Bioethics has made remarkable progress as a scholarly and applied field. A mere fledgling in the 1960s, it is now firmly established in hospitals, medical schools, and government agencies and boasts a number of professional associations and a handsome collection of journals.

Although the American Philosophical Association has more than 11,000 members, there are still fewer than 125 Black philosophers in the United States, including fewer than thirty Black women holding a PhD in philosophy and working in a philosophy department in the academy.1The following is a “musing” about how I became one of them and how I have sought to create a positive philosophical space for all of us.

Time has been considered a crucial factor in distinguishing between two levels of self-awareness: the “core,” or “minimal self,” and the “extended,” or “narrative self.” Herein, I focus on this last concept of the self and, in particular, on the relationship between the narrative self and language. In opposition to the claim that the narrative self is a linguistic construction, my idea is that it is created by the functioning of mental time travel, that is, the faculty of human beings (...) to project themselves mentally backwards in time to relive, or forward to anticipate, events. Moreover, I propose that narrative language itself should be considered a product of a core brain network that includes mechanisms, such as mental time travel, mindreading, and visuo-spatial systems. (shrink)

The vegan ideal is entailed by arguments for ethical veganism based on traditional moral theory (rights and/or utilitarianism) extended to animals. The most ideal lifestyle would abjure the use of animals or their products for food since animals suffer and have rights not to be killed. The ideal is discriminatory because the arguments presuppose a male physiological norm that gives a privileged position to adult, middle-class males living in industrialized countries. Women, children, the aged, and others have substantially different nutritional (...) requirements and would bear a greater burden on vegetarian and vegan diets with respect to health and economic risks, than do these males. The poor and many persons in Third World nations live in circumstances that make the obligatory adoption of such diets, where they are not already a matter of sheer necessity, even more risky.Traditional moral theorists (such as Evelyn Pluhar and Gary Varner whose essays appear in this issue) argue that those who are at risk would beexcused from a duty to attain the virtue associated with ethical vegan lifestyles. The routine excuse of nearly everyone in the world besides adult, middle-class males in industrialized countries suggests bias in the perspective from which traditional arguments for animal rights and (utilitarian) animal welfare are formulated. (shrink)

The Anthropocene marks a moment of wild destratification of the planet that requires analysis of the relations between geologic forces and social practices. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of strata is examined in order to develop a geophilosophy for the Anthropocene. Establishing a model of strata that conjoins earth and social flows together into planes of interrelated production highlights how the fossil substratum subtends contemporary forms of social relations. Stratifications, it is argued, are planes of social reproduction that both constrain and (...) are expressive of possible modes of expression (and thus political freedom). If power, according to Foucault, is a relation between forces, geosocial strata conceptualizes how stratifications organize and capture forces into political geology. Concentrating on diagramming moments of crossing strata, it is suggested that Anthropocene geopolitics needs to be located at the intersection of geosocial formations and processes of fossilization, rather than through a new assemblage of planetary scale. (shrink)

Techniques for resolving some types of inherited mitochondrial diseases have recently been the subject of scientific research, ethical scrutiny, media coverage and regulatory initiatives in the UK. Building on research using eggs from a variety of providers, scientists hope to eradicate maternally transmitted mutations in mitochondrial DNA by transferring the nuclear DNA of a fertilised egg, created by an intending mother at risk of transmitting mitochondrial disease, and her male partner, into an enucleated egg provided by another woman. In this (...) article we examine how egg providers for mitochondrial research and therapy have been represented in stakeholder debates. A systematic review of key documents and parliamentary debates shows that the balance of consideration tilts heavily towards therapeutic egg providers; research egg providers have been ignored and rendered invisible. However, mapping the various designations of therapeutic egg providers shows that their role is so heavily camouflaged that they have only an absent presence in discussions. We explore this puzzling ambivalence towards egg providers whose contributions are necessary to the success of current mitochondrial research and proposed therapies. We suggest that labels that diminish the contributions of egg providers serve certain governance objectives in managing possible future claims about, and by, therapeutic egg providers. We demonstrate that the social positioning of research egg providers is entangled within that of therapeutic egg providers which means that the former can also never receive their due recognition. This article contributes to the wider literature on the governance of new technological interventions. (shrink)

