Many adoptees face a number of challenges relating to separation from biological parents during the adoption process, including issues concerning identity, intimacy, attachment, and trust, as well as language and other cultural challenges. One common health challenge faced by adoptees involves lack of access to genetic-relative family health history. Lack of GRFHx represents a disadvantage due to a reduced capacity to identify diseases and recommend appropriate screening for conditions for which the adopted person may be at increased risk. In this (...) article, we draw out common features of traditionally understood “health disparities” in order to identify analogous features in the context of adoptees’ lack of GRFHx. (shrink)

The article explores integration of knowledge-enabling digital technology into community functions through the development of local Digital Communities of Practice. This analysis includes both general considerations—in terms of domain, community, and practice dimensions—as well as results from an exploratory research project in Minnesota. The domain is described as integrated deployment of virtual services (education, human services, government) in local communities; the community is comprised of the local stakeholders and residents that would use or benefit from such services; and the practice (...) is considered as a decision-making processes for designing and deploying these services. The paper concludes with research and policy considerations for providing an enduring source of knowledge about local virtual services, needs, and solutions. (shrink)

This paper argues that it will be important for new genomic technologies to recognize the limits of traditional approaches to informed consent, so that other-regarding implications of genomic information can be properly contextualized and individual rights respected. Respect for individual autonomy will increasingly require dynamic consideration of the interrelated dimensions of individual and broader community interests, so that the interests of one do not undermine fundamental interests of the other. In this, protection of individual rights will be a complex interplay (...) between individual and community concerns. (shrink)

While a significant literature has appeared discussing theoretical ethical concerns regarding COVID-19, particularly regarding resource prioritization, as well as a number of personal reflections on providing patient care during the early stages of the pandemic, systematic analysis of the actual ethical issues involving patient care during this time is limited. This single-center retrospective cohort mixed methods study of ethics consultations during the first surge of the COVID 19 pandemic in Massachusetts between March 15, 2020 through June 15, 2020 aim to (...) fill this gap. Results indicate that there was no significant difference in the median number of monthly consultation cases during the first COVID-19 surge compared to the same period the year prior and that the characteristics of the ethics consults during the COVID-19 surge and same period the year prior were also similar. Through inductive analysis, we identified four themes related to ethics consults during the first COVID-19 surge including (1) prognostic difficulty for COVID-19 positive patients, (2) challenges related to visitor restrictions, (3) end of life scenarios, and (4) family members who were also positive for COVID-19. Cases were complex and often aligned with multiple themes. These patient case-related sources of ethical issues were managed against the backdrop of intense systemic ethical issues and a near lockdown of daily life. Healthcare ethics consultants can learn from this experience to enhance training to be ready for future disasters. (shrink)

In the United States, hate speech sits at the intersection of ethical and legal debates and has a complex relationship with journalism. The First Amendment provides broad legal protections for hate...

The cyclical nature of presidential elections provides regular opportunities for journalists to reflect on patterns in election coverage. This study presents a textual analysis of press criticism o...

Toward A Sociological Imagination builds on the ideas C. Wright Mills expressed in The Sociological Imagination for an approach to the scientific method broad enough to open up to the full range of knowledge within the sociology discipline. In this book, nine sociologists and one philosopher provide detailed tests of the utility of the approach within diverse substantive sociological areas.

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Critical care society guidelines recommend that ethics committees mediate intractable conflict over potentially inappropriate treatment, including Do Not Resuscitate status. There are, however, limited data on cases and circumstances in which ethics consultants recommend not offering cardiopulmonary resuscitation despite patient or surrogate requests and whether physicians follow these recommendations. This was a retrospective cohort of all adult patients at a large academic medical center for whom an ethics consult was requested for disagreement over DNR status. Patient demographic predictors of ethics (...) consult outcomes were analyzed. In 42 of the 116 cases, the patient or surrogate agreed to the clinician recommended DNR order following ethics consultation. In 72 of 74 of the remaining cases, ethics consultants recommended not offering CPR. Physicians went on to write a DNR order without patient/surrogate consent in 57 of those cases. There were no significant differences in age, race/ethnicity, country of origin, or functional status between patients where a DNR order was and was not placed without consent. Physicians were more likely to place a DNR order for patients believed to be imminently dying. The median time from DNR order to death was 4 days with a 90-day mortality of 88.2%. In this single-center cohort study, there was no evidence that patient demographic factors affected ethics consultants’ recommendation to withhold CPR despite patient/surrogate requests. Physicians were most likely to place a DNR order without consent for imminently dying patients. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

