Previous research indicates that individuals with depressive disorders have aberrant resting state functional connectivity and may experience memory dysfunction. While resting state functional connectivity may be affected by experiences preceding the resting state scan, little is known about this relationship in individuals with DD. Our study examined this question in the context of object memory. 52 individuals with DD and 45 healthy controls completed clinical interviews, and a memory encoding task followed by a forced-choice recognition test. A 5-min resting state (...) fMRI scan was administered immediately after the forced-choice task. Resting state networks were identified using group Independent Component Analysis across all participants. A network modeling analysis conducted on 22 networks using FSLNets examined the interaction effect of diagnostic status and memory accuracy on the between-network connectivity. We found that this interaction significantly affected the relationship between the network comprised of the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and hippocampal formation and the network comprised of the inferior temporal, parietal, and prefrontal cortices. A stronger positive correlation between these two networks was observed in individuals with DD who showed higher memory accuracy, while a stronger negative correlation was observed in individuals with DD who showed lower memory accuracy prior to resting state. No such effect was observed for HC. The former network cross-correlated with the default mode network, and the latter cross-correlated with the dorsal attention network. Considering that the DMN and DAN typically anticorrelate, we hypothesize that our findings indicate aberrant reactivation and consolidation processes that occur after the task is completed. Such aberrant processes may lead to continuous “replay” of previously learned, but currently irrelevant, information and underlie rumination in depression. (shrink)

In Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale, philosopher Debra Satz takes a penetrating look at those commodity exchanges that strike most of us as problematic. What considerations, she asks, ought to guide the debates about such markets? What is it about a market involving prostitution or the sale of kidneys that makes it morally objectionable? How is a market in weapons or pollution different than a market in soybeans or automobiles? Are laws and social policies banning the (...) more noxious markets necessarily the best responses to them? Satz contends that categories previously used by philosophers and economists are of limited utility in addressing such questions because they have assumed markets to be homogenous. Accordingly, she offers a broader and more nuanced view of markets--one that goes beyond the usual discussions of efficiency and distributional equality--to show how markets shape our culture, foster or thwart human development, and create and support structures of power. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that people's understanding of the abstract domain of time is dependent on the more concrete domain of space. Boroditsky and Ramscar (2002) found that spatial context influences whether people see themselves as moving through time (ego-moving perspective) or as time moving towards them (time-moving perspective). Based on studies of the embodiment of affective experience, we examined whether affect might also influence which spatial metaphor of time people adopt. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that participants (...) who imagined a negative event were more likely to report that the event was approaching them, whereas those who imagined a positive event were more likely to report that they were approaching the event. Experiments 3a and 3b showed that participants judge an event to be more positive if it is described from the ego-moving perspective than if it is described from the time-moving perspective. Results from these studies provide initial evidence that positive and negative events are associated with different spatial metaphors of time. (shrink)

Genomics holds significant potential for conservationists, offering tools to monitor species risks, enhance conservation strategies, envision biodiverse futures, and advance climate justice. However, integrating genomics into conservation requires careful consideration of its impacts on biodiversity, the diversity of scientific researchers, and governance strategies for data usage. These factors must be balanced with the varied interests of affected communities and environmental concerns. We argue that conservationists should engage with diverse communities, particularly those historically marginalized and most vulnerable to climate change. This (...) inclusive approach can ensure that genomic technologies are applied ethically and effectively, aligning conservation efforts with broader social and environmental justice goals. Engaging diverse stakeholders will help guide responsible genomic integration, fostering equitable and sustainable conservation outcomes. (shrink)

In this article, Satz critiques "both Pogge's use of the causal contribution principle as well as his attempt to derive all of our obligations to the global poor from the need to refrain from harming others.".

Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) suggest that the current ethical frameworks used to evaluate the use of noninvasive prenatal technologies (e.g., NIPT) are inconsistent when used to analyze the ethics of...

