The conduct of research in settings affected by disasters such as hurricanes, floods and earthquakes is challenging, particularly when infrastructures and resources were already limited pre-disaster. However, since post-disaster research is essential to the improvement of the humanitarian response, it is important that adequate research ethics oversight be available. We aim to answer the following questions: 1) what do research ethics committee members who have reviewed research protocols to be conducted following disasters in low- and middle-income countries perceive as the (...) key ethical concerns associated with disaster research?, and 2) in what ways do REC members understand these concerns to be distinct from those arising in research conducted in non-crisis situations? This qualitative study was developed using interpretative description methodology; 15 interviews were conducted with REC members. Four key ethical issues were identified as presenting distinctive considerations for disaster research to be implemented in LMICs, and were described by participants as familiar research ethics issues that were amplified in these contexts. First, REC members viewed disaster research as having strong social value due to its potential for improving disaster response, but also as requiring a higher level of justification compared to other research settings. Second, they identified vulnerability as an overarching concern for disaster research ethics, and a feature that required careful and critical appraisal when assessing protocols. They noted that research participants’ vulnerabilities frequently change in the aftermath of a disaster and often in unpredictable ways. Third, they identified concerns related to promoting and maintaining safety, confidentiality and data security in insecure or austere environments. Lastly, though REC members endorsed the need and usefulness of community engagement, they noted that there are significant challenges in a disaster setting over and above those typically encountered in global health research to achieve meaningful community engagement. Disaster research presents distinctive ethical considerations that require attention to ensure that participants are protected. As RECs review disaster research protocols, they should address these concerns and consider how justification, vulnerability, security and confidentially, and community engagement are shaped by the realities of conducting research in a disaster. (shrink)

Anyone familiar with the work of Friedrich Münzer knows that he possessed an unrivalled knowledge of the Roman aristocracy of the Republic. On the rare occasion when something escapes Münzer, it is apt to pass altogether unnoticed. The following is one such instance.

Drawing on insights from causal theories of reference, teleosemantics, and state space semantics, a theory of naturalized mental representation. In A Mark of the Mental, Karen Neander considers the representational power of mental states—described by the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn as the “second hardest puzzle” of philosophy of mind. The puzzle at the heart of the book is sometimes called “the problem of mental content,” “Brentano's problem,” or “the problem of intentionality.” Its motivating mystery is how neurobiological states can have (...) semantic properties such as meaning or reference. Neander proposes a naturalistic account for sensory-perceptual representations. Neander draws on insights from state-space semantics, causal theories of reference, and teleosemantic theories. She proposes and defends an intuitive, theoretically well-motivated but highly controversial thesis: sensory-perceptual systems have the function to produce inner state changes that are the analogs of as well as caused by their referents. Neander shows that the three main elements—functions, causal-information relations, and relations of second-order similarity—complement rather than conflict with each other. After developing an argument for teleosemantics by examining the nature of explanation in the mind and brain sciences, she develops a theory of mental content and defends it against six main content-determinacy challenges to a naturalized semantics. (shrink)

Efforts to understand gender segregation within and among science disciplines have focused on both supply- and demand-side explanations. Yet we know little about how academic scientists themselves view the sources of such segregation. Utilizing data from a survey of scientists at thirty top U.S. graduate programs in physics and biology and semistructured interviews with 150 of them, this article examines the reasons academic scientists provide for differences in the distribution of women in biology and physics. In quantitative analyses, gender is (...) more salient than discipline in determining the reasons scientists provide for gender disparities between disciplines, suggesting that gender may act as a “master status,” shaping the experiences of scientists regardless of the gender composition of the discipline. Qualitative interviews confirm this interpretation and reveal that scientists also perceive mentoring, natural differences, discrimination, and the history of the disciplines to be important factors. Results contribute to research on the relationship between emotional labor and occupational gender segregation conducted in professions such as law and nursing. (shrink)

