The great plague in London in 1665 was the last in a series of epidemics that had begun with the Black Death in the 14th century. Plagues continued elsewhere in Europe into the 18th century, but after 1679 no cases of plague were reported in England at all. The disease seemed to have disappeared. How could that be explained? The purpose of this paper is to discover when contemporaries began to think that plague had gone for good, and why they (...) thought that had happened. The paper falls into two parts. The first concentrates on the decade of the 1720s, when plague was expected to come from Marseilles and never arrived. In the space of a few months there was fierce and concentrated public debate about a new Quarantine Act to be enforced if an epidemic developed, much of it arguing that the Act was unnecessary because plague was plainly not contagious at all. It depended wholly on local environments, and in England they had been improving ever since the Great Fire of London. The second part of the paper takes the story forward into the later 18th century, when there was no longer much dispute that plague was indeed contagious, but it was confidently supposed that England now enjoyed the double protection of further environmental improvement at home combined with effective quarantine of shipping abroad, especially in the Mediterranean. Over the century, contending explanations for plague were debated, interpretations of the past disputed and sometimes falsified, and expectations and ambitions for the future remodelled, because one epidemic threat had disappeared for good. (shrink)

Peter Singer argues that when some fail to do their part in alleviating suffering, the rest of us must take up their slack. In response, L. J. Cohen, Liam Murphy, and David Miller argue that such a requirement would be unfair. No one, they contend, should be required to contribute more than she would be required to under full compliance. I argue against Cohen, Murphy, and Miller that we are obligated to take up slack left by noncontributors, but (...) agree that we are thereby treated unfairly. Drawing on the literatures on group causation and moral responsibility, I argue that noncontributors wrong those they fail to help and those who take up their slack. I refer to the latter kind of wrong as “burden dumping.” Furthermore, I argue that my account applies whether we conceive of rescue duties as discretionary or nondiscretionary. One might think that if my duties to rescue do not require me to contribute to any particular rescue effort, I do not dump burdens on anyone when I do nothing. In reply, I argue that when I have a nondiscretionary duty to contribute to a particular rescue effort, I unfairly dump burdens on those contributing to that effort when I fail to do my part. Similarly, when my duty to rescue is discretionary and I do nothing, I unfairly dump burdens on everyone whose rescue efforts I might have contributed to. Using this apparatus, we can account for the force of arguments such as Singer’s as well as the idea that those who dump burdens are blameworthy for treating other rescuers unfairly. (shrink)

This article asks whether our moral duties are created by others’ non-compliance and whether we should fulfill them or not. For example, do we need to donate more of our income to eradicate world poverty because billionaires do not donate? If so, how much should we donate? In short, should we make up for others’ defaulting on their moral duties – and if so, how and to what extent? Such situations are called non-ideal circumstances in political philosophy. With the increasing (...) importance of non-ideal theories of justice and ethics, the question of how we should act in non-ideal situations has received more attention in the ethics literature in recent years. This article poses and addresses the question of whether we should take up the slack when others do not comply with their own moral duty. This article examines how consequentialism and contractualism might respond to non-ideal situations of taking up the slack and then defends a contractualist-constructivist approach to dealing with these situations. (shrink)

The view that agents are not obliged to do more than their initial fair shares when their fellow duty bearers fail to comply has prominent defenders, including Liam Murphy and David Miller. While Murphy thinks that asking agents to take up other agents’ slack would be unfair, Miller claims that slack-taking cannot be required because primary responsibility does not migrate from noncompliers to compliers. This paper argues, by contrast, that there are a number of circumstances in which (...) there is a duty to take up the slack even though it is unfair and even though responsibility stays where it is. The central claim is that what agents owe to third parties is a separate issue from how they relate to fellow duty bearers. This proposal also runs counter to familiar defenses of slack-taking that weigh its unfairness against the moral importance of the interests at stake for third parties. (shrink)

With the existing commitments to climate change mitigation, global warming is likely to exceed 2°C and to trigger irreversible and harmful threshold effects. The difference between the reductions necessary to keep the 2°C limit and those reductions countries have currently committed to is called the ‘emissions gap’. I argue that capable states not only have a moral duty to make voluntary contributions to bridge that gap, but that complying states ought to make up for the failures of some other states (...) to comply with this duty. While defecting or doing less than one’s fair share can be a good move in certain circumstances, it would be morally wrong in this situation. In order to bridge the emissions gap, willing states ought to take up the slack left by others. The paper will reject the unfairness-objection, namely that it is wrong to require agents to take on additional costs to discharge duties that are not primarily theirs. Sometimes what is morally right is simply unfair. (shrink)

