This essay considers how scholarly approaches to the development of molecular biology have too often narrowed the historical aperture to genes, overlooking the ways in which other objects and processes contributed to the molecularization of life. From structural and dynamic studies of biomolecules to cellular membranes and organelles to metabolism and nutrition, new work by historians, philosophers, and STS scholars of the life sciences has revitalized older issues, such as the relationship of life to matter, or of physicochemical inquiries to (...) biology. This scholarship points to a novel molecular vista that opens up a pluralist view of molecularizations in the twentieth century and considers their relevance to current science. (shrink)

Inspired by, and in close relation with, the contributions of this special issue, Kuperberg elegantly links event comprehension, production, and learning. She proposes an overarching hierarchical generative framework of processing events enabling us to make sense of the world around us and to interact with it in a competent manner.

Fabiano argues that virtue theory offers the best “safety framework” for mitigating the risks of moral enhancement (1). He advances five desiderata for an ideal safety framework and then explains how virtue theory satisfies each. Among these desiderata is the “preservation of identity” (1). Fabiano argues that moral enhancement can safely preserve personal identity when carried out within the framework of virtue theory. We suggest Fabiano's argument for this conclusion falls short, since contra Fabiano’s claim, enhancing virtues may not preserve—and (...) could even damage—personal identity. We draw on three sources of evidence: 1) virtue theory scholarship that argues for the importance of habituation for virtue formation, 2) Focquaert and Schermer’s (2015) distinction between active and passive enhancement and attendant endorsement of more active paths to virtue enhancement, and 3) empirical research suggesting that technologies which support moral enhancements may have damaging effects on personal identity. (shrink)

3rd in the thread: between intention & attention.40.6700º N, 73.9400º W.

Embodying Asian/American Sexualities is an accessible reader designed for use in undergraduate and graduate American studies, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies classes as well as for a general public interested in related issues. It contains both overviews of the field and scholarly interventions into a range of topics, including history, literature, performance, and sociology.

The real-world navigation of ethics-in-practice versus the bureaucracy of institutional ethics remains challenging. This is especially true for research with children and young people who may be co...

This volume defends a particular set of progressive political interventions on the basis of their being legitimate exercises of coercive political power, specifically focusing on the gendered division of labour, which is widely regarded as the predominant form of gender injustice.

Commodity chain analysis (Bair and Ramsay, 2003 Multinational Companies and Global Human Resource Strategies) is used to explore where economic pressure (from consumers) or socio-political pressure (from governments and NGOs) can be applied to reduce worker exploitation. Six paths are illustrated with examples of successful and unsuccessful application of pressure. Three conclusions are reached :Economic pressure on companies and brand owners is more likely to lead to improved workplace conditions than socio-political pressure; Brand owners are more likely to implement improved (...) workplace conditions than retailers; and Retailers who are under extreme consumer price pressure will resist improving workplace conditions. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement presents the possibility of enhancing morally desirable emotions and dispositions. While some scholars have proposed that moral bioenhancement can produce virtue, we argue that within a virtue ethics framework moral bioenhancement cannot reliably produce virtue. Moreover, on a virtue ethics framework, the pursuit of moral bioenhancement carries moral risks. To make this argument, we consider three aspects of virtue—its motivational, rational, and behavioral components. In order to be virtuous, we argue, a person must (i) take pleasure in doing (...) the right thing and have the correct motivational attitudes; (ii) reason correctly about what is called for in a particular ethical dilemma; and (iii) intentionally and continuously practice and cultivate virtues. These dimensions of morality—in short: precisely those emphasized in a virtue ethics framework—cannot be consistently or reliably met using existing moral bioenhancement technology. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a conceptualization of leadership as contemplative. Drawing on MacIntyre’s perspective on virtue ethics and Levinas’ and Gilligan’s work on the ethics of responsibility and care, we propose contemplative leadership as virtuous activity; reflexive, engaged, relational, and embodied practice that requires knowledge from within context and practical wisdom. More than simply offering another way to conceptualize the ethics of leadership, this research contributes to understanding the ethics of leadership in practice. Empirically, we analyze the narratives of (...) those in positions of formal authority and other organizational members in churches. We illustrate contemplative leadership as driven by a good purpose, derived from the unique organizational and broader societal context in which leadership occurs, and grounded in an ethical concern for the other. Contemplative leadership accounts for the complexity of experience and is discerned in mundane and everyday practices. We conclude with the implications for leadership theory, practice, and education. (shrink)

