Spontaneous inferences are unconscious, automatic, and apparently ubiquitous. Research has documented their variety (particularly in the social domain) and impact on memory and judgment. They are good candidates for Mercier and Sperber's (M&S's) Forming spontaneous inferences is highly context sensitive, varying with the perceiver's conscious and unconscious goals, and implicit and explicit theories about the domain in question.

Data documenting poor understanding among research participants and real-time efforts to assess comprehension in large-scale studies are focusing new attention on informed consent comprehension. Within the context of biobanking consent, we previously convened a multidisciplinary panel to reach consensus about what information must be understood for a prospective participant’s consent to be considered valid. Subsequently, we presented them with data from another study showing that many U.S. adults would fail to comprehend the information the panel had deemed essential. When asked (...) to evaluate the importance of the information again, panelists’ opinions shifted dramatically in the direction of requiring that less information be understood. Follow-up interviews indicated significant uncertainty about defining a threshold of understanding and what should happen when prospective participants are unable to grasp key information. These findings have important implications for urgently needed discussion of whether... (shrink)

In qualitative interviews with a diverse group of experts, the vast majority believed unregulated researchers should seek out independent oversight. Reasons included the need for objectivity, protecting app users from research risks, and consistency in standards for the ethical conduct of research. Concerns included burdening minimal risk research and limitations in current systems of oversight. Literature and analysis supports the use of IRBs even when not required by regulations, and the need for evidence-based improvements in IRB processes.

Book reviewed in this article: Feminist Ethics. Ed. Claudia Card.

We surveyed IRB chairs' perspectives on offering individual genetic research results to participants and families, including family members of deceased participants, and the IRB's role in addressing these issues. Given a particular hypothetical scenario, respondents favored offering results to participants but not family members, giving choices at the time of initial consent, and honoring elicited choices. They felt IRBs should have authority regarding the process issues, but a more limited role in medical and scientific issues.

I examine the dynamics of measure development using two case studies: temperature, and health-related quality of life. I argue, following Bas van Fraassen and Leah McClimans that in each case these dynamics have a hermeneutic structure. Measure development is plagued by epistemic circularity, as is the task of interpreting a text, and similar strategies can be used in both measure development and hermeneutics to overcome that circularity. I show that Hans Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in particular are an effective lens (...) through which to examine the development of the temperature standard as described by Hasok Chang. Despite similar grounding in hermeneutics, I note an important difference between measure development for temperature and for health-related quality of life. Namely, while the meaning of temperature can be standardized, the meaning of health-related quality of life cannot. This standardization of meaning for the temperature concept represents a limit to the analogy with hermeneutics. Finally, I argue that the indeterminacy we find in health-related quality of life measurement is a result not only of analogy with the hermeneutic task, but of full-fledged participation in it. (shrink)

The woman at the heart of Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” (Vitalogy, 1994) is trapped. She has committed herself to a relationship that makes her miserable, but she sees no viable alternative to staying in it. She mourns a past self who might have been able to leave and dreams of a dierent way things might be, but remains unable to move on. It is tempting to view her with a mixture of pity and frustration (reecting some of the personal circumstances (...) -- Eddie Vedder’s mother’s second marriage -- informing its composition). As a moral being, she appears to be hopelessly compromised by her situation, even as she is also doing her best to survive under conditions designed to undermine her autonomy and keep her trapped (as abusive relationships do). The song is not so much critical of her choice to stay as it is confused by and resigned to it. -/- What keeps a person where she so clearly does not want to be? -/- The song itself was, at least early in its recorded life for Pearl Jam, similarly compromised. Vedder appears to have thought of it as too “accessible”, too much of a pop hit for the kind of musical vision he had in mind either for Vs. (for which it had originally been intended) or for Vitalogy; by this point in the band’s career, he was ever more actively resisting success, accessibility, and everything that went with the version of rock star life imposed collectively on the band and on him as an individual. The form that resistance took was an exercise of artistic and other forms of control, sometimes exercised in ways that were destructive or damaging (to the band and its internal relationships, its fame or success, its image, its artistic identity, etc.). -/- What keeps an artist or a band where they so clearly do not want to be? In this chapter, I oer a loose exploration of some possible philosophical approaches to answering the question of what keeps us where we are, like it or not, worked out in parallel through the lyrics of “Better Man” and the circumstances of the song’s eventual arrival Vitalogy. My main interest is in examining the ethical dimensions of the question itself -- what, if anything, are we morally required or expected to do under compromised or compromising conditions? My main suggestion is that answering the question might require of us a messier, more ambivalent, and perhaps more compassionate notion of moral agency, inspired by Simone Weil’s work on affliction. (shrink)