An exploration of everything Kant's philosophy can teach us about being the best people we can be, from using our human reasoning to its fullest potential to being affably drunk at dinner parties. Immanuel Kant is well known as one of the towering figures of Western philosophical history, but he is less well known for his savvy advice about hosting dinner parties. This philosophical genius was a man of many interests and talents: his famously formal and abstract ethical system is (...) only part of his story. But Kant not only made a profound impact on how people think about big questions like how to treat one another -- he also offered wise insights on things people confront in everyday life: things like gossip, friendship, manners, self-respect, cheerfulness, gratitude, mockery, contempt, and yes, dinner parties. In this book, philosopher Karen Stohr shows how Kant's whole ethical picture fits together. It's a picture that is as relevant and useful now as it was in the 18th century--and maybe even more so. A Kantian way of living means using reason to guide your choices so that your life reflects your true nature as a free, rational being. This nature is one we share with others; Kantianism emphasizes the fundamental dignity and equality of each person. It presents an ideal for how we should live together without downplaying the challenges we face in the actual world. Though realistic about human weaknesses, Kant remained optimistic about our capacities and possibilities. He had great faith in the ability of human reason to point us in the direction of moral progress and to get us there. Each of us has the power within us to know and choose the right path--we just have to be willing to make that choice, and to discover how worthwhile life can be in the process. (shrink)

On or shortly after 4 February 43b.c.Cicero delivered theNinth Philippicin an effort to persuade the Senate to honour Ser. Sulpicius Rufus. He argued that Sulpicius, who had died of natural causes while acting as the Senate's envoy, was nevertheless entitled to the same recognition aslegatikilledob rem publicam. In the course of the speech Cicero discussed various historic precedents, including Cn. Octavius who was assassinated in Syria in 162b.c.while doing the Senate's bidding and was consequently honoured with a statue on the (...) rostra. The statue was still extant in 43b.c.and Cicero reminded his audience that it was now the only memorial to this great family. Cicero's observation has unanimously been interpreted as signifying that the family of the consul of 165b.c.was extinct in February 43b.c.In fact, Cicero actually meant that the statue on the rostra was now the sole surviving monument associated with the family of Cn. Octavius because the other two monuments that had served as a concrete reminder of the family had latterly been destroyed. (shrink)