Some people live to work, others work to live, while still others prefer to live lives of leisure. Since the Puritans, American culture and literature have been dominated by individuals who have valued hard work. However, shortly after its founding, America managed to produce the leisurely Rip Van Winkle, who, over time, has been followed by kindred spirits such as, for instance, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Twain’s Huck Finn, Melville’s Bartleby, Jack Kerouac, Diane di Prima, the Hippies, and Christopher (...) McCandless. With the rise of the Indie Film movement of the 1990s, so came the rise of the slacker film. Films such as Slacker, Singles, Wayne’s World, Reality Bites, Clerks, Kicking and Screaming, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, The Big Lebowski, and Office Space filled theatres over the decade with characters who take an unorthodox view of work and stress the importance of leisure in life. This essay discusses two slacker films, Richard Linklater’s Slacker and Kevin Smith’s Clerks, which defined the slacker phenomenon in the 1990s and constituted two important landmarks in American independent film. While many of us may find the slacker pathetic and annoying, this essay argues that there is much value to be found in this healthy counterculture. By offering their perspectives on issues such as the Puritan work ethic, work-incited self-importance, leisure versus idleness and human relationships, Linklater and Smith join the preceding generations of slackers, providing a much needed balance to the American obsession with work and success. (shrink)

Background South Africa is likely to be the first country in the world to host an adolescent HIV vaccine trial. Adolescents may be enrolled in late 2007. In the development and review of adolescent HIV vaccine trial protocols there are many complexities to consider, and much work to be done if these important trials are to become a reality. Discussion This article sets out essential requirements for the lawful conduct of adolescent research in South Africa including compliance with consent requirements, (...) child protection laws, and processes for the ethical and regulatory approval of research. Summary This article outlines likely complexities for researchers and research ethics committees, including determining that trial interventions meet current risk standards for child research. Explicit recommendations are made for role-players in other jurisdictions who may also be planning such trials. This article concludes with concrete steps for implementing these important trials in South Africa and other jurisdictions, including planning for consent processes; delineating privacy rights; compiling information necessary for ethics committees to assess risks to child participants; training trial site staff to recognize when disclosures trig mandatory reporting response; networking among relevant ethics commitees; and lobbying the National Regulatory Authority for guidance. (shrink)

It has been claimed that ‘virtuous structures’ can foster moral agency in organisations. We investigate this in the context of employee involvement in corporate philanthropy, an activity whose moral status has been disputed. Employing Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of moral agency, we analyse the results of eight focus groups with employees engaged in corporate philanthropy in an employee-owned retailer, the John Lewis Partnership. Within this organisational context, Employee–Partners’ moral agency was evidenced in narrative accounts of their engagement in philanthropic activities and (...) in their disputes about the moral status of corporate philanthropy. (shrink)

Digital phenotyping will potentially enable earlier detection and prediction of mental illness by monitoring human interaction with and through digital devices. Notwithstanding its promises, it is certain that a person’s digital phenotype will at times be at odds with their first-person testimony of their psychological states. In this paper, we argue that there are features of digital phenotyping in the context of psychiatry which have the potential to exacerbate the tendency to dismiss patients’ testimony and treatment preferences, which can be (...) instances of epistemic injustice. We first explain what epistemic injustice is, and why it is argued to be an extensive problem in health and disability settings. We then explain why epistemic injustice is more likely to apply with even greater force in psychiatric contexts, and especially where digital phenotyping may be involved. Finally, we offer some tentative suggestions of how epistemic injustice can be minimised in digital psychiatry. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is a recognised and common part of business activity. Some of the regularly cited motives behind CSR are employee morale, recruitment and retention, with employees acknowledged as a key organisational stakeholder. Despite the significance of employees in relation to CSR, relatively few studies have examined their engagement with CSR and the impediments relevant to this engagement. This exploratory case study-based research addresses this paucity of attention, drawing on one to one interviews and observation in a large UK (...) energy company. A diversity of engagement was found, ranging from employees who exhibited detachment from the CSR activities within the company, to those who were fully engaged with the CSR activities, and to others who were content with their own personal, but not organisational, engagement with CSR. A number of organisational context impediments, including poor communication, a perceived weak and low visibility of CSR culture, and lack of strategic alignment of CSR to business and personal objectives, served to explain this diversity of employee engagement. Social exchange theory is applied to help explore the volition that individual employees have towards their engagement with CSR activities, and to consider the implications of an implicit social, rather than explicit economic, contract between an organisation and its employees in their engagement with CSR. (shrink)

