This is a profound study of Aristotle's concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Carlo Natali critically reconsiders Aristotle's famous doctrine of contemplations, relating it to contemporary theories of the good life. In Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle appears to claim that the best possible life is that which is engaged in theoria, usually translated "contemplation." Quite a few commentators have criticized what they call Aristotle's "intellectualism," suggesting that when he makes the intellectual life superior to all other human (...) goods he opens the door to a Raskolnikov-like immoralism. Natali threads his way very carefully through the tangle of recent arguments on the topic, and presents a persuasive resolution that preserves the primacy of the life of the mind without giving any room for justifications of amorality. In Natali's discussion, Aristotle's analysis of wisdom comes into focus for us today as an attractive and well-argued ideal, to be kept in mind when we are deciding how to live. (shrink)

This paper treats the political and ethical issues associated with the new caretaking technologies. Given the number of feminists who have raised serious concerns about the future of care work in the United States, and who have been critical of the degree to which society “free rides” on women's caretaking labor, I consider whether technology may provide a solution to this problem. Certainly, if we can create machines and robots to take on particular tasks, we may lighten the care burden (...) that women currently face, much of which is heavy and repetitious, and which results in injury and care “burnout” for many female caretakers. Yet, in some contexts, I argue that high-tech robotic care may undermine social relationships, cutting individuals off from the possibility of social connectedness with others. (shrink)

In this study we examine college cheating behaviors of business students compared to non-business students, and investigate possible antecedents to cheating in an effort to better understand why and when students cheat. We specifically examine power values; we found that they were positively related to academic cheating in our sample, and that choice of major (business or non-business) partially mediated the relationship between power values and cheating. We also considered the extent to which students provide justifications for their cheating, and (...) found that business students were more likely to justify (rationalize) their cheating behaviors. Finally, we update the literature in terms of the ways students cheat. We assess newer forms of academic cheating, as increased accessibility to information via the Internet and smartphones may have changed the ways and ease with which students cheat – a particularly relevant topic currently, as many classes have moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our study, cheating was especially prevalent when taking quizzes or tests or completing homework online. We found that only 10% of participants reported never engaging in any of the cheating behaviors we examined. (shrink)

Journalists’ and publics’ relationship with truth-telling is so messy because the term “truth” holds multitudes of competing senses that are rarely acknowledged in journalism discourse. People approach contested subjects from many, sometimes incommensurate, senses of truth. When journalists fail to identify the competing senses embedded in varying truth claims, they reproduce confusion as to the validity and verifiability of such claims and contribute to a rolling epistemic crisis in the public sphere. This essay explores six senses of truth – logical, (...) empirical, affective, ideological, authoritarian, and narrative – and discusses their interaction and problematic conflation. (shrink)

Nonfeminist accounts of post-menopausal IVF reject the practice on four main grounds: I) scarcity of resources; 2) fairness; 3) the “inappropriateness” of post-menopausal motherhood; and 4) concerns for orphaned children. I argue that these grounds are insufficient for denying post-menopausal women IVF access. I then suggest that a feminist evaluation of the practice is more compelling; ultimately, however, we have no strong grounds for a policy denying post-menopausal women access to this technology.

Robinson argues that by certain threshold criteria, pregnant women qualify for a higher moral status by reason of their pregnancies. While her intention is to make this a status upgrade for women, we worry that it may result in a status downgrade for women as a class, by presupposing and reinforcing women’s value in relation to their reproductive labour. Historically, central to feminist analysis is resistance to reductive accounts of women in relation to their reproductivity. For example, de Beauvoir addressed (...) men’s transcendence and contrasted it with women’s immanence, a status distinction possible because women are mired in expectations that they will marry, produce children and remain in the domestic realm; and for her part, Firestone argued that biological reproduction underlies women’s inferiority to men and that ‘The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both (should) be replaced by…artificial reproduction’1 2 Her concern was to liberate women from expectations of biological reproduction so their productive value in society is not reduced to their reproductive contributions. A formidable body of analysis in this same vein cautions against collapsing the value of women into their pregnancies, so much so that some commentators even distinguish ‘mothering’ from gestation.3 Robinson’s argument that pregnant women qualify at a higher threshold of personhood emphasises …. (shrink)