Abstract:This article examines the experiences of pilgrims to Trier between 1844–1933 and argues that pilgrimage is a separate practice from tourism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scholars have treated pilgrims like tourists, especially in the twentieth century, but travelers to the Holy Coat of Trier did not think of themselves as tourists. Labeling pilgrim participants as “modern tourists” ignores their religious motivations to travel and creates a false dichotomy between “pilgrims” of the medieval and early modern period and (...) “tourists” of post-Industrial Revolution Europe. Pilgrims who sought a miraculous physical cure or encounter with the blood of Jesus in the Coat of Trier wanted to gain access to divine presence they identified as part of the space of Trier. Pilgrim use of sacred space should lead historians to draw sharper distinctions between the motivations of pilgrims seeking sacred presence and tourists seeking recreation. (shrink)

Mainstream breast cancer social movements such as that of Susan G. Komen have called on all women to race or fight for the cure for breast cancer. They suggest that the fight can be won by buying and wearing pink ribbons, taking part in races and walks, donating money, and participating in research. For some patients with breast cancer, research participation may involve non-diagnostic tumor biopsies. While this clinical research is performed in the hope of gaining new knowledge through the (...) removal and study of breast cancer tissue, these procedures have been heavily criticized because they offer little potential benefit to the patient providing the tissue (Helft and Daugherty 2006; Kimmelman et al. 2012;... (shrink)

Friendship is the highest form of love, according to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, because great friends inspire each other and can even push each other towards the ideal of the Übermensch. While he was sceptical that many people would be strong enough for this kind of higher relationship, Nietzsche saw friendship as essential to a good marriage. Sex, in contrast, creates complications, because a relationship based on romantic feelings is unlikely to endure a lifetime. Furthermore, the ontological differences between (...) men and women tend to turn love into a war. In order to overcome the power games in the arena of love, Nietzsche thus challenges lovers to be great friends. Drawing on Nietzsche’s plethora of aphorisms on friendship, marriage, sex and power relationships, this paper outlines how Nietzsche thought the institution of and approach to marriage could be reinvigorated in ways conducive to more successful relationships and greater human achievements. While some of Nietzsche’s ideas about marriage at first appear to be outrageous, much of what Nietzsche recommends is as relevant and challenging today as it was in his own time. Indeed, Nietzsche himself prophesied that the world would not be ready for his ideas until “sometime around the year 2000” (Fuss & Shapiro, 1971, p. 91). (shrink)

This article argues that mid-century Surrealist German author Unica Zürn’s writing on the fetus and pregnancy anticipates New Materialist analyses of the liveliness of matter and the interactions of biology and history. Using philosopher-physicist Karen Barad’s theories of Agential Realism as a lens, I unite a close reading of key moments in Zürn’s oeuvre with an examination of medical practices in the midcentury and the lingering history of Nazi eugenics, demonstrating how politics and science come to both shape and deform (...) the body in Zürn’s prose. Through the interactions of both language and material, the bodies of the mother and fetus begin to double each other, and holocaust atrocities and abortion practices take on uncanny resonances. (shrink)

This paper will reveal our women as active theologians, dealing with the silent threat of approaching genocide, the end of so called ‘full-bloods’ of our race. Finding ways of healing, and being activists, living in the conscious and subconscious oppression. I am so proud that in the light of this, they emerge as responsible people, living constructive and influential lives. Yet the suffering takes its toll and they die young or are sick and disabled young. I donated my Harvard Post-doctoral (...) Fellowship, the first Australian Indigenous Harvard Fellow, to helping this suffering, to prolong life. Part Three reflects where my fellowship in liberation theology and psychotherapy comes together in active Tiddas Theology for wholeness. (shrink)

The use of implanted devices that apply therapeutic stimulation to areas of the brain, or deep brain stimulation (DBS), is currently being investigated as a possible therapeutic treatment for chron...