Central to Confucian teachings in the Analects is the ideal of self-cultivation—in particular that of the junzi 君子 (“gentleman” “nobleman”) ideal. At the same time that Confucius recommends that individuals follow such an ideal, he also places limits on who actually might attain it. By examining statements involving such terms as the junzi, the “petty man” ( xiao ren 小人), and the “masses” ( min 民, or zhong 眾), or common people, this essay highlights the sociopolitical and gender restrictions informing (...) one of the most basic, yet lofty, ethical goals of the text. A new means is also offered of discussing these socially delimited discrepancies in moral cultivation by referring to leading, or self-determining agency in association with junzi on the one hand, and to conformist agency for women and common people on the other. (shrink)

Siden 2007 har HOD og KS satset store ressurser på prosjektet «Samarbeid om etisk kompetanseheving» i kommunale helse- og omsorgstjenester. Hensikten med prosjektet har vært å heve de ansattes etiske kompetanse, og ett av de iverksatte tiltakene har vært å etablere refleksjonsgrupper i etikk. Denne artikkelen er basert på en evaluering av arbeidet i refleksjonsgruppene med fokus på hvordan etikkveilederen, også kalt fasilitator, beskriver arbeidet i gruppene. Hensikten med studien var å utvikle kunnskap om hvordan arbeidet med etikk-refleksjon foregår, samt (...) å diskutere om måten det arbeides på kan forventes å bidra til etisk kompetanseheving blant gruppemedlemmene. Vinteren 2012 gjennomførte vi fokusgruppeintervju i åtte kommuner med ansatte fra ulike deler av den kommunale helse- og omsorgstjenesten, ett intervju i hver kommune, til sammen 33 personer. Data ble analysert og fortolket i tråd med hermeneutisk metode. Resultatene viser at de i refleksjonsgruppene diskuterer alt fra verdier, begreper, fiktive case, dilemmaer til vanskelig situasjoner fra egen praksis. Refleksjonsmetodene varierer i spennet fra fri diskusjon til en strukturert samtale. Fasiltatorenes helsefaglige grunnutdanning og kunnskap om etikk og refleksjon ser ut til å være avgjørende faktorer for om refleksjonsgrupper i etikk mest fungerer som et pusterom, eller blir en læringsarena for etisk kompetanseheving. Resultatene diskuteres i lys av lærings- og refleksjonsteori.Nøkkelord: Etikk, evaluering, fasilitatorer, kommunehelsetjenesten, læring, refleksjonsgrupper English Summary: Ethics reflection groups: Just a “time out” or a learning arena?Since 2007, there has been a nationally prioritised programme aiming to enhance ethics competence in Norwegian community health care. One of many measures has been to establish ethics reflection groups. The purpose of this study was to obtain knowledge about how ethics reflection is carried out and if the reflection strengthens the participants´ competence in ethics. In this article, we focus on how the role of the facilitator, and the objective is to describe and discuss how the facilitator work and facilitate in the groups. We conducted focus group interviews with facilitators from various clinical settings in eight different municipalities. Data were analysed and interpreted according to hermeneutic methodology. The findings show that the discussions in the reflection groups varied from values, concepts and fictional cases to dilemmas and ethically difficult situations from the participants own practice. The methods used varied from free conversation to structured reflection. Competence in ethics and methods of reflection are essential skills facilitators must employ/have to run the groups. We discuss the findings using learning- and reflection theory.Article first published online: 22 MARCH 2016. (shrink)

We advance the understanding of the philosophy and psychology of curiosity by operationalizing and constructing an empirical measure of Nietzsche’s conception of inquisitive curiosity, expressed by the German term Wissbegier, (“thirst for knowledge” or “need/impetus to know”) and Neugier (“curiosity” or “inquisitiveness”). First, we show that existing empirical measures of curiosity do not tap the construct of inquisitive curiosity, though they may tap related constructs such as idle curiosity and phenomenological curiosity. Next, we map the concept of inquisitive curiosity and (...) connect it to related concepts, such as open-mindedness and intellectual humility. The bulk of the paper reports four studies: an Anglophone exploratory factor analysis, an Anglophone confirmatory factor analysis, an informant study, and a Germanophone exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. (shrink)