This study examines the tensions between the western concept of professional independence and accountants’ commitment to significant others under the care perspective of guanxi. The principle of professional independence is founded on arm’s-length transactions to avoid undue influence on professional and ethical judgement. However, in the relational society of China, social interactions based on Confucianism elicit a duty of care and concern towards significant others in important relationships. For a professional accountant, the commitment to persons with whom they have guanxi (...) is potentially at odds with their commitment to professional independence. Data collected from interviews with Chinese accounting professionals, accounting academics and expatriate accountants working in China provide insight on how Chinese accounting professionals discharge their obligations under guanxi. Notions of guanxi and the rules of exchange identified in Hwang’s (Knowledge and action: A social psychological interpretation of Chinese cultural traditions, Sin-Li, Taipei, 1995) model of “Confucian ethics for ordinary people” provide the lens to explain the ethical dilemmas facing Chinese accountants. The findings suggest that accounting professionals prioritise the interests of their superiors and clients over the users of financial reports. Despite accountants’ moral obligation to protect the public interest, personal and professional obligations in China struggle to extend beyond client or employer interests mostly because of the absence of a formal relationship or connection with the public. This contrasts sharply with the notion of professional independence practised in western societies, where accounting professionals must be independent of their clients and superiors and commit to a duty to protect the public interest. The outcome of this study demonstrates the impediments to transplanting western concepts to different cultures. (shrink)

We recently conducted a Quebec-wide postal survey designed to assess major stakeholders’ attitudes toward extending medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to non-competent patients with dementia. This paper reports the results of qualitative analyses of the comments left by the respondents at the end of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was mailed to randomly selected representatives of four stakeholder groups: adults 65 years old and over (n=621), informal caregivers of persons with dementia (n=471), nurses (n=514) and physicians (n=653) caring for such patients (...) at the time of the survey. A total of 1,050 questionnaires were returned, of which 420 included comments. Comments were coded into categories, themes and subthemes, and the frequency of categories compared across the four stakeholder groups. Coding enabled identification of 23 themes and five sub-themes clustered into seven major thematic categories. These relate to: 1) the respondent, 2) the survey and questionnaire, 3) persons with dementia, 4) their informal caregivers, 5) the healthcare system, 6) the legal framework governing end-of-life care, and 7) society in general. These categories were identified in all stakeholder groups, although to a varying degree for five of the seven categories. This study highlights the host of factors that may influence a person’s attitude toward extending MAiD to non-competent patients with dementia. It also illustrates how making systematic use of free-text comments can provide valuable insight into attitudes toward complex social policy issues and extend understanding of postal survey findings. (shrink)

The primary question my dissertation aims to answer is: how might eudaimonic virtue ethics be reimagined to respond to contemporary criticisms from disability scholars, feminists, and empirical psychology? To answer this, I introduce the Eudaimonic View of Virtue, or EV, and propose a Mengzian adaptation of the EV (EV-M) in response to these criticisms. The EV captures the four core claims to which eudaimonic virtue ethical theories are committed: (i) virtues, in the sense of excellent character traits or dispositions, are (...) the foundation of ethics or ethical action (i.e., aretaicism); (ii) virtue is at least partially constitutive of human well-being/flourishing (i.e., eudaimonism); (iii) virtue or virtuous activity consists in the good performance of human function or fulfilling human nature (i.e., naturalism); and (iv) practical wisdom, in the sense of understanding how to live well, is required for achieving full virtue. For the EV, reason and emotions are both pivotal parts of virtue. However, there is disagreement among contemporary and historic eudaimonic virtue ethicists about what specific roles reason and emotion play—whether for Aristotle (the founder of the Western eudaimonic virtue ethics tradition) or in virtue ethical theory more broadly. The EV can be divided into (broadly) rational and emotional versions. I critically evaluate contemporary EV-based accounts in light of critiques from disability scholars, feminists, and psychologists, revealing rational versions’ vulnerability to the first two avenues of critique and emotional versions’ susceptibility to the third. In contrast to Aristotelian virtue ethics, which defines human nature through rational activity, Mengzi defines human nature through its potential for moral goodness; moreover, his moral psychology does not contain a rigid rational-emotional divide. This helps the Mengzian version of the EV evade criticisms from feminist and disability perspectives. Additionally, the EV-M’s emphasis on the interdependence of society and individuals—through its focus on rituals and social roles—provides an avenue of response to the psychology critique. The EV-M thus serves as a resilient foundation for an improved EV. (shrink)