In The Myth of Ownership, Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel argue that achieving fairness in taxation is principally a matter of distributive justice. Distributive justice can be understood as being concerned with what is owed to people as a matter of justice. For Nagel and Murphy, fairness in tax schemes is subsumed to the question of distributive justice: fairly allocated tax liabilities are just those that are compatible with the preferred theory of distributive justice. Subsuming assessments of tax fairness (...) to distributive justice, however, overlooks the following possibility: that the question of how we ought to divvy up tax liabilities, and the burdens associated with running a society more generally, requires different, non-distributive considerations of justice. These are considerations of justice that aren’t essentially about distributive justice at all. I argue here that the division of burdens in a society is specifically a matter of contributive justice. Contributive justice is concerned with what people owe as a matter of justice, rather than what is owed to them. It makes the division of burdens itself evaluative salient in assessments of fairness. Even a comprehensive specification of distributive justice leaves indeterminate how the burdens of running a society should be fairly divided up. Each of the chapters in this dissertation develops one part of an account of contributive justice. I first make conceptual space for an account of contributive justice. By taking Murphy and Nagel’s lead, and working within the post-distribution, a distinctive need for principles of justice in contribution can be shown. Murphy and Nagel decline to introduce non-distributive principles for guiding the provision of post-distributive public goods. Instead, they favor efficiency in determining the provision of post-distributive of public goods. I show that contributive justice is genuinely distinct from both efficiency and distributive justice. I also identify one respect in which principles of contributive justice should bear: that of determining the financing and delivery and civic cultural public goods. I then argue that a principle of contribution in accordance with ability (a principle of “ability-to-pay”, or “ability-to-contribute”, for short) stands out as a candidate principle of contributive justice. The version of ability-to-pay that I defend is, in particular, a deontic principle of ability-to-pay. I show that a deontic principle of ability-to-pay is more closely allied with a view of society as a cooperative enterprise than utilitarian versions of ability-to-pay. An account of ability to contribute is developed by grafting a notion of opportunity cost onto Amartya Sen’s capability theory. Lastly, I incorporate contributive justice in an account of contributive legitimacy. Contributive legitimacy gives us a set of conditions under which the state’s use of coercive force to extract tax contributions is legitimate, and hence justified. Drawing on empirical evidence from the development and fiscal sociology literature, I show that contributive legitimacy in a state’s tax extraction practices is essential to rule of law, and the avoidance of kleptocratic authoritarianism. Contributive legitimacy supplements our understanding of conventional notions of political legitimacy and helps us identify possible failures of political legitimacy. These are failures that might be overlooked were we to focus solely on distribution. (shrink)

In Kimberly Brownlee’s book, Conscience and Conviction, she argues that Thomas More’s paradigmatic ‘personal objection’ successfully meets the 4 conditions of her ‘Communicative Principle’. In this article I want to challenge Brownlee’s ‘universality’ condition and the ‘dialogical’ condition by focusing on a counter-example of a British GP conscientiously objecting to authorizing an abortion. I argue that such an objection can be morally admirable, even though the GP is not politically active, even though she is not open-minded to the possibility (...) that she might be wrong, and even if she refuses to condemn her non-objecting colleagues. I suggest that this particular counter-example can tell us more general things about the nature of ethical disagreement and ethical incomprehension. (shrink)

The normative foundations of the environmental movement can be thought of in a range of different ways. The present paper is a commentary on very interesting papers by Thomas Dunlap, Thomas Hill and Kimberly Smith, who take up the spiritual, ethical and political perspectives respectively. Their accounts are described and evaluated.

Thomas Erne entfaltet im Anschluss an Schleiermachers Ästhetik das Verhältnis von Kunst und Religion. Dabei nimmt er über Schleiermacher hinaus auch die moderne, autonome Kunst in Blick. Im Dialog mit exemplarischen Kunstwerken der Gegenwart fragt er nach Transzendenzerfahrungen in der Gegenwartskunst, in der die Kunstwerke selbst zu,,autonomen Sinndomänen" werden. Der Band dokumentiert die Schleiermacher-Lecture 2019 an der Theologischen Fakultät der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Im Rahmen dieser Reihe sollen ausgewählte Aspekte von Schleiermachers Werk mit Fragen und Problemkonstellationen der Gegenwart in (...) Beziehung gesetzt werden. (shrink)

Elegant, suggestive, and clarifying, Lewis Thomas's profoundly humane vision explores the world around us and examines the complex interdependence of all things. Extending beyond the usual limitations of biological science and into a vast and wondrous world of hidden relationships, this provocative book explores in personal, poetic essays to topics such as computers, germs, language, music, death, insects, and medicine. Lewis Thomas writes, "Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a (...) social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good for us.". (shrink)

Introduction -- Nazi philosophy -- The expulsion of the invaders -- Philosophical method : virtue vs. vice -- The virtuous tradition : analysis, liberalism, englishness -- Epilogue.

Thomas Wheatland examines the influence of the Frankfurt School, or Horkheimer Circle, and how they influenced American social thought and postwar German sociology.

