When surgeons transplant animal organs into humans, people who did not receive the organs incur risks. These third parties may stand near or far in time or space. No one knows the likelihood, breadth, or nature of the risks in question. The common wisdom among infectious-disease specialists is that in the best of xenotransplant conditions, such third-party risk may be minimized but not eliminated.

This essay focuses on the value of self-doubt in moral inquiry and in moral education. Using John Patrick Shanley’s play, Doubt: A parable, as illustration, it shows how self-doubt initiates and extends moral inquiry, highlights one’s epistemic fallibility and connects the inquirer to the virtue of humility. The essay draws on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, Hullett, Nussbaum, Thayer-Bacon and Elbow to support the idea that the question ‘Am I wrong?’ is important for moral inquiry and for moral education.

This essay looks at the way in which the end of the world syndrome manifests itself regularly as a form of human consciousness. It makes us alert to the possibility of our own instant expiry, causing us both to introspect, as well as to imagine the future of the species. Digitalization and digitization of trauma permits us to see the normality of death as an every present occurrence. Within this context, words have tremendous power, showing us that at each moment (...) we are being ushered into a space not necessarily of our own making. While it frightens us, yet the choices we have are limited to the class and ethnic locations of our everyday survival. While we live, we dream. Negation does not end ambition, it only proves the ephemerality of individual existence and makes us seek to use time as best as our imagination and survival capabilities allow. Our sadness about corporeality is mitigated by the dream we have of species continuity. (shrink)

A genuine inquirer seeks the truth; pseudo-inquirers, to make a case for some proposition determined in advance: the sham reasoner, for some proposition his commitment to which is already evident; the fake reasoner, for some proposition to the truth-value of which he is indifferent, but advancing which he believes will benefit himself. Our preposterous environment, in which "everyone shall produce written research in order to live, and it shall be decreed a knowledge explosion" (Barzun) hinders genuine inquiry, encourages the sham (...) and the fake. It has encouraged the factitious despair of the possibility of honest inquiry articulated in much recent philosophy. (shrink)

Les publications sur le thème de l’histoire de la jeunesse française au xxe siècle sont aujourd’hui nombreuses. Les premières s’intéressaient aux jeunes intellectuels, aux mouvements de jeunesse durant la période d’entre-deux-guerres, et à la jeunesse sous le régime de Vichy, tandis que les plus récentes se sont penchées sur les années après 1945, et plus particulièrement sur les Trente Glorieuses et les années soixante. Ces ouvrages expliquent comment la jeunesse française est devenue la cib...

The seventies period in Australia is often referred to as the “anything goes” decade. It is a label that gives a sense of the profusion of antiestablishment modes that emerged in response to calls for social and political change that reverberated around the globe around that time. As a time of immense change in the Australian art scene, the seventies would influence the development of art into the contemporary era. The period‟s diversity, though, has presented difficulty for Australian art historiography. (...) Despite the flowering of arts activity during the seventies era—and probably also because of it—the period remains largely unaccounted for by the Australian canon. In retrospect, the seventies can be seen as a period of crucial importance for Australia‟s embrace of contemporary art. Many of the tendencies currently identified with the contemporary era—its preoccupation with the present moment, awareness of the plurality of existence, rejection of hierarchies, resistance to hegemonic domination, and a sense of a global community—were inaugurated during the seventies period. Art-historically, however, it appears as a “gap” in the narration of Australian art‟s development which can be explained neither by the modernism which preceded it, nor by postmodernism. In Australia, the seventies saw a rash of new art “movements” emerge almost simultaneously. Feminist, Pop, Conceptual art, Performance, Protest, Craft, and Aboriginal art as fine art are some of the forms that emerged as part of the concerted questioning and revolt that were characteristic of the period. Art practice changed radically at this time—with challenges both to the art object mounted by conceptualism, and to its hierarchical traditions prompted by feminism and other historically marginalised groups. While no style dominated the period, most of the art-making shared tendencies and concerns, and was driven by a common vision that had its roots in the era‟s politically charged milieu. The focus of this paper is the importance for many artists of working collectively and collaboratively in their pursuit of a new cultural paradigm. Often it was only through joint endeavour that recognition of the multiple valid alternatives, through which many began to define themselves, was possible. However, the embrace of the idea of collective enterprise in itself also facilitated new ways to think about art and the manner and meaning of its production. The purpose here, therefore, is to draw attention to the important ways in which organisational collectivism and collaboration contributed to the seventies as a period of revolutionary transformation in art practice that would propel Australian art into the contemporary era. (shrink)

