Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 2, Page 132-150, April 2022. Limited research has been done among pregnant people participating in investigational drug trials. To enhance the ethical understanding of pregnant people’s perspectives on research participation, we sought to describe motives and risk perceptions of participants in a phase 1 trial of ledipasvir/sofosbuvir treatment for chronic Hepatitis C virus during pregnancy. Pregnant people with chronic HCV infection enrolled in an open-label, phase 1 study of LDV/SOF participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews to (...) explore their reasons for participation and experiences within the study. Pregnant people took 12 weeks of LDV/SOF and were interviewed at enrollment and at the end of study. We recorded the interviews, transcribed them verbatim, coded them using NVivo software, and performed inductive thematic analysis. Nine women completed the study yielding 18 interview transcripts. We identified two themes regarding motives and one regarding risk perception. Motives— Women conceptualized study participation as part of the caregiving role they associate with motherhood; participating was viewed as an act of caregiving for their infants, their families, themselves, and other pregnant women with chronic HCV. Women also noted that they faced multiple barriers to treatment prior to pregnancy that created a desire to receive therapy through trial participation. Risk perception— Women acknowledged personal and fetal risk associated with participation. Acceptance of risk was influenced by women’s concepts of motherhood, preexisting knowledge of HCV and medical research, family members, intimate partners, or by the study design. Women enrolled in a phase 1 trial for chronic HCV therapy during pregnancy acknowledged risks of participation and were motivated by hopes for fetal and personal benefit and by lack of prenatal access to treatment. Ethical inclusion of pregnant people in research should acknowledge structural factors that contribute to vulnerability and data deficiencies for treatment in pregnancy. (shrink)

In this project I am concerned with the extent to which conceptual engineering happens in domains outside of philosophy, and if so, what that might look like. Specifically, I’ll argue that...

In a recent publication, I argued that there is a conceptual difference between artificial womb (AW) technology, capable of facilitating gestation ex utero, and neonatal intensive care, providing incubation to neonates born prematurely. One of the reasons I provided for this distinction was that the subjects of each process are different entities. The subject of the process of gestation ex utero is a unique human entity: a ‘gestateling’, rather than a fetus or a newborn preterm neonate. Nick Colgrove wrote a (...) response to my paper, claiming that my distinction between the subject of an AW and a newborn (in intensive care) was false. He claims that I have not accounted for the proper definition of ‘birth’ and that gestatelings are not a distinct product of human reproduction. Further, Colgrove posits that even if I can successfully distinguish gestatelings from preterms, such a distinction is morally irrelevant because the entities would have the same moral status. In this paper, I address the three challenges raised and defend the claim that gestatelings are unique entities. Moreover, I argue that moral status should not be considered ipso facto determinative in the debate about AWs. (shrink)

This essay employs strategies drawn from the emergent field of everyday aesthetics to explore the pleasures of reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Samuel Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison. As a fictional paradigm, Crusoe has been a paradoxical inspiration, inviting critique as a seductive representative of colonial power, on the one hand, and eliciting admiration for his ability to provoke meaningful artistic and intellectual engagement from a diverse group of writers and thinkers, on the other hand. To many ordinary readers, he (...) has proved company worth keeping as a source of inspiration and personal pleasure primarily through his aesthetic approach to the structuring of everyday life. The fiction of Samuel Richardson continues the focus on the everyday, placing even greater emphasis on the relationship between the ethical and the aesthetic. In his final novel, Sir Charles Grandison, pleasure can scarce be felt without some commentary outlining the contours of moral significance, and the very act of moral reasoning is demonstrably affective for characters and readers alike. The essay ends with consideration of the power of literature, especially the realistic novel, to shape the ordinary lives of everyday readers. (shrink)

English law is unambiguous that legal personality, and with it all legal rights and protections, is assigned at birth. This rule is regarded as a bright line that is easily and consistently applied. The time has come, however, for the rule to be revisited. This article demonstrates that advances in fetal surgery and (anticipated) artificial wombs do not marry with traditional conceptions of birth and being alive in law. These technologies introduce the possibility of ex utero gestation, and/or temporary existence (...) ex utero, and consequently developing human beings that are novel to the law. Importantly, therefore, the concepts of birth and born alive no longer distinguish between human beings deserving of legal protection in the way originally intended. Thus, there is a need for reform, for a new approach to determining the legal significance of birth and what being legally alive actually encompasses. Investigating the law of birth is of crucial importance, because of the implications of affording or denying the subjects of new reproductive technologies rights and protections. A determination of the legal status of the subject of fetal surgery or an artificial womb will determine what can and cannot be done to each entity. Moreover, the status afforded to these entities will drastically impact on the freedoms of pregnant women. (shrink)