De Marco et al 1 argue that the standard account of medical ‘invasiveness’ (as ‘incision’ or ‘insertion’) fails to capture three aspects of its existing use, namely that invasiveness can come in degrees, often depends on features of alternative medical interventions and can be non-physical. They propose a new schematic account that suggests that medical interventions can possess ‘basic invasiveness’ (which can come in degrees and of which they suggest at least two types: physical and mental), and ‘threshold invasiveness’ which (...) can depend on the alternatives a specific intervention is being compared with. While we agree that the standard account of invasiveness fails to capture existing use and are supportive of their aim, here we express scepticism about the practical utility of De Marco et al ’s revised account. Our scepticism concerns the application of De Marco et al’s revised account in the narrow context of clinician–patient communication and deliberation about medical interventions within clinical practice, which we see as a crucial context for its use. While De Marco et al do not specify the contexts in which their revised account could be used, we assume from their discussion of treatment interventions (e.g. non-invasive prenatal testing, ventilation) and their comparison to ‘more or less invasive’ options, that at least one of the purposes in mind for …. (shrink)

The tension between public duty and private conscience is a central theme of English history in the seventeenth century, when established authorities were questioned and violently disrupted. It has also been an important theme in the work of one of the foremost historians of the period, G.E. Aylmer. It makes, therefore, an especially appropriate subject for this volume. The contributors are leading historians, whose topics range from contemporary writings on conscience and duty to the particular problems faced by individuals and (...) groups, both Puritan and Royalist, at the center and in the localities. These scholarly and original studies throw new light on the innumberable dilemmas of conscience of seventeenth-century men and women, and together make a distinguished contribution to seventeenth-century history. (shrink)

Over the past 40 years a tradition of Marx interpretation has built up around a single passage concerning black slavery in an 1853 letter from Marx to Engels, in order to demonstrate that Marx’s support for emancipation was conditional on the level of ‘civilization’ attained by black slaves. I will argue that this interpretation, which attempts to prove Marx’s racist defense of slavery, is overdetermined by an inattention to historical context and a hypersensitivity to Marx’s nineteenth-century epithets. This is important (...) because the alleged anti-black racism of Marx and the place black workers occupy in his historical materialist vision of class struggle are of the utmost significance for properly conceptualizing the relationship between Marxism and black liberation. (shrink)

This article reports on qualitative research conducted in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, among researchers and gate-keepers of health facilities in the province. Results suggest disparate but not irreconcilable perceptions of the social value of research in provincial health facilities. This study found that researchers tended to emphasize the contribution of research to the generation of knowledge and to the health of future patients while gate-keepers of health facilities tended to emphasize its contribution to the healthcare system and to current patients. Furthermore, (...) relations between research stakeholders were perceived to be somewhat fragile, making it difficult for stakeholders to achieve consensus about the social value of research, as well as on ways to maximize value. Interventions to negotiate a shared perspective on the social value of research would appear to be warranted, and the findings of this study suggest some focus areas for such intervention. (shrink)

Laacke et al. argue that an extended concept of patient autonomy—Health-Related Digital Autonomy —is required to address the autonomy-related ethical challenges associated with the pot...