Children and adolescents with an intellectual disability and autistic traits often attend special needs schools where they are surrounded by peers with diverse characteristics. Given the role that peers can play in social development, we examined whether autistic traits development in students with ID and high levels of such characteristics are influenced by the level of autistic traits among the schoolmates they like most. Furthermore, we investigated the degree to which this peer influence susceptibility depends on students’ gender. A longitudinal (...) design, with data collection points at the beginning and the end of a school year, was used. Staff reported on 330 students with high levels of autistic traits who attended 142 classrooms in 16 Swiss special needs schools. Results showed that students’ future individual level of autistic traits was not predicted by the autistic traits level of preferred peers, controlling for individual autistic traits at T1, level of general functioning, gender, and age. However, the peer effect was significantly moderated by students’ gender, indicating that girls but not boys were susceptible to peer influence. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding autistic traits development and directions of support for children and adolescents in their peer context. (shrink)

Organ transplantation offers many people who suffer from organ failure a chance to live longer. The Catholic Church, which has endorsed organ donation if it is practiced in an ethically acceptable manner, requires that unpaired vital organs be donated only after the donor is certainly dead. In an effort to increase the number of viable organs, a procedure called donation after cardiac death was introduced in the 1990s. This procedure violates the Roman Catholic moral teaching on the dignity of human (...) life because it violates the dead donor rule and undermines the dignity of the dying person. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.1 (Spring 2012): 55–65. (shrink)

The use of African American as a new denomination for a group previously referred to as Black has rapidly become standard practice in American society. This paper analyzes how the introduction of African American in our ordinary language marks the elaboration of a new social reality. As the concept becomes part of our social life, it is transformed into a real “phenomenon” of social representation that formalizes behaviour and orients communication. Such a transformation requires that the new term infiltrates people's (...) everyday lives sufficiently to concretize it into a common reality. The analysis presented here outlines three key processes in the emergence and formation of the social representation of African American. The first one is anchoring which familiarizes the new object by linking it with preexisting categories in our minds. The second process is objectification which assures the crystallization of the object. A figurative core is created to allow the projection of images. At this point people can talk about the object, and through communication the object takes on meaning. This naturalization is the third process to conclude the transformation of the object into a social reality. These steps have allowed African American to become the carrier for a modification of cognitions and broadening of attitudes concerning the group. (shrink)

General semantics reveals ambiguities in the Bible.

Autistic children with sensory processing differences successfully navigate and engage in meaningful family daily occupations within home and community environments through the support of their family. To date however, much of the research on autistic children with sensory processing differences, has primarily been deficit focused, while much of the caregiver research has focused on issues of distress, burden, effort, and emotional trauma in coping with their child's diagnosis. This study aimed to conduct a qualitative evidence synthesis, using a meta-ethnographic approach (...) to explore the gap identified in understanding successful occupational experiences of family participation and daily family routines when supporting an autistic child with sensory processing differences and to offer an alternative strengths-based perspective. Inclusion criteria were studies which were peer-reviewed qualitative design, published from 2000 to 2021, and that concerned parents/caregivers' perspectives of family occupations of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Studies were electronically searched in eight databases from October to December 2021 and 23 studies were identified which met the inclusion criteria. Noblit and Hare's seven step approach for conducting analysis in meta-ethnography was used, and three themes identified: sensory processing differences in daily life, what is hard about hard, and orchestrating family life. Results identified the centrality of sensory experiences in understanding family life. Living with unpredictability while orchestrating certainty through routines was core to successful participation. This review provides insights into how parents negotiate the complexities of constructing family life when living with an autistic child. The results can inform the design of future interventions that specifically address the relationship between meaningful participation in family occupations and daily routines and sensory processing in autistic children.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42022298938, identifier: CRD42022298938. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the late ontology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in particular the system he began to develop in The Visible and the Invisible, can be conceived of as a form of Radical Enactive Cognition, as described by Hutto and Myin in Radicalizing Enactivism. I will begin by discussing Clark and Chalmers’ extended mind hypothesis, as well as the enactive view of consciousness proposed by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch in The Embodied Mind. However, neither Clark and Chalmers’ extended (...) mind hypothesis nor the enactive view of consciousness advanced by Varela et al. are radical enough to fully capture Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology. Inasmuch as Hutto and Myin’s formulation combines features of the extended mind thesis and enactivism, and expresses both in a sufficiently radical fashion, it overcomes the deficits of both theories and can serve as a translation, so to speak, of Merleau-Ponty’s “ontology of the flesh” into contemporary terms. In particular, their formulation makes explicit several central aspects of his theory: the intimate, mutually constitutive relationship between perceiver and perceived world, the equal weight given to the contributions of perceiver and world within this relationship, and the displacement of representational content from its central position in the understanding of consciousness. It is thus the ideal vehicle for demonstrating some perhaps unexpected ways in which Merleau-Ponty’s thought is compatible with contemporary conversations concerning the nature of mind. (shrink)

