This paper presents an analysis of emotional and affectively toned discourse in biomedical engineering researchers’ accounts of their problem solving practices. Drawing from our interviews with scientists in two laboratories, we examine three classes of expression: explicit, figurative and metaphorical, and attributions of emotion to objects and artifacts important to laboratory practice. We consider the overall function of expressions in the particular problem solving contexts described. We argue that affective processes are engaged in problem solving, not as simply tacked onto (...) reasoning but as integral to it. The examples we present illustrate the close relation of emotion to problem solving and experimentation; they also implicate social and cultural dimensions of emotion expression. The analysis underscores a need to consider emotional expression to be intimately and importantly tied to the cognitive achievements and social negotiations of laboratory practices. (shrink)

Despite increased interest in “intuition” within cognitive psychology, the conceptual framework of this notion remains problematic. This paper argues that conceptual shortcomings stem from a tendency to ignore the philosophical heritage of intuition or to dismiss the relevance of this heritage to contemporary theory. The paper outlines major understandings of intuition within psychology and prominent philosophical traditions, highlighting important points of inconsistency in these and examining consequences of the inconsistency. It also considers psychological conceptions of intuition that more readily overlap (...) with philosophical accounts and offers some suggestions toward a more philosophically informed notion of intuition relevant to contemporary psychological theory. (shrink)

The attempt to critique the profession of clinical ethics consultation by establishing the impossibility of ethics expertise has been a red herring. Decisions made in clinical ethics cases are almost never based purely on moral judgments. Instead, they are all-things-considered judgments that involve determining how to balance other values as well. A standard of justified decision-making in this context would enable us to identify experts who could achieve these standards more often than others, and thus provide a basis for expertise (...) in clinical ethics consultation. This expertise relies in part on what Richard Zaner calls the “expert knowledge of ethical phenomena”. (shrink)

Contemporary biomedical ethics and environmental ethics share a common ancestry in Aldo Leopold's and Van Rensselaer Potter's initial broad visions of a connected biosphere. Over the past five decades, the two fields have become strangers. Public health ethics, a new subfield of bioethics, emerged from the belly of contemporary biomedical ethics and has evolved over the past 25 years. It has moved from its traditional concern with the tension between individual autonomy and community health to a wider focus on social (...) justice and solidarity. Public health has a broad focus that includes individual, community, and environmental health. Public health ethics attends to these broad commitments reflected in the increasing concern with the connectedness of health of individuals to the health of populations, to the health of animals, to the health of the environment; it is well situated to reconnect all three “fields” of ethics to promote a healthier planet. (shrink)

Abram Brummett and Christopher Ostertag offer critiques of my argument that clinical ethics consultants have expertise but are not “ethics experts”. My argument begins within our less-than-ideal world and asks what a justification of a clinical ethics consultation recommendation might look like under those conditions. It is a challenge to what could be called an “inflationary” position on ethics expertise that requires agreement on or rational proof of metaethical facts about the values at stake in clinical ethics consultation. Brummett and (...) Ostertag critique three distinct steps in the argument. Two of those I have a brief answer for, and an assessment of the third demonstrates that Brummett and Ostertag do not consider the premise upon which I based my account. Instead, they assert a counter-premise without argument, which at best results in a stalemate between our two accounts. However, the reasons supporting my premise still seem to me to be stronger, so I am in the end unconvinced by their critiques. (shrink)

We describe our efforts to address theoretical opportunities and methodological challenges that arose in the context of our ethnographic investigation of research labs in four different fields of bioengineering science. The multiyear study compared the common and specific features of four sites of interdisciplinary practice and aimed to analyze personal and collective goals, problem formulations, methods, technologies, and social organization within each lab. In the second phase of the study we sought to inform curriculum development for biomedical engineering from the (...) ethnographic study, with the broader goal of positioning students to engage in the kind of thinking scientists actually do. Evaluating thinking in action posed considerable challenges, and required us to develop an approach to assessing the extent to which students enrolled in the new course were “thinking like a biomedical engineer.” Our principal point of emphasis for this chapter is that honest confrontation of the challenges of ethnographic study of science practice must lead to caution, yet that ethnographic study of science enables innovative adaptations of methods and can yield vital insights into psychological dimensions of science, including interdisciplinary science. (shrink)

Cognitive science currently offers models of cognition that depart substantively from those of information processing models and classical artificial intelligence, while it embraces methods of inquiry that include case-based, ethnographic, and philosophical methods. To illustrate, five overlapping approaches that constitute departures from classical representational cognitive science are briefly discussed in this paper: dynamical cognition, situated cognition, embodied cognition, extended mind theory, and integrative cognition. Critical responses to these efforts from members of the self-proclaimed cognitive science orthodoxy are also summarized. The (...) paper then discusses ethical and epistemological implications arising from the “new” cognitive science and from critical responses to it and considers the broader importance of this literature for theoretical and philosophical psychology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 44-45.