The notion of community infers unity and a source of moral obligations in an organisational ethic between individuals or groups. As such, a community, having a strong sense of collective identity, may foster collective action to promote social change for the betterment of society. This research critically explores notions of community through analysing discursive identity construction practices within a member-owned urban consumer co-operative public house in the UK. A strong sense of community is an often-claimed CC characteristic. The paper’s main (...) contributions stem from using the lens of identity work to critically unpack the notion of community through highlighting paradoxical tensions of community residing within CCs. The findings reveal that the notion of community may be illusionary with counter-veiling forces, one that reflects a more traditional sense of connection, attachment and communion, and the other of boundaries, disconnection or division. As these repertoires collide, tensions are evident between the hegemonic discourse of neoliberal managerialism and that of democratic collective ownership. Despite these individual-level tensions, communities may operate within boundaries enabling an organisational and societal ethic, beyond the individual. (shrink)

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have significantly impacted on the politics of health research and the field of bioethics. In the global HIV epidemic, CSOs have served a pivotal stakeholder role. The dire need for development of new prevention technologies has raised critical challenges for the ethical engagement of community stakeholders in HIV research. This study explored the perspectives of CSO representatives involved in HIV prevention trials (HPTs) on the impact of premature trial closures on stakeholder engagement. Fourteen respondents from South (...) African and international CSOs representing activist and advocacy groups, community mobilisation initiatives, and human and legal rights groups were purposively sampled based on involvement in HPTs. Interviews were conducted from February-May 2010. Descriptive analysis was undertaken across interviews and key themes were developed inductively. CSO representatives largely described positive outcomes of recent microbicide and HIV vaccine trial terminations, particularly in South Africa, which they attributed to improvements in stakeholder engagement. Ongoing challenges to community engagement included the need for principled justifications for selective stakeholder engagement at strategic time-points, as well as the need for legitimate alternatives to CABs as mechanisms for engagement. Key issues for CSOs in relation to research were also raised. (shrink)

Many developing countries are attempting to use their natural resource endowments as the basis for economic growth and development. But countries that depend heavily on resource extraction do poorly on a variety of economic indicators, including growth rates, education levels, and income inequality.

Charles Mills' philosophical position has undergone a number of subtle shifts over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, there has been a relative consistency in his thought over the past two decades, at least since The Racial Contract of 1997. That consistency consists in his turn towards social contract theory and its liberal values and away from Marxism with its focus on class and political economy. Mills notes that this turn does not constitute a “a complete repudiation of Marxism, since I (...) do think that a modified historical materialism might be able to carry out an adequate conceptualization of the significance of race.” Some of the claims Mills makes about Marx and Engels, however, should be challenged; they (or their views) are not as “white” as Mills attests. Indeed, Marx and Engels made a considerable start at theorizing white supremacy as an outgrowth of modern capitalism. (shrink)

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have significantly impacted on the politics of health research and the field of bioethics. In the globalHIVepidemic,CSOs have served a pivotal stakeholder role. The dire need for development of new prevention technologies has raised critical challenges for the ethical engagement of community stakeholders inHIVresearch. This study explored the perspectives ofCSOrepresentatives involved inHIVprevention trials (HPTs) on the impact of premature trial closures on stakeholder engagement. Fourteen respondents fromSouthAfrican and internationalCSOs representing activist and advocacy groups, community mobilisation initiatives, (...) and human and legal rights groups were purposively sampled based on involvement inHPTs. Interviews were conducted fromFebruary‐May 2010. Descriptive analysis was undertaken across interviews and key themes were developed inductively.CSOrepresentatives largely described positive outcomes of recent microbicide andHIVvaccine trial terminations, particularly inSouthAfrica, which they attributed to improvements in stakeholder engagement. Ongoing challenges to community engagement included the need for principled justifications for selective stakeholder engagement at strategic time‐points, as well as the need for legitimate alternatives toCABs as mechanisms for engagement. Key issues forCSOs in relation to research were also raised. (shrink)

In a Times Literary Supplement review of some recent literature on Marx and Marxism for a general readership, Jonathan Wolff claimed that Marx’s solution to the so-called “transformation problem” is “half-baked.” The aim of this paper is to challenge this complacent dismissal of some of Marx’s central economic ideas. In the process, I want to show that although the issues here are subtle and complex, Marx’s ideas retain a great deal of intuitive appeal, and his “solution” to the so-called “transformation (...) problem” is neither conceptually implausible nor mathematically dubious. Crucial to this aim is to show that Marx viewed the categories of (what he called bourgeois) economics through a social lens, which is given in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital. (shrink)

Here I both celebrate and critique the legacy of Charles W. Mills. I begin by offering some reflections on the trajectory of Mills’s career and intellectual development, focusing on his move from Marxist philosophy to the philosophy of race. I then attempt to undermine an argument in Mills’s final book, for why those interested in emancipation should choose liberalism over Marxism. By contrasting Mills with the late Italian Marxist philosopher of history Domenico Losurdo, with whom Mills shared a blistering critique (...) of ‘racial’ liberalism but whom I claim Mills misread, I seek to weaken key premises in Mills’s argument. (shrink)