This paper argues for a position of ‘dark pessimism’ towards introspective reports playing a strong justificatory role in consciousness science, based on the application of frameworks and concepts of measurement. I first show that treating introspective reports as measurements fits well within current discussions of the reliability of introspection, and argue that introspective reports must satisfy at least a minimal definition of measurement in order to play a justificatory role in consciousness science. I then show how treating introspective reports as (...) measurements makes it possible to identify the foundational methodological problems that underlie much of the current philosophical and scientific debate about the status of introspective evidence in studying consciousness. I argue that these problems prevent introspective reports from playing a strong justificatory role and resolving long-standing debates in consciousness science, both in contemporary work and in the future. (shrink)

The current investigation examines children’s learning about a novel machine in a local history museum. Parent–child dyads were audio-recorded as they navigated an exhibit that contained a novel artifact: a coffee grinder from the turn of the 20th century. Prior to entering the exhibit, children were randomly assigned to receive an experimental “component” prompt that focused their attention on the machine’s internal mechanisms or a control “history” prompt. First, we audio-recorded children and their caregivers while they freely explored the exhibit, (...) and then, we measured children’s learning by asking them two questions in a test phase. Children of all ages, regardless of the prompt given, discussed most aspects of the machine, including the whole machine, its parts, and, to a lesser extent, its mechanisms. In the test phase, older children recalled more information than younger children about all aspects of the machine and appeared more knowledgeable to adult coders. Overall, this suggests that children of all ages were motivated to discuss all aspects of a machine, but some scaffolding may be necessary to help the youngest children take full advantage of these learning opportunities. While the prompts did not significantly influence the number of children who discussed the machine’s mechanisms, children who received the component prompt were rated as more knowledgeable about the machine in the test phase, suggesting that this prompt influenced what they learned. Implications for visitor experience and exhibit design are discussed. (shrink)

This essay will move toward a phenomenology of “more” in ten steps. 1st, situates the investigation within the tradition of Husserlian phenomenological practice, then 2nd draws upon Husserl’s own experience of doing phenomenology. 3rd considers some initial aspects of the structure of the lived experience of “more” and 4th is about the number series, while 5th addresses the primal experience of time, space, and movement. 6th focuses on the phenomenological notion of horizons, then 7th turns to the related question of (...) transcendence. 8th takes a critical look at a particular conceptual model sometime used in thinking about the experience of “more”; 9th briefly brings out one of the ethical implications of this critique; and finally, 10th highlights some of the ways in which the research documented here is itself still incomplete and demands “more”.Este ensayo se moverá hacia una fenomenología de "más" en diez pasos. El prime-ro, sitúa la investigación dentro de la tradición de la práctica fenomenológica husserliana; luego, el segundo se basa en la propia experiencia de Husserl de hacer fenomenología; el tercero considera algunos aspectos iniciales de la estructura de la experiencia vivida de "más" y el cuarto es sobre la serie numérica, mientras que el quinto aborda la experiencia primordial de tiempo, espacio y movimiento. El sexto se centra en la noción fenomenológica de horizontes; después el séptimo pasa a la cuestión relacionada con la trascendencia. El octavo echa una mirada crítica a un modelo conceptual particular usado en algún momento para pensar sobre la experiencia de "más"; el noveno destaca brevemente una de las implicaciones éticas de esta crítica;y, finalmente, el décimo resalta algunas de las formas en las que la investigación aquí documentada todavía está incompleta y exige "más". (shrink)

Feminist Time Against Nation Time offers a series of essays that explore the complex and oftentimes contradictory relationship between feminism and nationalism through a problematization of contemporality. The collection pursues the following questions: how do the specific temporalities of nationalism and war limit and delimit public spaces in which dissent might happen; and how might we account for the often contradictory and ambiguous relationship of "feminism" and "nationalism" through an exploration of the problem of time?