In their article “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Ray and Cooper (2024) invite us to prioritize environmental health...

A major obstacle to broad support of clinical ethics consultation is suspicion regarding the nature of the moral expertise it claims to offer. The suspicion seems to be confirmed when the field fails to make its moral expertise explicit. In this vacuum, critics suggest the following:Clinical ethics consultation's legitimacy depends on its ability to offer an expertise in moral matters.Expertise in moral matters is knowledge of a singular moral truth which applies to everyone.The claim that a clinical ethics consultant can (...) offer knowledge of a singular moral truth in virtue of her professional training is absurd, false, or gravely immoral.Therefore,The field is illegitimate. (shrink)

Confronting any science studies or learning sciences researcher in the 21st century is the reality of interdisciplinary science. New hybrid fields1 collaboratively build new concepts, combine models from two or more disciplines and forge inter-reliant relationships among specialists with different skill sets to solve new problems. This paper emerges from our recognition that inescapable psychological factors, including identity dynamics, must be described and analyzed in order to better understand the social and cognitive practices specific to interdisciplinary science. In analysis of (...) the foundations and opportunities for an... (shrink)

It is not clear whether breast cancer screening is a public health intervention or an individual clinical service. The question is important because the concepts best suited for ethical reasoning in public health might be different to the concepts commonly employed in biomedical ethics. We consider it likely that breast screening has elements of a public health intervention and used an empirical ethics approach to explore this further. If breast screening has public health characteristics, it is probable that policy and (...) practice experts will employ socially embedded concepts when reasoning about it. We gathered data on whether and how these concepts existed in the discussion and reasoning of Australian breast screening experts. We found that experts employed these concepts when talking about the purpose and practices of breast screening, and the behaviour of breast screening professionals and consumers. Experts gave varied judgements about breast screening based on reasoning with these concepts, considering it to be more or less successful in contributing to the public interest and in incorporating socially embedded concepts into its operational agenda. Our findings are compatible with breast screening having public health characteristics. We advocate for the incorporation of socially embedded concepts in breast screening policy and practice. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultation is on the horns of a dilemma. One horn skewers the field for its lack of standards, while the other horn skewers it for proposing arbitrary or deeply contested foundations. I articulate the dilemma by discussing several critiques of the field and the challenge of formulating standards and suggest that the solution lies, at least until a robust consensus emerges, with establishing a list of proscriptive standards to guide the field.

We present a case for defining objectivity as responsibility. We do not attempt to offer new arguments on epistemological issues such as relativism or the fact-value distinction. Instead, we construct a conception of objectivity utilizing analyses from Deweyan pragmatism, feminist theory, and science studies, organizing them around the concept of responsibility. This conception of objectivity can serve as a tool to guide the process of inquiry; by suggesting that participants reflect on the question "how can this inquiry be made more (...) responsible?" it provides a guide for those struggling with the question of how to be more objective. (shrink)

Reviews the role of intuition or an analogous concept within several divergent philosophical systems and argues that the salient feature common to various accounts of intuition is its non-inferential status. As such, it is argued to be highly relevant to contemporary theory. The paper offers several examples of points of compatibility with contemporary theory, including perception of social affordances, the apprehension linguistic rules and the construction of social norms. In claiming specific ways in which the concept of intuition is relevant (...) to contemporary theoretical psychology, the paper moves toward developing a more comprehensive and historically informed framework for intuition than is currently offered. It also underscores the historical underpinnings of contemporary debates. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

We historically and conceptually situate distributed cognition by drawing attention to important similarities in assumptions and methods with those of American ?functional psychology? as it emerged in contrast and complement to controlled laboratory study of the structural components and primitive ?elements? of consciousness. Functional psychology foregrounded the adaptive features of cognitive processes in environments, and adopted as a unit of analysis the overall situation of organism and environment. A methodological implication of this emphasis was, to the extent possible, the study (...) of cognitive and other processes in the natural (real world) contexts in which they occur. We therefore emphasize commonalities and differences between functional psychology and D-Cog. One purpose of the comparison is to consider the extent to which criticisms directed at functional psychology are relevant to D-Cog. We also examine the relation between functional psychology and philosophical pragmatism and conclude that D-Cog's conceptual framework would be strengthened through more explicit adoption of philosophical pragmatism, consistent with the eventual trajectory of functional psychology. (shrink)

Teaching competency in bioethics has been a concern of the field since its start. In 1976, The Hastings Center published the first report on the teaching of contemporary bioethics. Graduate programs culminating in an MA or PhD were not needed at the time, concluded the report. “In the future, however,” the report speculated, “the development and/or changing social priorities may at some point allow, or even require, the creation of new academic structures for graduate education in bioethics.” Although that future (...) might be upon us, the creation of a terminal degree in bioethics has its detractors. Scholars have debated whether bioethics is a discipline with its own methods and theoretical grounding, a multidisciplinary field bringing various professional perspectives to bear on particular types of problems, a set of problem-solving skills to resolve moral disagreements, or something else entirely. Whether or not efforts to develop the methods and theory of bioethics have matured to the point that it is now a discipline in the strictest sense, new bioethics training programs have appeared at all postsecondary levels. In this essay, we examine the number and types of U.S. programs and degrees in this growing field. (shrink)

For the first time, the revised Common Rule specifies that public health surveillance activities are not research. This article reviews the historical development of the public health surveillance exclusion and implications for other foundational public health practices.