Can humans flourish without destroying the earth? In this book, experts on many of the world's major and minor religious traditions address the question of human and earth flourishing. Each chapter considers specific religious ideas and specific environmental harms. Chapters are paired and the authors work in dialogue with one another. Taken together, the chapters reveal that the question of flourishing is deceptively simple. Most would agree that humans should flourish without destroying the earth. But not all humans have equal (...) opportunities to flourish. Additionally, on a basic physical level any human flourishing must, of necessity, cause some harm. These considerations of the price and distribution of flourishing raise unique questions about the status of humans and nature. This book represents a step toward reconciliation: that people and their ecosystems may live in peace, that people from different religious worldviews may engage in productive dialogue; in short, that all may flourish. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 26-28.

The informed consent process for genetic testing does not commonly address preferences regarding disclosure of results in the event of the patient's death. Adults being tested for familial colorectal cancer were asked whether they want their exome sequencing results disclosed to another person in the event of their death prior to receiving the results. Of 78 participants, 92% designated an individual and 8% declined to. Further research will help refine practices for informed consent.

As library collections and services have increasingly moved from print to digital, much of the work that used to be done by libraries themselves with regard to creating, maintaining, and managing the systems that hold collections and facilitate user access to them is now done primarily by vendors. This change to the information services landscape for academic libraries is the occasion not only of technical and procedural challenges, but also some internal conflicts concerning the ethical demands of the library profession. (...) This essay examines the ways in which these conflicts become acute and obvious when attention is paid to the way in which attempts to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are undermined by the handover of library services to vendors, even when—or perhaps especially when—those vendors use their control of content and platforms to commodify diverse content instead of making the necessary systemic changes required by truly effective EDI efforts. (shrink)

Science is revolutionizing human reproduction. New techniques are already with us, such as artificial insemination, the freezing of sperm, in vitro fertilization and the use of surrogate mothers. Artificial wombs are clearly on the horizon.

THIS ESSAY EXAMINES FEASTING AND FASTING IN LIGHT OF CHRISTIAN DEsires to eat as, with, and for Christ. Christ both fasted and feasted; Christians, in following his example, may embody him, encounter him, and eat in certain ways for his sake. In the Eucharist, Christians encounter and embody Christ, illuminating the ways that eating can be a holy practice. The Eucharist offers Christians transformative guidance and practical synthesis, allowing them to navigate the extremes of fasting and feasting. It encompasses and (...) enshrines both, allowing both enjoyment and abstention to be transformed into a fulfilled practice of consumption. Consuming Christ in the Eucharist helps Christians find ways to sanctify their consumption in other areas of life. (shrink)

We describe a new approach for developing and validating cognitive process models. We develop graphical models (specifically, hidden Markov models) both from human empirical data on a task, as well as from synthetic data traces generated by a cognitive process model of human behavior on the task. We show that considering differences between the two graphical models can unveil substantive and nuanced imperfections of cognitive process models that can then be addressed to increase their fidelity to empirical data.

Public streets are central to the built environment, where individuals seek a fair share of the roadway’s benefits and harms. But the American street, an asphalt landscape typically defined and designed for cars, can be inaccessible, unhealthy, and dangerous for the non-motorized, whose transportation choices have the smallest ecological footprint. Concern for social equity and sustainability requires rethinking the street geographically and ethically, and asking: “In what sense is the street a space of justice? How do traditional street regulation and (...) design manifest ethical priorities? And what might a more just street look like, in theory and practice?” Such questions prompt one to engage both the spatial and moral, thus drawing from critical geography and ethics to analyze roadways in terms of fairness and relational wholeness, and argue for what might be called a shalom street. Engaging such ethical concepts with the technical vocabularies of street regulation and design requires analyzing how national model standards and their interpretation enforce and materialize justice on the street.The promise of more just alternatives such as more sustainable and fair “Complete Streets” to live in needs to be explored. (shrink)