(2009). The Importance of Number in Husserl's Early Theory of Time-Constitution. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 40, Husserl's Lectures on Internal Time-Conciousness, pp. 188-206.

This dissertation is concerned with one of the central but most perplexing theories in Plotinus's metaphysics, namely the nature and origin of time. In contrast to those interpretations of Neoplatonism that treat time as an imperfect image and passive product of eternity, I argue for a much more subtle and multifaceted concept that makes the human observer central to Plotinus's account of how time is actualized and thus passes. His emphasis on mystical experience and the individual soul's journey toward the (...) One and the realm of eternity strengthens this account. By reading the treatise On Eternity and Time in this light, I demonstrate the importance of embodied human consciousness for the Plotinian theory of time. ;This emphasis invites comparison with the one contemporary Continental thinker who devoted countless pages in both his published work and his manuscripts to the relationship between time and consciousness. In the second part of the dissertation I argue that the Husserlian and Plotinian subjects have analogous characteristics, in accordance with their parallel roles as sources of time, and that the Husserlian notion of omnitemporality offers the best way of understanding the internal connection between Plotinus's notion of eternity and his notion of actualization through human experience. At the same time, Plotinus challenges a phenomenological account by giving the eternal ontological priority over the human realm of temporality. Nevertheless, these intriguing affinities and oppositions suggest that Plotinus's theory of time and eternity can best be understood and even expanded by uncovering its phenomenological underpinnings. (shrink)

Background: Family members are often required to act as substitute decision-makers when health care or research participation decisions must be made for an incapacitated relative. Yet most families are unable to accurately predict older adult preferences regarding future health care and willingness to engage in research studies. Discussion and documentation of preferences could improve proxies' abilities to decide for their loved ones. This trial assesses the efficacy of an advance planning intervention in improving the accuracy of substitute decision-making and increasing (...) the frequency of documented preferences for health care and research. It also investigates the financial impact on the healthcare system of improving substitute decision-making. Methods/DesignDyads (n = 240) comprising an older adult and his/her self-selected proxy are randomly allocated to the experimental or control group, after stratification for type of designated proxy and self-report of prior documentation of healthcare preferences. At baseline, clinical and research vignettes are used to elicit older adult preferences and assess the ability of their proxy to predict those preferences. Responses are elicited under four health states, ranging from the subject's current health state to severe dementia. For each state, we estimated the public costs of the healthcare services that would typically be provided to a patient under these scenarios. Experimental dyads are visited at home, twice, by a specially trained facilitator who communicates the dyad-specific results of the concordance assessment, helps older adults convey their wishes to their proxies, and offers assistance in completing a guide entitled My Preferences that we designed specifically for that purpose. In between these meetings, experimental dyads attend a group information session about My Preferences. Control dyads attend three monthly workshops aimed at promoting healthy behaviors. Concordance assessments are repeated at the end of the intervention and 6 months later to assess improvement in predictive accuracy and cost savings, if any. Copies of completed guides are made at the time of these assessments. DiscussionThis study will determine whether the tested intervention guides proxies in making decisions that concur with those of older adults, motivates the latter to record their wishes in writing, and yields savings for the healthcare system. Trial RegistrationISRCTN89993391. (shrink)