Narcissistic personality disorder describes people who demonstrate an exaggerated sense of entitlement, lack empathy and crave admiration. But philosopher Simone de Beauvoir argued that, even if a person isn't a pathological narcissist, narcissism can be a strategy that some people use to help them cope with being undervalued. Through examples such as singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, I show how Beauvoir's philosophy gives us a framework to understand some narcissistic behaviour and possibilities for more authentic ways of being in the world.

Improving emotion regulation is central to borderline personality disorder (BPD) treatment, but little research indicates which emotion regulation strategies are optimally effective and when. Basic emotion science suggests that engagement emotion regulation strategies that process emotional content become less effective as emotional intensity increases, whereas disengagement strategies that disengage from it do not. This study examined whether emotional reactivity to emotional stimuli predicts the effectiveness of engagement and disengagement emotion regulation across self-report, general physiologic (heart rate), sympathetic (skin conductance responses), (...) and parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrythmia) emotion in BPD, healthy, and clinical control (i.e. generalized anxiety disorder; GAD) groups. 120 participants (40 per group) were exposed to emotion inductions and then instructed to implement engagement (mindful awareness) and disengagement (distraction) strategies while self-report and physiological emotion measurements were taken. In the BPD and GAD groups, higher heart rate or respiratory sinus arrythmia reactivity, respectively, predicted improved mindful awareness effectiveness. Higher skin conductance reactivity predicted worsened distraction effectiveness in BPD. Higher reactivity may potentiate engagement emotion regulation, and exacerbate disengagement from emotional content, in BPD. Future research should examine other domains of emotion regulation that may be influenced by emotional intensity, and other forms of emotional intensity that may influence them. (shrink)

Existentialism and Romantic Love investigates the thinking of five existential philosophers (Max Stirner, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir) to uncover fresh insights about what is wrong with our everyday ideas about romantic loving, why reality often falls short of the ideal, sources of frustrations and disappointments, and possibilities for creating authentically meaningful relationships.

In Hang The DJ, Amy and Frank meet via an online dating system that promises that if you stick with it, it will continue gathering information until it finds your soul mate, or “ultimate compatible other,” trumpeting a 99.8% success rate. In this chapter we explore the broad issue of digital relationships from the point of view of two particular philosophies of life: Stoicism and existentialism. The episode raises a multiplicity of philosophical issues concerning the choices we make about romantic (...) love. For example, does finding a perfect match really boil down to a formula? And if we could find such a formula, would that be a good way to find love? These two philosophical approaches help us to answer the question as to whether we should be relegating the task of finding a mate to computer algorithms. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote a great deal on sexual love and friendship, to help us understand Doctor Stephen Strange's relationship challenges. Nietzsche thought that sexual love is a distraction from more important things, like being a superhero. For Strange, it is actually his narcissism that is holding him back the most. It is not only Strange's brilliance and passion for wisdom that are reminiscent of Nietzsche's Ubermensch, but also his flirtation with nihilism. The (...) problem that Doctor Strange, Nietzsche, and Zarathustra all face: forming meaningful loving relationships. Nietzsche never had a girlfriend and he never married. While Nietzsche knew his philosophy would not be for everyone, he hoped that a few brave people would understand the virtues of striving toward the ideal of the Ubermensch. For Nietzsche, great friends help one another to become better people through “a shared higher thirst for an ideal above them”. (shrink)

This paper examines the morality of kidney markets through the lens of choice, inequality, and weak agency looking at the case for limiting such markets under both non-ideal and ideal circumstances. Regulating markets can go some way to addressing the problems of inequality and weak agency. The choice issue is different and this paper shows that the choice for some to sell their kidneys can have external effects on those who do not want to do so, constraining the options that (...) are now open to them. I believe that this is the strongest argument against such markets. (shrink)

The essays in this volume take off from themes in the work of eminent philosopher and political scientist Joshua Cohen. They center around three central ideas: democracy, confronting injustice, and formulating political principles and values in an interdependent world.

