knowledge.

ABSTRACTGiven the centrality of corporations in distribution of income and wealth studies, discursive constructions of corporate taxation are essential to understanding the production of inequality. The focus of this study is an interview with Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook on the Irish state broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann’s flagship news programme, Morning Ireland, following the ruling by the European Commission on the corporation tax arrangements between Apple Inc. and Ireland. Drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, a frame analysis is provided. (...) The significance and extent of the EC’s ruling has potential implications for corporation taxation policy, within and beyond the European Union, which provides a timely reflection in the Brexit era and in the context of rising economic nationalism generally. Thus, the discursive construction of this ruling in the media is of importance in understanding how inequality is produced and reproduced, and journalism’s role therein. (shrink)

To begin with, I am deeply grateful to Michael Bratman and Michael Smith for their generosity in responding to my book, for the care with which they have read it, and for the challenge of meeting their objections. I am also grateful for their support and encouragement over the years. It is a pleasure to engage with them here.Because their comments raise many related difficulties, this reply will treat them together, beginning with brief consideration of issues in action theory before (...) turning to Reasons and rationalism. It will also be incomplete: there is much more to say about these problems than can be said in this space.Bratman's discussion poses a structural question: how far does my argument about reason and virtue in Part Two of the book depend on the principle of Belief and the cognitive theory of intention from Part One? His answer is: quite a bit. But this is not straightforward. If we reject Belief, our account of acting for reasons becomes more minimal. This would make it more difficult to derive standards of practical reason from the nature of agency, as the rationalist purports to do. If I am right to argue that rationalism and the virtue theory are exhaustive alternatives, it therefore makes the virtue theory of practical reason easier to defend. My Anscombean assumptions are in fact a concession to some of the ideas that motivate rationalists like Korsgaard and Velleman – though not, as we will see, either Bratman or Smith. Denying them makes more trouble for the ethical views that I oppose than it does for mine. 1What does matter to my argument is that when we act intentionally, or for reasons, we need not do so ‘under the guise of the good’, since the doctrine that we must …. (shrink)

Apparently snobbery undermines justification for and legitimacy of aesthetic claims. It is also pervasive in the aesthetic realm, much more so than we tend to presume. If these two claims are combined, a fundamental problem arises: we do not know whether or not we are justified in believing or making aesthetic claims. Addressing this new challenge requires an epistemological story which underpins when, where and why snobbish judgement is problematic, and how appreciative claims can survive. This leads towards a virtue-theoretic (...) account of art appreciation and aesthetic justification, as contrasted with a purely reliabilist one – a new direction for contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies (...) of Biology, and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (shrink)

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates (...) about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought-mental content largely independent of the immediate environment-there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought-normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in sleep. In synthesizing existing literature on this topic, we reveal consistent findings pertaining to the prevalence, valence, and variability of emotion in (...) self-generated thought, and highlight how these factors might interact with self-generated thought to influence general well-being. We integrate these psychological findings with recent neuroimaging research, bringing attention to the neural correlates of affect in self-generated thought. We show that affect in self-generated thought is prevalent, positively biased, highly variable (both within and across individuals), and consistently recruits many brain areas implicated in emotional processing, including the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex. Many factors modulate these typical psychological and neural patterns, however; the emerging affective neuroscience of self-generated thought must endeavor to link brain function and subjective experience in both everyday self-generated thought as well as its dysfunctions in mental illness. (shrink)

Argues that, while human beings may act "under the guise of the good," this is not true of rational agents, as such. Themes discussed along the way – extending the argument of "Reasons without Rationalism" (Princeton, 2007) – include: desires as appearances of the good, the intelligibility of vice, and the kind of essentialist claim that permits exceptions.

Argues that the view propounded in "Practical Knowledge" (Ethics 118: 388-409) survives objections made by Sarah Paul ("Intention, Belief, and Wishful Thinking," Ethics 119: 546-557). The response gives more explicit treatment to the nature and epistemology of knowing how.