Critiques of transhumanism from Christian theologians and philosophers often focus on the movement’s disdain for the human body. These criticisms are expressed in a number of different ways. Some argue that the transhumanists’ disdain is a new form of Gnosticism, while others argue that it leads to real violence against real human bodies. When such criticisms turn to identify the particular sin of which transhumanism is guilty, they sometimes identify vainglory as the besetting sin, but more often than not pride (...) is the sin named. After all, what is transhumanism – with its various proposals for bringing about the posthuman, which is some future being with capabilities so far beyond the human so as to border on godlike – but the latest iteration of the primal sin of humans wanting to become God on their own terms? -/- While such criticisms are valid, they do not capture the depth of transhumanism’s offense from a Christian perspective. Pride and vanity are indeed two of the deadly sins of transhumanism, but there are others at play as well. Moreover, pride is the root of all sin, so saying that pride is the problem is not necessarily helpful. We must find the particular ways in which pride manifests itself. I will argue that the sin of acedia (sometimes spelled accidie), found in ancient lists of the deadly sins, is a primary sin of transhumanism. In so doing, I hope to contribute to a more complete diagnosis of the transhumanist project from a Christian perspective, and I hope to further show why transhumanism is at odds with Christianity, contra the claims of the Christian Transhumanist Association. It should also be stated up front that this article may raise more questions than it answers. Accordingly, it should be seen as an invitation for further research, not as a definitive assessment of acedia in transhumanism. (shrink)

In this issue, contributors engage Timothy Murphy’s proposal for irreligious bioethics over against religious bioethics. Two essays take opposing sides in the debate, while a third seeks middle ground. Another essay questions the meaning of the words “religion,” “irreligion,” and “secular.” The final essay examines the religious nature of human existence and its implications for the debate.

Farmers’ willingness and ability to adapt to climate change are in part influenced by their social networks and sources of information. Drawing on assemblage theory and social network analysis in a novel way, this study explores the influence of Oregonian small farmers’ social and informational networks on their beliefs about and responses to climate change. The use of assemblage theory, which focuses on many disparate elements as they co-function in a space, allows for multiple entities within farmers’ networks and the (...) ways they interact to be examined, while the use of social network analysis highlights broader patterns in the structure and composition of farmers’ networks. Theoretically, this study brings these two distinct yet similar bodies of theory and methodologies together for the first time to expand the utility of both fields and explore farmers’ networks in a novel way. Results indicate that small farmers’ connections to other farmers and media in their networks are influencing their beliefs about climate change, while their responses are influenced by their ties to various agricultural and climatological information sources, as well as other nearby farmers. Finally, while farmers’ ties to other farmers are largely limited to those nearby, certain central individuals and entities, particularly beginning farmers, can act as bridges linking distinct groups of farmers. An understanding of these networks can be used to better disseminate critical information, such as forecasts and adaptation strategies, to help farmers adapt. (shrink)

Taking a cue from Teilhard de Chardin's Christologically inflected speculation, the key question in this issue is whether the project of transhumanism is compatible with Christianity and the Incarnation of Christ. Two articles focus on theological anthropology and the limits, if any, of human perfection in light of Christ's perfection. Another article examines the ontological claims about human nature in transhumanism and its incompatibility with a Christian ontology. The last two turn from more abstract concerns to consider how the use (...) of technology can inhibit or help human moral and spiritual development. (shrink)

With the godlike powers of modern technology, just one bad actor can unleash hell on Earth. In the face of this threat posed by technology, some have proposed moral bioenhancement as a solution. Although moral bioenhancement may at first seem like something Christian should support, it is my contention in this paper that there is at least one significant reason for Christians to be cautious in their appropriation of moral bioenhancement technology: it can at best give us a false apatheia, (...) which runs the ironic risk of destroying our ability to make moral progress. (shrink)

This paper will consider ethical issues arising from medical tort litigation. I will argue that deep changes are required to ensure fairness in litigation and in order to hold morally responsible those corporations that take unnecessary risks with consumers’ lives.