Crisis in the Courtroom: The Discursive Conditions of Possibility for Ruptures in Legal Discourse This article addresses the conditions of possibility for the precautionary turn in legal discourse. Although the precautionary turn itself has been well-detailed in both legal and political discourse, insufficient attention has been paid to what made this shift possible. This article remedies this, starting by showing how the events of 9/11 were unable to be incorporated within current discursive structures. As a result, these discursive structures were (...) dislocated and a new ‘crisis discourse’ emerged that succeeded in attributing meaning to the events of 9/11. By focusing on three important cases from three different jurisdictions evidencing the precautionary turn in legal discourse, this article shows that crisis discourse is indeed employed by the judiciary and that its logic made this precautionary approach to counterterrorism in the law possible. These events, now some 16 years ago, hold relevance for today’s continuing presence of crisis and crisis discourse. (shrink)

In response to Larry Rasmussen's article about religious ethics in the Anthropocene, I offer an analysis that both contextualizes and elaborates upon his ideas. I introduce other humanities disciplines that have already wrestled with this question, and scholars of color whose voices offer needed correctives to the colonial heritage of most academic disciplines. I explore topics including human agency, non-human agency, exploitation, and refuge. I encourage scholars in our field to move beyond questions of responsibility and lamentations of moral incompetence (...) and into concepts of right relationality and analysis of grassroots climate action already taking place in religious, ethical contexts. (shrink)

The paper analyses the argumentative structure of a difficult passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics XII 7 on the basis of a topos of sameness provided in Top. VII 1. In doing this the article gives an example of how Aristotle's treatises on dialectic can prove useful to understand what he says in his more philosophically committed writings. The article also shows how general argumentative techniques and more or less explicit specific philosophical assumptions interact in shaping Aristotle's arguments and how the distinction (...) of these different factors can help us have a better grasp on Aristotle's text. (shrink)

The field of ethics is enjoying a much-needed renaissance. Traditional theories and approaches are appropriately coming under fire, although not every new idea will stand time's test. Feminist thinking suggests that we at least emphasize the importance of women and their interests, focus on issues specially affecting women, rethink fundamental assumptions, incorporate feminist insights and conclusions from other areas, and be consistent with respect to our concerns about equality by paying attention to race and class.

Feminist criticism of health care and ofbioethics has become increasingly rich andsophisticated in the last years of thetwentieth century. Nonetheless, this body ofwork remains quite marginalized. I believe thatthere are (at least) two reasons for this.First, many people are still confused aboutfeminism. Second, many people are unconvincedthat significant sexism still exists and aretherefore unreceptive to arguments that itshould be remedied if there is no largerbenefit. In this essay I argue for a thin,``core'' conception of feminism that is easy tounderstand and (...) difficult to reject. Corefeminism would render debate within feminismmore fruitful, clear the way for appropriaterecognition of differences among women andtheir circumstances, provide intellectuallycompelling reasons for current non-feminists toadopt a feminist outlook, and facilitatemutually beneficial cooperation betweenfeminism and other progressive socialmovements. This conception of feminism alsomakes it clear that feminism is part of alarger egalitarian moral and political agenda,and adopting it would help bioethics focus onthe most urgent moral priorities. In addition,integrating core feminism into bioethics wouldopen a gateway to the more speculative parts offeminist work where a wealth of creativethinking is occurring. Engaging with thisfeminist work would challenge and strengthenmainstream approaches; it should also motivatemainstream bioethicists to explore othercurrently marginalized parts of bioethics. (shrink)

Despite this virtue's history as an instrument of women's oppression, modesty, at its most basic, means voluntary restraint of one's power, undertaken for the sake of others. It is a mechanism that modifies unequal power relationships and encourages greater compassion and fairness. I use a Christian perspective with influences from Jewish and Muslim sources to examine modesty. The modest person, I argue, must be in relationship with others, must be honestly aware of her impacts on others, must be sensitive to (...) those impacts, compassionate toward others, and willing to hold back for others' sakes. Moreover, modesty is not only a virtue that pertains to sexuality and clothing, but it also can promote virtuous environmental behavior, particularly as it leads to awareness of, and sensitivity to, the effects of everyday behaviors on vulnerable others. (shrink)