Women working in the sciences face obstacles at virtually every step along their career paths. From subtle slights to blatant biases, deep systemic problems block women from advancing or push them out of science and technology entirely. Women in Science Now examines solutions to this persistent gender gap, offering new perspectives on how to make science more equitable and inclusive for all. This book shares stories and insights of women from a range of backgrounds working in various disciplines, illustrating the (...) journeys that brought them to the sciences, the challenges they faced along the way, and the important contributions they have made to their fields. Lisa M. P. Munoz combines these narratives with a wealth of data to illuminate the size and scope of the challenges women scientists face, while highlighting research-based solutions to help overcome these obstacles. She presents groundbreaking studies in social psychology and organizational behavior that are informing novel approaches for combating historic and ongoing inequities. Through a combined focus on personal experiences and social-science research, this timely book provides both a path toward greater gender equity and an inspiring vision of science and scientists. (shrink)

Intellectual contribution in the form of authorship is a fundamental component of the academic career. While research has addressed questionable and harmful authorship practices, there has largely been no discussion of how U.S. academic institutions interpret and potentially mitigate such practices through the use of institution-level authorship policies. To gain a better understanding of the role of U.S. academic institutions in authorship practices, we conducted a systematic review of publicly available authorship policies for U.S. doctoral institutions, focusing on components such (...) as specification of authorship criteria, recommendations for discussing authorship, dispute resolution processes, and guidance for faculty-student collaborations. We found that only 24% of the 266 Carnegie R1 and R2 Universities had publicly available authorship policies. Within these policies, the majority specified criteria for authorship, but provided less guidance about actual processes for applying such criteria, handling authorship disputes, and managing faculty-student author teams. Further, we found that any discussion of dispute resolution practices typically lacked specificity. Recommendations grounded in these findings are offered for institutions to leverage their ability to guide the authorship process by adopting an authorship policy that acknowledges disciplinary diversity while still offering substantive guidance. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

A subcommittee of the American Association of University Professors has published a report, “Research on Human Subjects: Academic Freedom and the Institutional Review Board” , which argues that institutional review board oversight may pose a threat to academic freedom, and that a different oversight model based on departmental review would both maintain subject protection and eliminate the threat. But the report does not demonstrate that IRBs pose a threat to academic freedom, and using departmental oversight may not sufficiently protect human (...) subjects of research, could introduce other problems, and would itself pose threats to academic freedom. Instead, some alternative methods of streamlining IRB oversight for certain types of research would better address the practical problems currently encountered. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 8, Page W1-W3, August 2012.

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 65-66.

This paper addresses Koch's concern about whether a coresponsible theorist can engage in inquiry with a theorist who is “beyond the pale.” On what grounds, he ash, can a coresponsible inquirer argue against one who uses a racist, sexist, or classist model for inquiry? 1 argue that, in such situations, the coresponsible inquirer brings to inquiry both a theoretical framework, or “attitude,” and a set of practical concerns which manifest that attitude.

Rational Intuition explores the concept of intuition as it relates to rationality through mediums of history, philosophy, cognitive science, and psychology.

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 61-63.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues was created by President Obama in 2009 to identify and promote policies and practices that ensure scientific research, health care delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in socially and ethically responsible manners. The bioethics commission is an independent and thoughtful group of experts who advises the President and, in so doing, strives to educate the nation on bioethical issues. As part of the effort to promote policies and practices ensuring the ethical (...) conduct of research, innovation, and health care delivery, the bioethics commission staff, in consultation with commission members, has used the bioethics commission reports to develop pedagogical materials for traditional and nontraditional educational settings. The goal is to use contemporary issues addressed by the bioethics commission to support teaching of bioethics ideas, principles, and theories across the major areas of study and practice. (shrink)

The question of whether clinical ethics consultants may engage in patient advocacy in the course of consultation has not been addressed, but it highlights for the field that consultants? allegiances, and the boundaries of appropriate professional practice, must be better understood. I consider arguments for and against patient advocacy in clinical ethics consultation, which demonstrate that patient advocacy is permissible, but not central to the practice of consultation. I then offer four recommendations for consultants who engage in patient advocacy, and (...) consider the implications of this issue for the field.1. (shrink)