Can exposure to media portrayals of human violence impact an individual’s ethical decision making at work? Ethical business failures can result in enormous financial losses to individuals, businesses, and society. We study how exposure to human violence—especially through media—can cause individuals to make less ethical decisions. We present three experiments, each showing a causal link between exposure to human violence and unethical business behavior, and show this relationship is mediated by an increase in individual hostility levels as a result of (...) exposure to violence. Using observational data, we then provide evidence suggesting that this relationship extends beyond the context of our experiments, showing that companies headquartered in locations marked by greater human violence are more likely to fraudulently misstate their financial statements and exhibit more aggressive financial reporting. Combined, our results suggest that exposure to human violence has significant and real effects on an individual’s ethical decision making. (shrink)

This paper points to a lost and ignored strand of argument in the writings of liberalism's earliest defenders. These “classical” liberals recognized that market liberty was not always compatible with individual liberty. In particular, they argued that labor markets required intervention and regulation if workers were not to be wholly subjugated to the power of their employers. Functioning capitalist labor markets (along with functioning credit markets) are not “natural” outgrowths of exchange, but achievements hard won in the battle against feudalism. (...) Further, and crucially, the existence of such markets required closing off other market choices. Footnotesa I would like to thank the other contributors to this volume, and its editors, for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. (shrink)

Mr. Robinson’s case raises clear concerns regarding whether, when, and even how to disclose unexpected genetic findings when doing genomic research. The American...

The authors interrogate genital examinations as events in which both client and practitioner are `produced' as relational subjects in quite specific ways. This article explores the way one female sex health worker talks about her work as a form of cultural exchange, noting what she requires of her clients and seeks to give of herself. Of particular importance is the way the practitioner produces the client as a social subject amenable to intimate examination, while resisting some traditional means for doing (...) so. The authors use a Foucauldian conceptual framework to signal their departure from feminist analyses which explain such practices in terms of a patriarchal medical system. (shrink)

This article examines the conceptual claim that prenatal genetic testing, given the option to abort disabled fetuses, discriminates against the disabled. The claim is examined in the context of both external quality of life judgments and women’s competing interests in and right to reproductive freedom. The conceptual claim to discrimination fails in both contexts if moral standing is not attributed to the fetus.

The theory of historical materialism is the core commitment of Marx’s social theory. More than his views on markets, philosophical methods, the state and social institutions, it is this theory which sets Marx’s views apart from alternative traditions in political philosophy. Marx believes that there is a tendency for societies to make moral and material progress. The point of Marx’s theory of historical materialism is to offer a theory of the mechanisms which produce this tendency. However, in Marx’s own formulation, (...) the precise nature of these mechanisms remains obscure. In The German Ideology, Marx emphasizes the growth of human productive powers as the fundamental cause of historical change and progress: social forms change in order to adapt to the requirements of further productive development. By contrast, in The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse, Marx emphasizes the desires and interests of classes as fundamental to explaining social change. Here, it is class struggles which determine not only when an old social form will be replaced by a new one, but also the nature of the new social form itself. Marx never specifies the connection between these two explanations of historical change, between the development of human productive powers and class struggles. In particular, Marx is not explicit as to whether there are two distinct mechanisms at work in the production of historical progress, or only one. (shrink)

Complexity is one of the most promising fields of modern science, and this book explores the new perspectives opening up when we consider systems made up of many similar or identical constituents.

The late Susan Moller Okin was a leading political theorist whose scholarship tried to integrate political philosophy and issues of gender and the family. This volume stems from a conference on Okin, and contains articles by some of the top feminist and political philosophers working today. Their aim is not to celebrate Okin's work, but to constructively engage with it and further its goals.

This paper defends mandatory national service as a response to democratic decay. Because democracy cannot be maintained by laws and incentives alone, citizens must care about the quality and attitudes of their society's members. In an age of increasing segregation and conflict on the basis of class and race, national service can bring citizens from different walks of life together to interact cooperatively on social problems. It offers a form of ‘forced solidarity’. The final sections of the paper consider objections (...) to this proposal. (shrink)