Mild hypoferremia represents an aspect of the ability of the body to withhold iron from pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, and from neoplastic cells. However, our iron-withholding defense system can be thwarted by practices that enhance iron overload such as indiscriminate iron fortification of foods, medically prescribed iron supplements, alcohol ingestion, and cigarette smoking. Elevated standards for normal levels of iron can be misleading and even dangerous for individuals faced with medical insults such as chronic infection, neoplasia, cardiomyopathy, and arthritis. (...) We are becoming increasingly aware that the wide-spread hypoferremia in human populations is a physiological response to insult rather than a pathological cause of insult, and that attempts to correct the condition by simply raising iron levels may not only be misguided but may actually impair host defense. (shrink)

Since November 2, 2002, every state's abortion law has stood at risk of complete revision. With one easily overlooked sentence, federal regulators declared in October 2002 that effective the following month, states could make available healthcare coverage directly to organisms at the moment of conception.

Questionnaires on perceptual distortions, symptoms of schizophrenia, and out-of-body experiences (OBEs) were completed by 71 volunteers with a history of schizophrenia and 40 control subjects (patients in a hospital accident ward). Significantly more of the schizophrenics (42%) than of the control group (13%) answered "yes" to a question about OBEs. However, a follow-up questionnaire showed that only 14% of schizophrenics (i.e., the same as the control group) had had "typical" OBEs, in which a change of viewpoint was reported. Those reporting (...) typical OBEs did not report more perceptual distortions or symptoms of schizophrenia than did those reporting no OBEs, although those reporting other atypical experiences did. On this basis there is no evidence to consider the typical OBE as pathological or as symptomatic of schizophrenia. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the particularist attack on deductive uses of moral principles, reviewing the critiques of the uniformity of moral reasons and impartiality in ethics, looking principally at arguments from Larry Blum, Jonathan Dancy, and Margaret Walker. I defend the action-guiding-ness of moral principles themselves, but consider various ways to accommodate the objections coming fromparticularism. I conclude that one objection to the impartialist theory of value must be conceded without qualification: generalism is unable to account for the unique (...) and irreplaceable value of individual persons. I present an example which supports my view andshows that, in the context of lived experience, replaceability is contradicted. Indeed there may be few constants of value in the narrative of one’s life, as experiences overlay supposed constants with continual new shading, and create even deeper sorts of transformation in valuing. In the end, both particularized moral judgment and the articulation of fact with principle contribute to moral discernment. (shrink)

Standards of reasonableness are pervasive in law. Whether a belief or conduct is reasonable is determined by reference to what a ?reasonable man? similarly situated would have believed or done in similar circumstances. Feminists rightly objected that the ?reasonable man? standard was gender?biased and worked to the detriment of women. Merely replacing the ?reasonable man? with the ?reasonable person? would not be sufficient, furthermore, to right this historic wrong. Rather, in a wide range of cases, feminist theorists and legal practitioners (...) urged instead a standard of reasonableness that reflects the perceptions of women, a perspective informed by women?s vulnerability and oppression. In this essay I examine the role of the ?reasonable woman? standard in two areas of law ? workplace sexual harassment and self?defense ? and argue that it is both legally and politically problematic. (shrink)

This dissertation provides a philosophical analysis of personal autonomy. Personal autonomy is defined as the condition of being self-directed. The conditions which make such self-direction possible are then explored. ;Self-direction requires that one's actions are motivated by authentic reasons for action. One makes some of one's desires authentic by critically reflecting upon and identifying with them. One identifies with a particular desire when one approves of it as a reason for action, thus desiring that it be an effective desire. Provided (...) that one's identification with a desire is decisive and one is not ambivalent with respect to it, identification is sufficient for the authenticity of one's desires. ;This capacity to adopt authentic reasons for action cannot be sufficient for the autonomy of one's desires or actions, though. For authenticity is a function solely of the psychological states of an individual; yet autonomy cannot be adequately explicated solely by reference to an agent's subjective states. I refer to those theories which make the autonomy of a person's desires solely a function of her psychological states as "internalist", and argue that such theories must be rejected. An "externalist" is one who denies that autonomy is wholly a function of the psychological states of the individual, and so holds that the autonomy of a desire is determined, at least in part, by facts which are independent of the subjective attitudes of the agent. ;I defend a form of externalism, which makes the autonomy of a desire depend upon the following conditions: the agent must approve of it as a reason for action; the agent must have the capacity to respond appropriately to whatever reasons there are for and against it; the agent must have been able to avoid falling into error concerning the object of the desire and the desire itself; the agent's approval of it is not caused solely by a restriction of her feasible options or coercion. ;I argue that this is a more plausible theory than other externalist positions, and it can meet the objections which have beset internalist theories. (shrink)

The contributors consider the ethical issues surrounding the use of psychological approaches to bring about change in human well-being. They raise many profound and disturbing questions that will stimulate debate in this important area.