Archaeology can provide two bodies of information relevant to the understanding of the evolution of human cognition – the timing of developments, and the evolutionary context of these developments. The challenge is methodological. Archaeology must document attributes that have direct implications for underlying cognitive mechanisms. One example of such a cognitive archaeology is found in spatial cognition. The archaeological record documents an evolutionary sequence that begins with ape-equivalent spatial abilities 2.5 million years ago and ends with the appearance of modern (...) abilities in the still remote past of 400,000 years ago. The timing of these developments reveals two major episodes in the evolution in spatial ability, one, 1.5 million years ago and the other, one million years later. The two episodes of development in spatial cognition had very different evolutionary contexts. The first was associated with the shift to an open country adaptive niche that occurred early in the time range of Homo erectus. The second was associated with no clear adaptive shift, though it does appear to have coincided with the invasion of more hostile environments and the appearance of systematic hunting of large mammals. Neither, however, occurred in a context of modern hunting and gathering. Key Words: Archaeology; evolution; Homo erectus; spatial cognition; symmetry. (shrink)

As one of America’s "public intellectuals," John Dewey was engaged in a lifelong struggle to understand the human mind and the nature of human inquiry. According to Thomas C. Dalton, the successful pursuit of this mission demanded that Dewey become more than just a philosopher; it compelled him to become thoroughly familiar with the theories and methods of physics, psychology, and neurosciences, as well as become engaged in educational and social reform. Tapping archival sources and Dewey’s extensive correspondence, Dalton (...) reveals that Dewey had close personal and intellectual ties to scientists and scholars who helped form the mature expression of his thought. Dewey’s relationships with F. M. Alexander, Henri Matisse, Niels Bohr, Myrtle McGraw, and Lawrence K. Frank, among others, show how Dewey dispersed pragmatism throughout American thought and culture. (shrink)

Dans la vie d'un lecteur, certains auteurs occupent une place à part : lectures inaugurales, compagnons de tous les jours, sources auxquelles on revient. La collection "Les auteurs de ma vie" invite de grands écrivains contemporains à partager leur admiration pour un classique, dont la lecture a particulièrement compté pour eux. Dans sa jeunesse, Thomas Mann a lu et médité Schopenhauer, philosophe de la volonté et du pessimisme, qui a largement influencé l'oeuvre de celui qui deviendra l'un des plus (...) grands écrivains modernes de la décadence. Cet hommage à son maître nous offre une clé précieuse de son parcours intellectuel. (shrink)

This volume contains selected essays in moral and political philosophy by Thomas Hurka. The essays address a wide variety of topics, from the well-rounded life and the value of playing games to proportionality in war and the ethics of nationalism. They also share a common aim: to illuminate the surprising richness and subtlety of our everyday moral thought by revealing its underlying structure, which they often do by representing that structure on graphs. More specifically, the essays all give what (...) the first in the volume calls "structural" as against "foundational" analyses of moral views. Eschewing the grander ambition of grounding our ideas about, say, virtue or desert in claims that use different concepts and concern some other, allegedly more fundamental topic, they examine these ideas in their own right and with close attention to their details. As well as illuminating their individual topics, the essays illustrate the insights this structural method can yield. (shrink)

to appear in Larry May, ed., War and Political Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) held two theses that might seem incompatible to contemporary readers, namely 1) that an act of faith is reasonable even by the standards of human reason without grace, and 2) that this act surpasses the power of such unaided human reason. In the later Middle Ages, many theologians who were not Thomists held that someone who performs acts of infused faith must also perform such acts through an acquired faith that is based on natural reason. (...) I argue that debates with Protestants and Jesuits caused Dominican Thomists to clarify and develop Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the traditional position that acts of faith surpass natural human abilities in such a way as to reject the older non-Thomistic understanding of acquired faith. This enquiry will show that major early modern disputes over the authority of Scripture and the source of faith are at least partially rooted in differences among medieval scholastic theologians. Although the Protestants and the Jesuits adhere to distinct confessions, their theological views on faith are based in part on an acceptance of or reaction to Scotistic and nominalist medieval views. Thomists drew on the same resources to respond to non-Thomistic medieval theologians, Protestants, and Jesuits. (shrink)

The first complete introduction to the subject ever published, A History of Irish Thought presents an inclusive survey of Irish thought and the history of Irish ideas against the backdrop of current political and social change in Ireland. Clearly written and engaging, the survey introduces an array of philosophers, polemicists, ideologists, satirists, scientists, poets and political and social reformers, from the anonymous seventh-century monk, the Irish Augustine, and John Scottus Eriugena, to the twentieth century and W.B. Yeats and Iris Murdoch. (...) Thomas Duddy rediscovers the liveliest and most contested issues in the Irish past, and brings the history of Irish thought up to date. This volume will be of great value to anyone interested in Irish culture and its intellectual history. (shrink)

Reproduction of the original: Science and Medieval Thought by Thomas Clifford Allbutt.

Reprinted by permission of Open Court Publishing Company, a division of Carus Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, from Sartre’s two ethics: from authenticity to integral humanity by Anderson, Thomas C., copyright © 1993 by Open Court Publishing Company.

The central positoin of St. Thomas Aquinas in the pantheon of Catholic thinkers along with St. Augustine of Hippo more than justifies ongoing attention to his thought and contributions to philosophy, theology, and medieval culture. This volume is an anthology of the passages of his Summa Theologia on human nature or the "human constitution.".