This book explains how gossip contributes to knowledge. Karen Adkins marshals scholarship and case studies spanning centuries and disciplines to show that although gossip is a constant activity in human history, it has rarely been studied as a source of knowledge. People gossip for many reasons, but most often out of desire to make sense of the world while lacking access to better options for obtaining knowledge. This volume explores how, when our access to knowledge is blocked, gossip becomes a (...) viable path to knowledge attainment, one that involves the asking of questions, the exchange of ideas, and the challenging of preconceived notions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.2 (2000) 237-258 [Access article in PDF] The Inauguration of Lentulus Niger Patrick Tansey AppendicesMore than half a century ago, in the course of a groundbreaking article in this journal on the composition of the pontifical college in the first century B.C., Lily Ross Taylor attempted to fix the date of the banquet held in honor of the inauguration of L. Cornelius Lentulus Niger (...) as flamen Martialis. 1 She was partially successful, but the precise date eluded her. Her article remains fundamental, but the question of the date of the banquet can be profitably reconsidered. It so happens that a precise date is not beyond our grasp. What is more, we shall see that once the date of the banquet has been established, a number of important consequences follow.Macrobius preserves a remarkably detailed account of the banquet. For present purposes the guest list will suffice: refero enim pontificis vetustissimam cenam quae scripta est in indice quarto Metelli illius pontificis maximi in haec verba: ante diem nonum kalendas Septembres, quo die Lentulus flamen Martialis inauguratus est, domus ornata fuit, triclinia lectis eburneis strata fuerunt, duobus tricliniis pontifices cubuerunt, Q. Catulus, M. Aemilius Lepidus, D. Silanus, C. Caesar, rex sacrorum, P. Scaevola Sextus, Q. Cornelius, P. Volumnius, P. Albinovanus et L. Iulius Caesar augur qui eum inauguravit; in tertio triclinio Popilia, Perpennia, Licinia, Arruntia virgines Vestales, et ipsius uxor Publicia flaminica et Sempronia socrus eius. 2The passage contains a number of vital clues as to the date of the event. Macrobius states that he derived his account from the index quartus of the pontifex maximus Metellus--that is, Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius (cos. 80), pontifex maximus from 81 until his death in 64 or 63. We are also told that the banquet took place ante diem nonum kalendas Septembres [End Page 237] (22 August), though the year is not specified. In a brief note Mommsen elucidated a further clue and established the basic chronological parameters. He observed that among the pontifices in attendance was the young C. Caesar and that as a consequence the banquet must be dated after Caesar's entry into the pontifical college, which Mommsen placed in 74. 3 He also noted that the mention of Metellus Pius entailed that the banquet could be dated no later than Pius' death in 63. 4 He concluded that the banquet probably occurred not long before 63. 5There matters rested until, many years later, Taylor reconsidered the question at length. She acknowledged that the banquet must date between the years 74/73 and 64/63. However, she employed a complex and ingenious argument to show that the terminus post quem non for the banquet should be set back from 63 to 69. Following a suggestion of Marquardt and Wissowa, she argued that the lists in Macrobius' Saturnalia (3.13.10-11) and in Cicero's De Haruspicum Responsis (12) register the members of the pontifical college in order of their entry into the college. 6 Therefore, since the pontifex P. Sulpicius Galba does not appear [End Page 238] in Macrobius' list and is named after Lentulus Niger by Cicero, it follows that Niger's inauguration must have preceded the co-optation of Galba. Taylor argued further that the date of Galba's entry into the pontifical college could be fixed approximately, as Galba issued coins when curule aedile depicting the emblems of the pontificate, which suggests that he was already a pontifex by the time he held the aedileship. Finally, as Galba was an unsuccessful consular candidate for 63, and hence praetor by 66, Taylor contended that he was aedile at the latest in 69. Thus according to her chain of reasoning, Galba was a pontifex by 69, and the banquet in honor of Niger's inauguration must be dated no later than that year. Hence Taylor dated the banquet between the years 74/73 and 69. 7More recently Marinone used a novel argument in an attempt to fix the date of the banquet more precisely. He argued that Macrobius found the account of the banquet in... (shrink)

Many of today's ads work by arousing the viewer's emotions. Although emotion-arousing ads are widely used and are commonly thought to be effective, their careless use produces a side-effect: the psychoactive ad. A psychoactive ad is any emotion-arousing ad that can cause a meaningful, well-defined group of viewers to feel extremely anxious, to feel hostile toward others, or to feel a loss of self-esteem. We argue that, because some ill-conceived psychoactive ads can cause harm, ethical issues must arise during their (...) production. Current pretesting methods cannot identify the potentially psychoactive ads; therefore, we offer some tentative guidelines for reducing the number of viewers harmed by psychoactive ads. (shrink)

The role of the Nobel Laureate Henry Dale in the history of allergy and the association of anaphylactic conditions with the liberation of histamine is often overlooked. This paper examines his work in this field in the broader context of his researches into endogenous mediators of normal physiological and abnormal pathological functioning. It also assesses the impact of his working environment, especially the unique conditions he enjoyed at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories . (...) The WPRL belonged to the pharmaceutical manufacturer Henry Wellcome, and it was the juxtaposition of the routine commercial obligation of testing drugs for Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., with the opportunities of pursuing unfettered physiological research in well-equipped and supported laboratories, that resulted in what Dale referred to as ‘happy accidents’ when one set of results suggested experimental strategies and designs to another circumstance. In this way an observation of an unusual effect of an extract of ergot of rye led to collaborative chemical and physiological explorations which revealed the presence of histamine, previously known only as a synthetic product. Further work, accidentally facilitated by the fact that the WPRL produced serum anti-toxins commercially and surplus horse serum was used in experiments where other physiologists routinely used saline, hinted that histamine played a role in the symptom complex known as anaphylaxis. This paper explores some of these themes and elaborates their significance. (shrink)