In spite of heralded progress in civil rights, this paper pessimistically maintains that blacks are systematically excluded from directorships on the boards of the major industrial companies in this country. The statistics derived from a 1980 survey, which yielded responses from 143 companies, show that blacks constituted only 1.9 percent of the entire directorate pool, with no black chairmen, no company with more than one black director, and significantly high multiple-board service on the part of a few black directors. There (...) is a strong correlation between size and importance of a company and black directorships, as well as between longer-range company commitments and white male directorships. There is discussion of answers from board members relating to constituency representation, philosophy regarding black recruitment and reasons for the paucity of black representation. After drawing a profile of typical boards, the study shows how the pool of individuals traditionally eligible to serve as directors virtually excludes blacks, confining them to rigid and narrow categories, and concludes that the "white club" remains white because it is insulated by an inflexible system whose inequity has been internalized and whose existence current directors would rather not acknowledge. While admitting the difficulty of discussing and even defining the existence of tokenism, the paper looks at the phenomenon of single-black-member boards, questioning the status, use and professions of some black directors. In the context of a climate that encourages governmental mandating of corporate responsibility, the authors suggest that corporate initiative wisely be generated toward achieving more equitable balances in the highest economic echelons where black impotence, given the present system, can neither be remedied nor tolerated much longer. (shrink)

John H. Muse's Microdramas: Crucibles for Theatre and Time examines the production of short plays across the history of Western theatre practice, from the late-nineteenth century to contemporary performance. Categorizing plays shorter than twenty minutes as microdramas, Muse does not insist on a new term for a theatrical subgenre, but provides an ideal working title for the study of brief theatre: a study which, until now, has been largely overlooked in literary theoretical analyses on theatre. Muse shows us how the (...) study of plays by playwrights who consciously choose brevity as a form, provides a platform for examining the evolution of theatre's structural practices. Identifying how short plays expose traditional... (shrink)

This 1995 volume views important social and political issues through the eyes of economists. Pioneered by Gary Becker, this approach asserts that all actions, whether working, playing, dating, or mating, have economic motivations and consequences, and can be analysed using economic reasoning. Intended as an introduction to the current state of the field, the essays are informal and non-technical, while still using up-to-date economic reasoning to illuminate such topics as crime, marriage, discrimination, immigration, fads and fashions. The expanding domain of (...) economics is illustrated, as problems from sociology, political science, anthropology, and public policy are all included in this Beckerian view: the world of human interaction, as seen by an economist. (shrink)

This paper draws on nearly two decades of research on health consumer and patients’ organizations in the United Kingdom. In particular, it addresses questions of representation and legitimacy in the health policy process. HCPOs claim to represent the collective interests of patients and others such as relatives and carers. At times they also make claims to represent the wider public interest. Employing Pitkin’s classic typology of formalistic, descriptive, symbolic, and substantive representation, the paper explores how and in what sense HCPOs (...) represent their constituencies. We found that policymakers themselves are less concerned with formal mechanisms adopted by groups and are more concerned with credibility, in particular whether HCPOs carry the confidence of their constituents. While some concerns about legitimacy remain, particularly in relation to funding from commercial interests, we argue that HCPOs bring a unique perspective to the policy process and to focus purely on formalistic representation provides only a partial understanding of their representative role and a constrained view of their collective moral claims. (shrink)

A growing body of research suggests that students achieve learning outcomes at higher rates when instructors use active-learning methods rather than standard modes of instruction. To investigate how one such method might be used to teach philosophy, we observed two classes that employed Reacting to the Past, an educational role-immersion game. We chose to investigate Reacting because role-immersion games are considered a particularly effective active-learning strategy. Professors who have used Reacting to teach history, interdisciplinary humanities, and political theory agree that (...) it engages students and teaches general skills like collaboration and communication. We investigated whether it can be effective for teaching philosophical content and skills like analyzing, evaluating, crafting, and communicating arguments in addition to bringing the more general benefits of active learning to philosophy classrooms. Overall, we find Reacting to be a useful tool for achieving these ends. While we do not argue that Reacting is uniquely useful for teaching philosophy, we conclude that it is worthy of consideration by philosophers interested in creative active-learning strategies, especially given that it offers a prepackaged set of flexible, user-friendly tools for motivating and engaging students. (shrink)