For over a decade, Reiner Schürmann considered his phenomenology of symbolic action to be the centerpiece of his philosophical project. After 1980, however, it drops out entirely. This article argues that a central tension surrounding this theory lies in its complex reliance on categories sourced from nineteenth- and twentieth-century theorists of mythology. In his theory of “symbolic difference,” Schürmann attempts to extract from the experience of mythic epiphany and ritual the groundwork for a philosophy of collective action liberated from any (...) reference to ulterior origins. This effort to return to myth in search of the post-metaphysical generates a tension that will come to a head in the late 1970s, when Schürmann attempts to purge the mythic content from his symbolism, with only partial success. The eventual failure of this demythologization, it is here argued, casts new light on the category of “natality” in Broken Hegemonies. (shrink)

Argues that, for Anscombe, 'practical knowledge' is only sometimes 'the cause of what it understands.' It is the formal cause when its object is 'formally the description of an executed intention.' Nor is such knowledge confined to the present progressive: we have practical knowledge of the future and the past.

The ideas upon which public education was founded in the last half of the nineteenth century were wrong. And despite their continued dominance in educational thinking for a century and a half, these ideas are no more right today. So argues one of the most original and highly regarded educational theorists of our time in 'Getting It Wrong from the Beginning'. Kieran Egan explains how we have come to take mistaken concepts about education for granted and why this dooms our (...) attempts at educational reform. (shrink)

Carnage in the classroom, misogynists in high office, sociopaths in uniform, masculinity is a killer. From styles of dress to the stunted capacity for expressing a diversity of emotions, becoming a man involves killing off and repudiating anything that in our society is held as feminine. When a person is unable to show compassion and tenderness, or when exposed for their frailties, feels angry and humiliated, they have problems. Problems that none of us are immune to. Masculinity, Cremin provocatively declares, (...) is a generic disorder of a sick society that afflicts even the best of us. Neither a condition of being human nor even of male, it is a disorder, as she illustrates, of a capitalist society that depends and even thrives upon its very symptoms. From the perspective of a trans woman raised to be a man, the book maps the disorder and speculates on the possible means to overcome it. Instead of signifying weakness, catastrophes can be prevented when the qualities men often fear and women often feel subordinated to are prioritised, affirmed and nourished. Drawing, amongst others, on Marx and Freud, Cremin eloquently demonstrates why there can be no future other than one in which we are all reconciled as a society with the feminine. In such a future, the terms 'masculine' and 'feminine' will neither define us nor determine our relationship to one another. (shrink)

Can we have objective knowledge of right and wrong, of how we should live and what there is reason to do? Can it be anything but luck when our moral beliefs are true? Kieran Setiya confronts these questions in their most compelling and articulate forms, and argues that if there is objective ethical knowledge, human nature is its source.

Productive exchange between disciplines faces a paradox. Modern fields of enquiry are large, differentiated, and always growing. This means their boundaries are extensive, and there are many areas of potential contact between them. We are spoiled for shared topics and overlapping questions. Yet differentiation also entails a high degree of specialization at any particular point, and so traffic across disciplinary borders is less common than it ought to be. The trouble with interdisciplinary work is that you need disciplines in order (...) to do it, and a discipline is a kind of exclusive conversation. Over time, participants come to share reference points and assumptions. The conversation gets more involved. Instead of looking outside, disciplines will reproduce for themselves (in miniature and unsatisfactorily) tools and concepts that are better developed in cognate fields. Economists produce a working psychology, sociologists make a sketch of historical development, political philosophers know some stylized facts about social institutions. This process is guaranteed to produce straw men and errors of fact, but it is also inevitable because the ability to assume away some topics as settled or irrelevant is a precondition for any successful discipline. (shrink)

Internationally, the need to advance science, technology, engineering and mathematics education is recognized as being vital for meeting social and economic challenges and developing a scientifically, mathematically, and technologically literate citizenry. In many countries, however, there are gender differences in the participation and achievement of girls and women in STEM education and STEM careers, usually to the disadvantage of females. This paper aims to identify challenges to female students’ participation in STEM both at post-primary level and beyond in the Irish (...) context. The research questions we aim to address in this paper are: what are student attitudes towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics as measured through interest and perceived ability in STEM, students’ valuing of STEM and students’ commitment to STEM? and what gender differences occur regarding students’ attitudes to science, technology, engineering and mathematics? A survey was completed by 308 post-primary students in Ireland as part of a one-year research project titled “STEMChAT: Women as catalysts for change in STEM education.” Data analysis compiled descriptive statistics, including response frequencies and percentages and median and interquartile range values, and compared gender differences in survey responses using the Kruskal–Wallis H Test. Results indicated that female students had significantly more positive attitudes to science compared to males while in comparison, males had significantly more positive responses to mathematics compared to females. Challenges regarding access to and understanding of STEM in the context of post-primary education are discussed. (shrink)