This essay will focus on the moral issues relating to surrogacy in the global context, and will critique the liberal arguments that have been offered in support of it. Liberal arguments hold sway concerning reproductive arrangements made between commissioning couples from wealthy nations and the surrogates from socioeconomically weak backgrounds that they hire to do their reproductive labor. My argument in this paper is motivated by a concern for controlling harms by putting the practice of globalized commercial surrogacy into the (...) context of care ethics. As I will argue, the unstable situations into which children of global surrogacy arrangements are born is symbolic of the crisis of care that the practice raises. Using the Baby Manji case as my touch point, I will suggest that liberalism cannot address the harms experienced by Manji and children like her who are created through the global practice of assisted reproductive technology. I will argue that, if commissioning couples consider their proposed surrogacy contracts from a care ethics point of view, they will begin to think relationally about their actions, considering the practice from an ethical lens, not just an economic or contractual one. (shrink)

The law ordinarily recognises the woman who gives birth as the mother of a child, but in certain jurisdictions, it will recognise the commissioning couple as the legal parents of a child born to a commercial surrogate. Some commissioning parents have, however, effectively abandoned the children they commission, and in such cases, commercial surrogates may find themselves facing unexpected maternal responsibility for children they had fully intended to give up. Any assumption that commercial surrogates ought to assume maternal responsibility for (...) abandoned children runs contrary to the moral suppositions that typically govern contract surrogacy, in particular, assumptions that gestational carriers are not ‘mothers’ in any morally significant sense. In general, commercial gestational surrogates are almost entirely conceptualised as ‘vessels’. In a moral sense, it is deeply inconsistent to expect commercial surrogates to assume maternal responsibility simply because commissioning parents abandon children for one reason or another. We identify several instances of child abandonment and discuss their implications with regard to the moral conceptualisation of commercial gestational surrogates. We conclude that if gestational surrogates are to remain conceptualised as mere vessels, they should not be expected to assume responsibility for children abandoned by commissioning parents, not even the limited responsibility of giving them up for adoption or surrendering them to the state. (shrink)

By ruling out questions of impairment from the social critique of disability, Disability Studies analyses establish a limit point in the field. Of course the setting of “limits” enables possibilities in multiple directions as well as fortifies boundaries of refusal. For instance, impairment becomes in DS simultaneously a productive refusal to interpret disabled bodies as inferior to non-disabled bodies and a bar to thinking through more active engagements with disability as materiality. Disability materiality such as conditions produced by ecological toxicities (...) serve as active switch-points for creative corporeal navigations of the interaction between bodies and environments.In fact in this paper we want to propose a more “lively” definition of disability materiality to existing definitions of impairment as limiting expressions of non-normative bodies. We have no useful ways of explaining disability as adaptation and it’s time we begin the process of theorizing more active ideas of materiality that extend existing ideas of disability beyond simplistic conceptions of socially rejected biologies made available by social constructivist thought. (shrink)

This paper considers the issues surrounding women’s bare-breastedness and breastfeeding in public. I argue that women should have equal freedoms with men to bare their breasts in public, but not for the reasons commonly cited Proponents of “the public breast” tend to focus on the similarities between women’s and men’s breasts; I argue that the sameness versus difference debate is unhelpful in resolving this question. As I argue, women’s breasts differ from men’s in significant ways, and by dismissing these differences (...) we dismiss the possibility of women’s authentic breasted experience. Instead, I suggest that women share an equal interest with men in defining their sexuality: When women are denied the right to go topless or breastfeed in public, they are denied their own understandings of their breasts. (shrink)

This note comments on an earlier exchange between hintikka and sleigh on quantification into epistemic contexts and in effect repairs an argument of sleigh's.