Background: Clinical genomic implementation studies pose challenges for informed consent. Consent forms often include complex language and concepts, which can be a barrier to diverse enrollment, and these studies often blur traditional research-clinical boundaries. There is a move toward self-directed, web-based research enrollment, but more evidence is needed about how these enrollment approaches work in practice. In this study, we developed and evaluated a literacy-focused, web-based consent approach to support enrollment of diverse participants in an ongoing clinical genomic implementation study. (...) Methods: As part of the Cancer Health Assessments Reaching Many (CHARM) study, we developed a web-based consent approach that featured plain language, multimedia, and separate descriptions of clinical care and research activities. CHARM offered clinical exome sequencing to individuals at high risk of hereditary cancer. We interviewed CHARM participants about their reactions to the consent approach. We audio recorded, transcribed, and coded interviews using a deductively and inductively derived codebook. We reviewed coded excerpts as a team to identify overarching themes. Results: We conducted 32 interviews, including 12 (38%) in Spanish. Most (69%) enrolled without assistance from study staff, usually on a mobile phone. Those who completed enrollment in one day spent an average of 12 minutes on the consent portion. Interviewees found the information simple to read but comprehensive, were neutral to positive about the multimedia support, and identified increased access to testing in the study as the key difference from clinical care. Conclusions: This study showed that interviewees found our literacy-focused, web-based consent approach acceptable; did not distinguish the consent materials from other online study processes; and valued getting access to testing in the study. Overall, conducting empirical bioethics research in an ongoing clinical trial was useful to demonstrate the acceptability of our novel consent approach but posed practical challenges. (shrink)

A number of significant contributions in the last four decades show that non-normal modal logics can be fruitfully employed in several applied fields. Well-known domains are epistemic logic, deontic logic, and systems capturing different aspects of action and agency such as the modal logic of agency, concurrent propositional dynamic logic, game logic, and coalition logic. Semantics for such logics are traditionally based on neighbourhood models. However, other model-theoretic semantics can be used for this purpose. Here, we systematically study multi-relational structures, (...) whose investigation is still relatively underdeveloped. After a brief introduction to two different versions of multi-relational semantics – which we call strong and weak multi-relational semantics – we proceed to study several modal schemata. Special attention is paid to the schemata CON and D. Finally we offer completeness proofs for several systems using both strong and weak semantic tools: The proofs thus cover both classical system.. (shrink)

The Taiyi shengshui 太一生水 is one of only a few texts in the early Chinese corpus to present a detailed cosmogony, one that traces the beginnings of the cosmos back to a variety of spiritual and natural forces, such as the divinity Taiyi and water. My primary question in this chapter is not to ask what that cosmogony was, but why such a cosmogonic text might have been written in the first place. Why in particular did authors in Warring States (...) China deem it necessary to go all the way back to the very beginning of everything to try to situate their thought and recommendations for human action? By comparing the Taiyi shengshui to various other cosmogonies in the textual tradition, we arrive at interesting insights into both the overarching moral agenda of the text as well as its specific contributions to cosmological thinking in early China. (shrink)

The legacy and future of continental philosophy with regard to the critical philosophy of race can be seen in prominent canonical philosophical figures, the scholarship of contemporary philosophers, and recent edited collections and book series. The following reflections highlight some (though certainly not all) of the contacts and overlaps between a select number of continental philosophers and the critical philosophy of race. In particular, I consider how the continental tradition has contributed to the development of the critical philosophy of race (...) by offering tools from existentialism, phenomenology, and genealogy to emphasize questions of existence, facticity, lived experience, and historicity as they relate to analyses of race, racism, slavery, and colonialism.1 I argue that these tools have been used both implicitly and explicitly in the writings of contemporary continental philosophers who theorize about race and that the critical philosophy of race has impacted and expanded continental philosophy in significant ways. (shrink)

I argue that humans have moral relationships with dogs and cats that they could adopt, but do not. The obligations of those of us who refrain from incurring particular relationships with dogs and cats are correlative with the power of persons with what Jean Harvey calls “interactive power,” the power to take the initiative in and direct the course of a relationship. I connect Harvey’s points about interactive power to my application of Eva Kittay’s “dependency critique,” to show that those (...) of us who refrain from incurring particular relationships of dependency rely on caregivers in our communities and regions to fulfill the moral and social demands that an abundance of unowned companionable animals makes on the community. (shrink)