Genomic and biobank research has undergone exponential growth in Africa. Traditionally this resulted in exploitative research practices in the form of so-called ‘parachute research’ with little or no consideration for capacity building. However there has been a recent growth of research and consortia where capacity building and equitable research have been a key objective of the research, and attention is now focused on the governance of this research. The importance of solidarity in genomic biobank research in high income countries is (...) well established and such an ethos reflects the communal based worldviews prevalent in many African communities. However, if the governance of the research is to foster equitable research practices, there must be some reciprocal benefit. This chapter will explore the impact that reciprocity will have on solidarity and how this may manifest in a governance framework in Africa. Particular focus will be given to capacity building and benefit sharing to enable the research to develop for the benefit of the local population, in a manner that promotes trust and fairness. This chapter will conclude with some recommendations on how to ensure reciprocity is enshrined in a governance framework for genomic biobank research in Africa. (shrink)

I argue that ignorance of who will die makes a difference to the ethics of killing. It follows that reasons are subject to ‘specificity’: it can be rational to respond more strongly to facts that provide us with reasons than to the fact that such reasons exist. In the case of killing and letting die, these reasons are distinctively particular: they turn on personal acquaintance. The theory of rights must be, in part, a theory of this relation.

This article considers one seemingly compelling justification for immigration restrictions: that they help restrict the brain drain of skilled workers from poor states. For some poor states, brain drain is a severe problem, sapping their ability to provide basic services. Yet this article finds that justifying immigration restrictions on brain drain grounds is far from straightforward. For restrictions to be justified, a series of demanding conditions must be fulfilled. Brain drain does provide a successful argument for some immigration restrictions, but (...) it is an argument that fails to justify restrictions beyond a small minority of cases. (shrink)

Although scholars continue to debate the influence of social media on body image, increased social media use, especially engaging in appearance-related behaviors may be a potential risk factor for body dissatisfaction in adolescents. Little research has investigated how adolescents process appearance-related content and the potential strategies they use to protect body image perceptions on social media. To investigate coping strategies used by adolescents, four qualitative focus groups were conducted with 29 adolescents aged 15–16 years in mixed-gender Irish secondary schools. Thematic (...) analysis revealed that adolescents employed many different behavioral strategies such as avoiding negative content and selecting positive content. Cognitive processing strategies such as critically evaluating body-related content, psychologically distancing from and positively reframing challenging content were also used, although less frequently. Boys appeared to exhibit greater positive agency over their bodies and social media use and tended to use more active coping styles than girls. Efforts to promote body image on social media such as body positive pages and exposing artificial social media content were considered limited in their effectiveness. (shrink)

Argues that there is no one it is irrational to love, that it is rational to act with partiality to those we love, and that the rationality of doing so is not conditional on love. It follows that Anscombe and Taurek are right: you are not required to save three instead of one, even when those you could save are perfect strangers.

The neural basis of human memory is incredibly complex. We argue that the diversity of neural systems underlying various forms of memory suggests that any discussion of enhancing ‘memory’ per se is too broad, thus obfuscating the biopolitical debate about human enhancement. Memory can be differentiated into at least four major systems with largely dissociable neural substrates. We outline each system, and discuss both the practical and the ethical implications of these diverse neural substrates. In practice, distinct neural bases imply (...) the possibility, and likely the necessity, of specific approaches for the safe and effective enhancement of various memory systems. In the debate over the ethical and social implications of enhancement technologies, this fine-grained perspective clarifies—and may partially mitigate—certain common concerns in enhancement debates, including issues related to safety, fairness, coercion, and authenticity. While many researchers certainly appreciate the neurobiological complexity of memory, the political debate tends to revolve around a monolithic one-size-fits-all conception. The overall project—exploring how human enhancement technologies affect society – stands to benefit from a deeper appreciation of memory’s neurobiological diversity. (shrink)

Argues for a causal-psychological account of acting for reasons. This view is distinguished from a more ambitious causal theory of action, clarified as far as possible, and motivated—against non-reductive, teleological, and behaviourist alternatives—on broadly metaphysical grounds.