Ecological restoration and native landscaping are increasing, particularly in the American Midwest, where they form part of the area's history and culture of conservation. But practitioners rarely pause to ask philosophical questions related to categories of native and invasive or human control and harmony with nature. This article brings philosophy into conversation with practice, using members of Wild Ones Native Landscaping, a non-profit headquartered in Neenah, WI, as a case study. Philosophers and ethicists who are studying Ecological Restoration and Native (...) Landscaping can learn valuable lessons – in practicality, aesthetics and flexibility – from practitioners such as the Wild Ones. (shrink)

Climate engineering is subject to the “playing God” critique, which charges that humans should not undertake to control nature in ways that seem to overstep the proper scope of human agency. This argument is easily discredited, and in fact the opposite—that we should “play God”—may be equally valid in some circumstances. To revive the playing God critique, I argue that it functions not on a logical but on a symbolic and emotional level to highlight nostalgia for functional dualisms in the (...) face of the bewildering problem of climate change. It also raises significant questions about the virtue of those who might engineer the climate. These two concerns point to questions about the proper role of human agency. I use the scholarship of Aldo Leopold and H. Richard Niebuhr to argue for a model of human agency based on contextual awareness and responsive, communal responsibility. I conclude with some implications of this view for decision-makers engaging the topic of climate engineering. (shrink)

Pronatalism—the social bias toward having children—is at the core of much violence against women. Its chief characteristic, and its moral Achilles heel, is that it undermines autonomous decision-making about childbearing. Together with its soulmates misogyny and geneticism, it harms children, male partners, and humanity as a whole, given the serious environmental challenges now facing us. But, of course, biology requires women to gestate offspring, and women are generally expected to be responsible for childrearing. Female gender roles incorporate these facts, and (...) thus pronatalism’s negative impact on women—both their bodies and their lives—is of another order of magnitude. Yet, this state of affairs is so taken for granted that it is almost invisible, and is therefore especially hard to eradicate. Attempts to do so are also often erroneously confused with, and undermined by, negativism about having children. (shrink)

Health policymakers employ utility measures to inform resource allocation decisions. They often rely on a conceptual tool called the quality-adjusted life year that discounts the value of years lived in a state of disability relative to years lived in full health. A representative sample of the general public is asked to place values on hypothetical health states as part of a standard gamble or time trade-off task. Policymakers use the resulting values to calculate the number of QALYs gained through particular (...) interventions. Utilitarian reasoning mandates that policymakers maximize QALYs gained per unit cost.Although many scholars have explored the problems of distributive justice that arise from this system... (shrink)

An audiovisual correspondence (AVC) refers to an observer’s seemingly arbitrary yet consistent matching of sensory features across the two modalities; for example, between an auditory pitch and visual size. Research on AVCs has frequently used a speeded classification procedure in which participants are asked to rapidly classify an image when it is either accompanied by a congruent or an incongruent sound (or vice versa). When, as is typically the case, classification is faster in the presence of a congruent stimulus, researchers (...) have inferred that the AVC is automatic and bottom-up. Such an inference is incomplete because the procedure does not show that the AVC is not subject to top-down influences. To remedy this problem, we devised a procedure that allows us to assess the degree of “bottom-up-ness” and “top-down-ness” in the processing of an AVC. We did this in studies of AVCs between pitch and five visual features: size, height, spatial frequency, brightness, and angularity. We find that all the AVCs we studied involve both bottom-up and top-down processing, thus undermining the prevalent generalization that AVCs are automatic. (shrink)

We present a novel way of accounting for similarity judgments. Our approach posits that similarity stems from three main sources—familiarity, priming, and inherent perceptual likeness. Here, we explore each of these constructs and demonstrate their individual and combined effectiveness in explaining similarity judgments. Using these three measures, our account of similarity explains ratings of simple, color-based perceptual stimuli that display asymmetry effects, as well as more complicated perceptual stimuli with structural properties; more traditional approaches to similarity solve one or the (...) other and have difficulty accounting for both. Overall, our work demonstrates the importance of each of these components of similarity in explaining similarity judgments, both individually and together, and suggests important implications for other similarity approaches. (shrink)

Consumption--the flow of physical materials in human lives--is an important ethical issue. Be it fair trade coffee or foreign oil, North Americans' consumption choices affect the well-being of humans around the globe, in addition to impacting the natural world and consumers themselves. In this book, Laura Hartman seeks to formulate a coherent Christian ethic of consumption.