A number of debates in philosophy of biology and psychology, as well as in their respective sciences, hinge on particular views about the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes. One such view is that the genotype-phenotype relationship is relatively straightforward, in the sense that a genome contains the ?genes for? the various traits that an organism exhibits. This leads to the assumption that if a particular set of traits is posited to be present in an organism, there must be a corresponding (...) number of genes in that organism's genome to account for those traits. This assumption underlies what can be called the ?counting argument,? in which empirical estimates of the number of genes in a genome are used to support or refute particular hypotheses in philosophical debates about biology and psychology. In this paper, we assess the counting argument as it is used in discussions of the alleged massive modularity of the brain, and conclude that this argument cannot be upheld in light of recent philosophical work on gene concepts and empirical work on genome complexity. In doing so, we illustrate that there are those on both sides of the debate about massive modularity who rely on an incorrect view of gene concepts and the nature of the genotype-phenotype relationship. (shrink)

There are established links between education and well-being, and between poverty and education. This article draws on interviews with parents of school-aged children impacted by a policy in the UK commonly referred to as the ‘bedroom tax’. A critical psychology perspective to education is put forward, acknowledging the complex interrelationships between psychological well-being, sociopolitical factors and education.

I am persuaded both by the theory of evil advanced by Claudia Card in The Atrocity Paradigm and by the idea that there are evils done to the environment; however, I argue that the theory of evil she describes has difficulty living up to her claim that it "can make sense of ecological evils the victims of which include trees and even ecosystems" (2002, 16). In this paper, I argue that Card's account of evil does not accommodate the kinds of (...) harms inflicted on ecosystems and such nonhuman individuals as trees. I consider the possibility that Card intends a much broader version of evils than the language of the atrocity paradigm lets on, with its attention to sentience and dignity. I'm so persuaded by the atrocity paradigm, however, that I retain the centrality of suffering and introduce the idea that atrocities are intuitively massive, that is, done to groups or generations and not an individual person, animal or tree, so that the paradigm encourages us to think of evil as it relates to far more holistic entities which include the sentient. Evil may require the sort of suffering that only sentience can give rise to, which is not to say we let out trees but says rather that it is impossible to identify wrongs to ecosystems and groups that are not also intertwined with the fates of their sentient dependents. I conclude that Card is right to emphasize victims' suffering as a chief component of evil, and that the ontology of what constitutes a victim must be interpreted broadly, not the notion of suffering. (shrink)

Nel contesto della presente crisi climatica ed ambientale, istituzioni pubbliche e private promuovono la costruzione di ‘infrastrutture viventi’. L’articolo analizza l’economia biopolitica che caratterizza questi progetti, concentrandosi sull’infrastrutturalizzazione del pioppo: un genus botanico ampiamente utilizzato come ‘barriera contro la desertificazione’, ‘struttura di fitorisanamento’, e ‘pozzo di assorbimento di anidride carbonica’. Questi progetti mobilizzano il metabolismo della cellula vivente, dando forma a nuove reti di potere bio-infrastrutturale ed elaborate strategie di accumulazione del capitale.

Practitioners of psychiatry rely on techniques to influence and aid service users in making decisions regarding their treatment. However, these techniques, referred to as treatment pressures, can o...

In this case discussion, Barnhill and Devine collect and present a significant amount of recent research on the various reasons why people struggle to succeed in weight loss programmes. Specifically, the authors focus on what they call ‘behavioural weight loss interventions’, which are ‘research, clinical or public health efforts to promote individual healthy eating and physical activity behaviours’. As defined, this is a very broad category of interventions and presumably includes all kinds of dieting and weight loss programmes or promotion (...) efforts short of private or independently chosen programmes. The authors argue, in a nutshell, that these clinical, research, and public health interventions have low efficacy, and while they may have some health or other benefits, the balance of evidence presented shows that they harm people in multiple ways. (shrink)