Population biobanks are an increasingly important infrastructure to support research and will be a much-needed resource in the delivery of personalised medicine. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can process and cross-link very large amounts of data quickly and be used not only for improving research power but also for helping with complex diagnosis and prediction of diseases based on health profiles. AI, therefore, potentially has a critical role to play in personalised medicine, and biobanks can provide a lot of the necessary (...) baseline data related to healthy populations that will enable the development of AI tools. To develop these tools, access to personal data, and in particular, sensitive data, is required. Such data could be accessed from biobanks. Biobanks are a valuable resource for research but accessing and using the data contained within such biobanks raise a host of legal, ethical, and social issues (ELSI). This includes the appropriate consent to manage the collection, storage, use, and sharing of samples and data, and appropriate governance models that provide oversight of secondary use of samples and data. Biobanks have developed new consent models and governance tools to enable access that address some of these ELSI-related issues. In this paper, we consider whether such governance frameworks can enable access to biobank data to develop AI. As Italy has one of the most restrictive regulatory frameworks on the use of genetic data in Europe, we examine the regulatory framework in Italy. We also look at the proposed changes under the European Health Data Space (EHDS). We conclude by arguing that currently, regulatory frameworks are misaligned and unless addressed, accessing data within Italian biobanks to train AI will be severely limited. (shrink)

Background: A high prevalence of cognitive impairment and frailty complicates the feasibility of advance care planning in the long-term-care population. Research aim: To identify challenges in implementing the ‘Let Me Decide’ advance care planning programme in long-term-care. Research design: This feasibility study had two phases: (1) staff education on advance care planning and (2) structured advance care planning by staff with residents and families. Participants and research context: long-term-care residents in two nursing homes and one community hospital. Ethical considerations: The (...) local research ethics committee granted ethical approval. Findings: Following implementation, over 50% of all residents had completed some form of end-of-life care plan. Of the 70 residents who died in the post-implementation period, 14% had no care plan, 10% (with capacity) completed an advance care directive and lacking such capacity, 76% had an end-of-life care plan completed for them by the medical team, following discussions with the resident (if able) and family. The considerable logistical challenge of releasing staff for training triggered development of an e-learning programme to facilitate training. Discussion: The challenges encountered were largely concerned with preserving resident’s autonomy, avoiding harm and suboptimal or crisis decision-making, and ensuring residents were treated fairly through optimisation of finite resources. Conclusions: Although it may be too late for many long-term-care residents to complete their own advance care directive, the ‘ Let Me Decide’ programme includes a feasible and acceptable option for structured end-of-life care planning for residents with variable capacity to complete an advance care directive, involving discussion with the resident (to the extent they were able) and their family. While end-of-life care planning was time-consuming to deliver, nursing staff were willing to overcome this and take ownership of the programme, once the benefits in improved communication and enhanced peace of mind among all parties involved became apparent in practice. (shrink)

This chapter argues that people have a human right to immigrate to other states. People have essential interests in being able to make important personal decisions and engage in politics without state restrictions on the options available to them. It is these interests that other human rights, such as the human rights to internal freedom of movement, expression and association, protect. The human right to immigrate is not absolute. Like other human freedom rights , it can be restricted in certain (...) extreme circumstances. Outside these circumstances, however, immigration restrictions are unjust. Having presented the argument for a human right to immigrate, the chapter responds to objections from distributive justice, culture and scarcity. (shrink)

Argues against the form of instrumentalism on which being practically rational is being efficient in the pursuit of one's ends. The trait of means-end efficiency turns out to be a defect of character, and therefore cannot be identified with practical reason at its best.

Argues for a form of humanism on which we have reason to care about human beings that we do not have to care about other animals and human beings have rights against us other animals lack. Humanism respects the equal worth of those born with severe congenital cognitive disabilities. I address the charge of 'speciesism' and explain how being human is an ethically relevant fact.