Lists are a recurring feature in Old English and Old Icelandic poetry, and particularly a feature of those poems that are included in the genre wisdom literature and those that have a claim to be among the earliest surviving compositions in each language. Some poems, such as Widsith and Grímnismál, are entirely made up of lists contained within a slight narrative frame; others, such as The Wanderer and Hávamál, have lists embedded within them. Both kinds of poem have posed problems (...) for modern readers and editors, some of whom have dismissed list poems as simply pedestrian and boring, while others have struggled with problems of unity and with the many metrical difficulties that the verse lists in both languages display. An example is the Old English Maxims II , the structure of which has been a major concern of the scholars who have written about the poem. Among them R. MacGregor Dawson argues for a type of unity based on association for both Maxims I and II, asserting that the poems are “not simply lists but mnemonic arrangements in sequences built up by multiple association of ideas, either through meaning or through sound.” The most recent editor of Maxims II, on the other hand, points out that at least one of the perceived divisions in the poem is based on relationships of form rather than meaning or sound. T. A. Shippey goes on to remark that within this sequence there is much variety and that “Of the twenty-four descriptive phrases only three repeat a syntactic and metric shape used previously in the section.”. (shrink)

In this response article, I focus on two issues. First, I discuss the problem, raised by the commentators, of ‘categorial ambiguity’ in membership categorization analysis, and make suggestions about how to approach it. Second, I argue that, as conversation analysts have demonstrated the ‘systematics’ of interactional practices, membership categorization analysis should also begin to build a robust corpus of studies of ‘categorial systematics’.

Behind every sermon lies an understanding of the nature of the Bible; by its contribution to that understanding, biblical studies can make a crucial difference for preaching.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique Jahrgang: 2013 Heft: 197 Seiten: 267-281.

My scholarly work on the problem of race relations began with a general inquiry into the theory of economic inequality. Specifically, my 1981 paper, "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings," which appeared in the journal Econometrica, introduced a model of economic achievement in which a person's earnings depended on a random endowment of innate ability and on skills acquired from formal training. The key feature of this theory was that individuals had to rely on their families to pay for (...) their training. In this way, a person's economic opportunities were influenced by his inherited social position. I showed how, under these circumstances, the distribution of income in each generation could be determined by an examination of what had been obtained by the previous generation. My objective with the model was to illustrate how, in the long run, when people depend on resources available within families to finance their acquisition of skills, economic inequality comes to reflect the inherited advantages of birth. A disparity among persons in economic attainment would bear no necessary connection to differences in their innate abilities. (shrink)

IN THIS ESSAY, I PROPOSE A DISTINCT APPROACH TO ETHICS—COMPARAtive rhetoric—that attempts to analyze moral discourse at the intratradition and intertradition levels. Drawing on Aristotle's classification of modes of rhetoric, I demonstrate how the epideictic mode helps conceptualize moral discourse as attempting to convince and motivate through persuasion, even as it assumes as audience of adherence. I then elaborate a method of technical rhetorical analysis, drawing on the work of Stephen Toulmin and Chiam Perelman. This method is applied to two (...) short rhetorical performances of John Paul II and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, focusing on motherhood. I conclude by briefly considering women's responses to clerical rhetoric. (shrink)

The Human Tissue Act 2004 has generated considerable confusion, and is perhaps not the easiest statute to read. This paper aims to give a short guided tour of its provisions, and to highlight some of the practical issues that have already arisen since it came into operation on 1 September 2006. It does so from the point of view of University researchers, and of University RECs which may have to advise on these issues.

This book is an exploration of the notion of "drive" as it passes from Kant's need of reason, to Freud's concept of hallucinatory wish fulfillment, to the relentless force of indifferentiation in Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet.

It is argued that many means-end skills are mere drudgery, and there is no case from well-being to regret that the advance of technology has replaced them with machines. But a case is made that for humans possessing some skills is important for well-being, and that certain core skills are important for it. It is argued that these include navigational skills. While the march of technology has tended to promote human well-being, there is now some cause for concern that silicone (...) chip technology is de-skilling us to an extent that impacts negatively on well-being. (shrink)