The successes of the Human Genome Project have ushered in a new era of genomic science. To effectively translate these discoveries, it will be critical to improve the communication of genetic risk within families. This will require a systematic approach that accounts for the nature of family relationships and sociocultural beliefs. This paper proposes the application of the Family Systems Illness Model, used in the setting of cancer care, to the evolving field of genomics.

Narrative explanations in evolutionary biology have seemed fundamentally different from other scientific explanations, and similar to historical explanations. This investigation of the structure of narrative explanations in evolutionary biology reveals that narrative explanations do have a deductive-nomological base, but that their structure contains two significant additional elements as well. The additional elements are: the multidimensional recursive connection between the different sub-explanations in a narrative explanation; and a set of generic explanations which make possible the integration of multiple co-existing processes.

Paternalism is generally construed to entail two claims about persons toward whom it is directed: that their liberty is impeded, and that their good or interests are promoted or intended. Two recent arguments on the subject are based on the writings of John Stuart Mill: one* by Gerald Dworkin, maintains that paternalism is sometimes justified; the other, by Tom Beauchamp, claims that paternalism is never justified. My critique of both positions is based on a concept of human life as developmental. (...) In that context I argue that Mill's views themselves entail paternalism, Dworkin's position collapses into Beauchamp's, and Beauchamp neglects the crucial role of liberty in his critique of Mill. My conclusion suggests that a parental model be substituted for that of the pater, so that the individual's capacity for freedom be fully respected. (shrink)

Disability rights advocates sometimes claim that prenatal tests to select against disabilities discriminate against people with disabilities. The “expressivist argument” that supports this position has been challenged on grounds of the difference between fetuses and born persons. In this essay, I explain why the expressivist argument is valid despite the questionableness of its conclusion, and why the distinction between fetuses and born persons fails to provide an adequate counterargument to the expressivist conclusion. I also consider a compelling argument for prenatal (...) testing to select against disabilities and propose a reformulation of this argument that, I think, supports prenatal testing for disabilities while avoiding discrimination against people born with disabilities. (shrink)

Fetal tissue transplants have now been successful in primates, raising the possibility of treatment for Parkinson's disease and other chronic illnesses. Whether or not abortion is morally justified, use of human fetal tissue for research or therapy is justified in certain circumstances. The rationale, both for permitting transplantation of fetal tissue and for limitations in exercising the technology, is based on the same set of ethical principles that supported restrictive legislation in the past: respect for autonomy and a balancing of (...) harms and benefits that gives priority to those most affected. (shrink)

Many philosophers have asserted that evolutionary theory is unfalsifiable. In this paper I refute these assertions by detailing some falsifiable predictions of the theory and the evidence used to test them. I then analyze both these predictions and evidence cited to support assertions of unfalsifiability in order to show both what type of predictions are possible and why it has been so difficult to spot them. The conclusion is that the apparent logical peculiarity of evolutionary theory is not a property (...) of evolutionary theory; it is a property of our human-sized perspective on evolutionary theory. (shrink)

This paper shows that species are individuals with respect to evolutionary theory in the sense that the laws of the theory deal with species as irreducible wholes rather than as sets of organisms. 'Species X' is an instantiation of a primitive term of the theory. I present a sketch of a proof that it cannot be defined within the theory as a set of organisms; the proof relies not on details of my axiomatization but rather on a generally accepted property (...) of speciation; hence the same argument should work for any axiomatization which captures this generally accepted property of speciation. (shrink)

This study explores the impact of mood on individuals’ ethical decision-making processes through the Graham [Graham, J. W.: 1986, Research in Organizational Behavior 8, 1–52] model of Principled Organizational Dissent. In particular, the research addresses how an individual’s mood influences his or her willingness to report the unethical actions of a colleague. Participants’ experienced an affectively charged, unrelated event and were then asked to make a decision regarding whistle-blowing intentions in a public accounting context. As expected, negative mood was associated (...) with lower intentions to report the unethical actions of others to a superior within the organization. The Graham model, which proposes that reporting intentions are impacted by the three determinants of seriousness, personal responsibility and cost, was employed to more clearly understand the nature of the affect–reporting intention relationship. The role of affect was explained by demonstrating that two determinants mediate the relationship between mood and whistle-blowing intentions. Specifically, as seriousness and responsibility have a positive impact on reporting intentions, the reduction of these perceptions by negative mood reduces the intent to report. The negative impact of personal cost on reporting intentions was significant, although not as a mediator of mood. (shrink)

An in-depth look at the science of ancient Greece, this volume examines the influence of antique philosophy on 17th-century thought. Additional topics embrace many elements of modern physics: the empirical basis of quantum mechanics, wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle, and the action-at-a-distance theory of Wheeler and Feynman. 1961 edition.

Campbell's ambitious target article attempts to explain gender differences in both aggressive behavior and cultural representations of aggressive behavior. I comment on some of the specific arguments that require further clarification, some areas that merit expanded discussion, some topics which should be mentioned, and some research and theoretical questions raised by the article.

Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We conduct two experiments in which participants take the role of a peer third-party observer of theft and subsequent whistleblowing. We manipulate injunctive norms and descriptive norms. Both experiments support the core of our theoretical model, based on social intuitionist theory, such that moral judgments of the acts of wrongdoing and whistleblowing influence the perceived likeability of each actor and (...) ultimately influence intention to ostracize each actor and indicate more willingness to ostracize the whistleblower than the wrongdoer. When we vary norms for the wrongdoing in Experiment 1, we find that descriptive and injunctive norms indirectly influence intentions to ostracize both the wrongdoer and whistleblower. These relationships are serially mediated by the observers’ moral judgments of the act and likeability of the actor. When we vary norms for whistleblowing in Experiment 2, the injunctive norm manipulation affected moral judgment of the action of whistleblowing, and we do not observe any other significant effects of the norm manipulations on moral judgments of the actions of wrongdoing or whistleblowing. (shrink)