This paper examines the strategic use of corporate philanthropy in the 1990s by UK building societies faced with an intensification of societal pressure to change legal form from mutual to corporate status. While the economic case for mutuality has been made elsewhere, this paper examines the observation that community relationships were thought by management to be capable of assisting in the strategic positioning of mutual societies with regard to their legal form. By increasing charitable giving to respond to the level (...) of societal scrutiny and discussion on the issue of mutuality, this paper argues that charitable giving, as one proxy for community involvement, was used as a strategic tool to deflect calls for demutualisation, thereby preserving the existing mutual status of building societies. (shrink)

This paper examines the strategic use of corporate philanthropy in the 1990s by UK building societies faced with an intensification of societal pressure to change legal form from mutual to corporate status. While the economic case for mutuality has been made elsewhere, this paper examines the observation that community relationships were thought by management to be capable of assisting in the strategic positioning of mutual societies with regard to their legal form. By increasing charitable giving to respond to the level (...) of societal scrutiny and discussion on the issue of mutuality, this paper argues that charitable giving, as one proxy for community involvement, was used as a strategic tool to deflect calls for demutualisation, thereby preserving the existing mutual status of building societies. (shrink)

Culture and Technology is an essential guide to that debate and its fascinating history. It is a primer for beginners and an invaluable resource for those deeply committed to understanding the new digital culture. The award-winning first edition (2005) has been comprehensively updated to incorporate new technologies and contemporary theories about them.

This paper develops a set of 16 criteria, divided into four groupings, for responsible business practice (RBP) in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) drawn from the existing SME/RBP literature. The current lack of a general set of criteria against which such activity can be judged is noted and this deficit is redressed. In order to make an initial assessment in support of the criteria so derived, an exploratory feasibility study of RBP in U.K. Fair Trade organisations was conducted. The findings (...) from this study show that most but not all of the RBP criteria seem to be applicable to U.K. Fair Trade organisations but it is recommended that the complete set of criteria continues to be used in further research until such time as there is a general consensus as to which criteria are appropriate. Implications for RBP in small businesses in general, and for Fair Trade organisations in particular, are drawn out and suggestions for further research are identified. (shrink)

South Africa is a major hub of HIV prevention trials, with plans for a licensure trial to start in 2015. The appropriate standards of care and of prevention in HIV vaccine trials are complex and debated issues and ethical guidelines offer some direction. However, there has been limited empirical exploration of South African stakeholders’ perspectives on ethical guidance related to prevention and care in HIV vaccine trials.

This paper compares and contrasts three groups that conducted biological research at Yale University during overlapping periods between 1910 and 1970. Yale University proved important as a site for this research. The leaders of these groups were Ross Granville Harrison, Grace E. Pickford, and G. Evelyn Hutchinson, and their members included both graduate students and more experienced scientists. All produced innovative research, including the opening of new subfields in embryology, endocrinology and ecology respectively, over a long period of time. Harrison's (...) is shown to have been a classic research school; Pickford's and Hutchinson's were not. Pickford's group was successful in spite of her lack of departmental or institutional position or power. Hutchinson and his graduate and post-graduate students were extremely productive but in diverse areas of ecology. His group did not have one focused area of research or use one set of research tools. The paper concludes that new models for research groups are needed, especially for those, like Hutchinson's, that included much field research. (shrink)

Multiple explanatory frameworks may be required to provide an adequate account of human cognition. This paper embeds the classical account within a neural network framework, exploring the encoding of syntacticallystructured objects over the synchronicdiachronic characteristics of networks. Synchronic structure is defined in terms of temporal binding and the superposition of states. To accommodate asymmetric relations, synchronic structure is subject to the type uniqueness constraint. The nature of synchronic structure is shown to underlie Xbar theory that characterizes the phrasal structure of (...) human languages. The derivation differentiates core Xbar properties from languagespecific properties. (shrink)

New methods of marking cells enable single clones to be followed during embryonic development. They can be used for the construction of fate maps and for the investigation of induction and determination.

This book is a must read for anyone who cares about the place of technology in our lives.