Throughout his long intellectual life, Leibniz penned his reflections on Christian theology, yet this wealth of material has never been systematically gathered or studied. This book addresses an important and central aspect of these neglected materials—Leibniz’s writings on two mysteries central to Christian thought, the Trinity and the Incarnation. From Antognazza’s study emerges a portrait of a thinker surprisingly receptive to traditional Christian theology and profoundly committed to defending the legitimacy of truths beyond the full grasp of human reason. This (...) view of Leibniz differs strikingly from traditional perceptions of the philosopher as a “hard” rationalist and quasi-deist. Antognazza also sets Leibniz’s writings in the context of the important theological controversies of his day. (shrink)

Racial earnings inequalities in the United States diminished significantly over the three decades following World War II, but since then have not changed very much. Meanwhile, black—white disparities in employment have become increasingly pronounced. What accounts for this historical pattern? Sociologists often understand the evolution of racial wage and employment inequality as the consequence of economic restructuring, resulting in narratives about black economic fortunes that emphasize changing skill demands related to the rise and fall of the industrial economy. Reviewing a (...) large body of work by economic historians and other researchers, this article contends that the historical evidence is not consistent with manufacturing- and skills-centered explanations of changes in relative black earnings and employment. Instead, data from the 1940s onward suggest that racial earnings inequalities have been significantly influenced by political and institutional factors—social movements, government policies, unionization efforts, and public-employment patterns—and that racial employment disparities have increased over the course of the postwar and post-1970s periods for reasons that are not reducible to skills. Taking a broader historical view suggests that black economic fortunes have long been powerfully shaped by nonmarket factors and recenters research on racial discrimination as well as the political and institutional forces that influence labor markets. (shrink)

This paper applies a relational and familial ethic to address concerns relating to nursing home deaths and advance care planning during Covid‐19 and beyond. The deaths of our elderly in nursing homes during this pandemic have been made more complicated by the restriction of visitors even at the end of life, a time when families would normally be present. While we must be vigilant about preventing unnecessary deaths caused by coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes, some deaths of our elders are (...) inevitable. Thus, it is essential that advanced care planning occurs in a way that upholds the familial and relational aspects of elders’ lives that often matter to them the most. We invoke concepts from feminist ethicists like Hilde Lindemann and Eva Kittay and introduce Avery Weisman and Thomas Hackett’s concept of “appropriate death” to suggest better ways of planning for those deaths of our elderly that cannot be avoided. Our hope is to allow for deaths that are as meaningful as possible for both the elderly and the family members who survive them. (shrink)

In their recent article, Brummett and Muaygil reject Bishop et al.’s framing of the debate over standardization in clinical ethics consultation (CEC) “as one between pro-credentialing procedural and anti-credentialing phenomenological,” claiming that this framing “amounts to a false dichotomy between two extreme approaches to CEC.” Instead of accepting proceduralism and phenomenology as a binary, Brummett and Muaygil propose that these two views should be seen as the extreme ends of a spectrum upon which CEC should be done. However, as evidenced (...) by several inconsistencies within their article, they have failed to fully appreciate the concern animating Bishop et al.’s proposal. Additionally, because of this failure, they do not seem to realize that credentialing ethicists for CEC will only create different problems in Saudi Arabia even as it possibly solves some of the current problems they identify. In this commentary, we highlight and clarify Brummet and Muaygil’s five misunderstandings of Bishop et al. This leads us to conclude that while they claim to be advocating a middle way between proceduralism and phenomenology, in fact they would like for us to standardize another proceduralism, albeit one that incorporates some of the “qualitative” values of American bioethics. (shrink)

The importance of ethical listening -- The power of difference and values that unite -- Take off your armor and bring down the walls: adopting a listening posture -- Dolls and cages: listening as investment and care -- Deep listening: remembering and responding with intentional focus -- Hyenas and chickens: listening as invitation -- Hope for sustainable hospitality -- References -- About the author.

I consider how a feminist account might address the practice of surrogacy in Japan, both domestically and in the transnational context. Japanese culture emphasizes traditional values, family heritage, and the value of reproduction. Japan offers an interesting case study, since surrogacy is currently under review, and the government is in the process of determining its stance on the practice. I will advocate for legal changes to how surrogacy is treated, suggesting that Japan should eliminate the koseki, or the Family Registration (...) Act, which stipulates that only birth parents may register children as their natural children. A principle of respect for women should be explicitly adopted in setting regulations or guidelines surrounding this practice; additionally, attempts should be made to address citizens’ reproductive needs domestically, thus reducing the global demand for these arrangements. (shrink)