As the grandchild of Italian immigrants, photographer Gina J. Grillo has a personal impetus in her photographic studies of ethnic and immigrant life in the United States. In Between Cultures, Grillo explores the struggles immigrant children face as they develop their cultural identity in an environment completely new and foreign to them. Following the tradition of the pioneering photographers Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, Grillo portrays the immigrant experience through children's eyes, unearthing a complex and poignant world. She begins (...) with images of newly arrived immigrant families at O'Hare International Airport during their first few hours in the United States, and then follows them through the gates and into Chicago's urban life: through her chronicle of citizenship ceremonies, cultural celebrations, weddings and dances, and other everyday scenes of immigrant life, Grillo captures the crucial elements that shape not only the characters of the children, but also the neighborhoods in which they reside. For adults, emigration to America is filled with both hope and fear, yet it is tempered by a mature understanding. For children, however, this same journey unfolds in the unrelenting present as they must constantly negotiate their individual identities and allegiances to culture, country, and kin. With moving quotations and drawings by immigrant children woven into Grillo's visual sequence, Between Cultures is a unique meditation on the development of individual identity through the reconciliation of multiple cultural heritages. (shrink)

Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims suffer can create toxic (...) working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed. Bullying has always been part of the human condition; history is rife with references to abuse of power and unnecessary or excessive force. The classic bully story is of Joseph and his brothers, a tale of envy and hostility. The refinement of bullying to include various forms of legally defined social harassment is a relatively late phenomenon, however, dating to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the United States, bullying is not illegal, whereas it is illegal in many other countries. Bullying is not about benign teasing, nor does it include the off-color jokes, racial slurs, or unwelcome advances that are the hallmarks of legally defined harassment. Workplace bullying is the pattern of destructive and generally deliberate demeaning of co-workers or subordinates that reminds us of the activities of the schoolyard bully. Unlike the schoolyard bully, however, the workplace bully is an adult, usually (but not always) aware of the impact of his or her behavior on others. Bullying in the workplace, often tacitly accepted by the organizational leadership, can create an environment of psychological threat that diminishes corporate productivity and inhibits individual and group commitment. The two examples that follow will help to clarify the difference between harassment and bullying. (shrink)

El desarrollo creciente de la novela negra neo-detectivesca en Chile es una prueba más de que atravesamos por un cambio artístico fundamental. Tecnológica y estéticamente impecables, las variantes de esta novela suelen ser producidas por escritores rigurosamente profesionales. Sin embargo y a pesar de los factores mencionados, ésta no está exenta de popularidad y éxito de ventas. Elalemán de Atacama de Roberto Ampuero es la segunda de la saga de su detective ficcional Cayetano Brulet. Como otras de sus novelas, ésta (...) conlleva una reflexión sobre el entreguismo de la nación-estado, los efectos devastadores de la economía global, la precariedad de los grupos étnicos y la destrucción ecológica. (shrink)

Foreign nationals who marry U.S. citizens have an expedited track to naturalization. U.S. immigration officials require that “green card” petitioning couples demonstrate that their relationships are “valid and subsisting” and not fraudulent. These requirements are ostensibly gender and racially neutral, but migration itself is not; men and women petitioners seek partners in different regions and solicit advice from similar others about the potential obstacles to their petitions’ success. Using an online ethnography and textual analysis of conversation threads on a large (...) online immigration forum where U.S. petitioners exchange such information, I examine how gendered standards of legitimacy are applied to family and sexuality and used discursively among petitioners to achieve genuineness and define red flags indicating potential marriage fraud. I argue that forum members police immigration requests even before cases reach an immigration officer. Petitioners use the formal criteria of U.S. immigration in ways that reveal gender ideologies, expectations for conformity to a gendered hegemonic family ideal, and sexual double standards surrounding sexual agency, fertility, and desirability. These intersectional norms shape members’ online discussions about the suitability of marriages and of the migration of noncitizen partners to the United States. (shrink)