We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and (...) agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2, whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief. (shrink)

In seeking an answer to the question of what it means for a theory to be fundamental, it is enlightening to ask why the current best theories of physics are not generally believed to be fundamental. This reveals a set of conditions that a theory of physics must satisfy in order to be considered fundamental. Physics aspires to describe ever deeper levels of reality, which may be without end. Ultimately, at any stage we may not be able to tell whether (...) we’ve reached rock bottom, or even if there is a base level—nevertheless, I draft a checklist to help us identify when to stop digging, in the case where we may have reached a candidate for a final theory. Given that the list is—according to mainstream belief in high-energy physics—complete, and each criterion well-motivated, I argue that a physical theory that satisfies all the criteria can be assumed to be fundamental in the absence of evidence to the contrary. (shrink)

Recent defenses of shaming as an effective tool for identifying bad practice and provoking social change appear compatible with feminism. I complicate this picture by examining two instances of online feminist shaming that resulted in shame backlashes. Shaming requires the assertion of social and epistemic authority on behalf of a larger community, and is dependent upon an audience that will be receptive to the shaming testimony. In cases where marginally situated knowers attempt to “shame up,” it presents challenges for feminist (...) uses. (shrink)

A corrupt proverb in the paroemiographic corpus relates to an incident recounted in Caesar’s Bellum Civile, and elucidates the stemma of the Aurelii Cottae.

This article explores the processes through which Australian recipients select unknown donors for use in assisted reproductive technologies and speculates on how those processes may affect the future life of the donor-conceived person. I will suggest that trust is an integral part of the exchange between donors, recipients, and gamete agencies in donor conception and heavily informs concepts of relatedness, race, ethnicity, kinship, class, and visibility. The decision to be transparent about a child’s genetic parentage affects recipient parents’ choices of (...) donor, about who is allowed to “know” children’s genetic backgrounds, and how important it is to be able to “pass” as an unassisted conception. In this way, recipients must trust the process, institutions, and individuals involved in their treatment, as well as place trust in the future they imagine for their child. The current market for donor gametes reproduces normative conceptions of the nuclear family, kinship, and relatedness by facilitating “matching” donors to recipients by phenotype and cultural affinities. Recipient parents who choose not to prioritize “matching,” and actively disclose the process of children’s conceptions, may embark on a project of queering heteronormative family structures and place great trust in both their own children and changing social attitudes to reduce stigma and generate acceptance for non-traditional families. (shrink)

The classic Lewis-Stalnaker semantics for counterfactuals captures that Sobel sequences are consistent sequences, for example: a.If Sophie had gone to the parade, she would have seen Pedro dance. b.But if Sophie had gone to the parade and been stuck behind someone tall, she would not have seen Pedro dance. But reverse a sequence like this one and it no longer sounds so good, which is surprising on the classic semantics. This observation motivated Kai von Fintel and Thony Gillies to propose (...) dynamic semantic accounts of counterfactual conditionals. Subsequently, Sarah Moss defended the classic semantics against the charge that it need be abandoned in the face of these order effects, arguing that the infelicity of the reverse sequences is pragmatic. I argue that both accounts are ultimately untenable, but each account has strengths. Seeing what works and what doesn't in each account points the way to the right positive view. With this in mind, I defend a contextualist account of counterfactuals that takes conversational relevance to play a central role. (shrink)

How do you find God in the ordinary moments of life? After a random surgery gave Karen Wingate better vision than she ever had before, she saw parts of creation, faces of friends, and life moments in ways she had never seen before. In her book, With Fresh Eyes, sixty readings chronicle her discoveries and shed light on your ability to look for God, see the finer details of His handiwork, and discover how He moves and works within the lives (...) of His children. Her insights will guide you toward the light of God's goodness and help you find a clarity of spiritual sight you've never experienced before. (shrink)