How should we seek to account for the qualitative aspect of emotion? Strong intentionalism presents one promising avenue for such an account. According to strong intentionalism, the phenomenology of a mental state is entirely determined by that state's intentional content. Given that many views of the emotions have it that the intentionality and phenomenology of the emotions are very closely related, this makes strong intentionalism an especially promising route. However, strong intentionalism has rarely been defended for emotions and, we argue, (...) where it has, it has failed to be explanatory. This paper proposes a new explanatory form of strong intentionalism about emotion. We call it personal intentionalism. According to this view, the qualitative features of emotion are fully determined by the emotion's intentional content. This content varies inter- and intraindividually, according to one's cares and concerns, as well as one's other mental states. We assess its compatibility with theories of consciousness. (shrink)

This article proposes a different aesthetic state of Gilles Deleuze’s crystal-image defined as ‘psychedelic crystal’, a formation of the crystalline regime in light of the contemporary revival of scientific research exploring the healing potentialities of hallucinogenic drugs. The proposition of the psychedelic crystal occurs between Deleuze’s crystals of time, the therapeutic dimension of psychedelics, and Siegfried Kracauer’s concept of redemption (as salvation) through the cinematic medium. What lies in the middle of this encounter is a shared understanding of media – (...) films as media; drugs as media – as holding a curative influence: to resume an affirmative potentiality for life and to restore a belief in the (physical and psychical) world. The film-philosophical dimension of the psychedelic crystal, developed specifically through an engagement with Jan Kounen’s Blueberry (2004) as case study, sees cinema with the potential to reanimate our mental and physical reality, especially when in relation to traumatically repressed, dissociated or repeated memory formations – thus looking at certain film aesthetics as a mind-revealing, mind-expanding and mind-healing technology which can be considered as intrinsically entangled with the current revival of therapeutic practices of psychoactive substances. As a proposition, the psychedelic crystal discloses a potential dimension of the psychedelic frontier of healing which transversally embraces the transdisciplinary gamut of film-philosophy, film theory and psychedelic research. (shrink)

Sedlakova and Trachsel (hereafter referred to as “the authors”) argue that conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) in psychotherapy presents an ethical challenge as a tool with aspects of agen...

Charles J. Lumsden and E.O. Wilson, in their writings together and individually, have proposed that human behaviors, whether moral or nonmoral, are governed by innate constraints (which they have termed epigenetic rules). I propose that if a genetic component of moral behavior is to be discovered, some sorting out of specifically moral from nonmoral innate constraints will be necessary. That some specifically moral innate constraits exist is evidenced by virtuous behaviors exhibited in nonhuman mammals, whose behavior is usually granted to (...) be importantly governed by genetic factors. Propensities for such virtuous behaviors may have been passed to humans as highly conserved mammalian genes and continue to influence us. I propose that these constitute at least a rudimentary morality and may account in part for the moral intuitions. But other innate constraints which are nonmoral in nature interact with the specifically moral innate constraints and with culture to yield human moral decisions and actions. Any model which aims to identify the genetic component of moral behaviors or behaviors with moral import must provide not only a delineation of cultural causes but must also distinguish between those genetic causes which may have their origin in innate moral constraints from others which are fundamentally nonmoral because the critical faculty necessary to higher level human morality itself arises in part from innate constraints of a nonmoral type; i.e., the processes of inductive reasoning common to both ethics and science. Finally, humans who could bring the nonmoral evaluative capacities to bear upon whatever moral intuitions might be genetically conserved in mammalian heritage would have an advantage over similar beings who could not. (shrink)

Three views of sustainability are juxtaposed with four views about who the members of the moral community are. These provide points of contact for understanding the moral issues in sustainability. Attention is drawn to the preferred epistemic methods of the differing factions arguing for sustainability. Criteria for defining membership in the moral community are explored; rationality and capacity for pain are rejected as consistent criteria. The criterion of having interests is shown to be most coherent for explaining why all living (...) humans belong to the moral community. This criterion allows inclusion of future generations as well, and extends to animals and plants membership in the moral community. Inferences are drawn that food sufficiency advocates hold only presently living persons to be full-fledged members of the moral community, but that this view is internally inconsistent. Stewards should agree that all living things are members of the moral community. A distinction between welfare interests and ulterior interests allows the steward to include the aims of those who argue for sustainability as community without committing some of their errors. Community advocates argue that essential values and virtues will be lost is the culture of agriculture is transformed. I argue that community advocates may fail to pass on our most important virtue — justice — without such a transformation. (shrink)