This article is an account of the dynamics of interaction across the social sciences and neurosciences. Against an arid rhetoric of ‘interdisciplinarity’, it calls for a more expansive imaginary of what experiment – as practice and ethos – might offer in this space. Arguing that opportunities for collaboration between social scientists and neuroscientists need to be taken seriously, the article situates itself against existing conceptualizations of these dynamics, grouping them under three rubrics: ‘critique’, ‘ebullience’ and ‘interaction’. Despite their differences, each (...) insists on a distinction between sociocultural and neurobiological knowledge, or does not show how a more entangled field might be realized. The article links this absence to the ‘regime of the inter-’, an ethic of interdisciplinarity that guides interaction between disciplines on the understanding of their pre-existing separateness. The argument of the paper is thus twofold: (1) that, contra the ‘regime of the inter-’, it is no longer practicable to maintain a hygienic separation between sociocultural webs and neurobiological architecture; (2) that the cognitive neuroscientific experiment, as a space of epistemological and ontological excess, offers an opportunity to researchers, from all disciplines, to explore and register this realization. (shrink)

Graphic and gut-wrenching images of death, violence, and pain fill our news media, despite debate about their effect on audiences and their potential to harm their subjects. This research uses in-d...

This article analyzes the photographic exhibit Yuyanapaq: Para Recordar, which was a product of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It focuses specifically on the curatorial process and political desires shaping Yuyanapaq, and it examines the ways in which photographs were intended to intervene in and script a national consciousness and shared memory during and after Peru’s transition process. Exploring across the three iterations of Yuyanapaq, I ask how we might attempt to bear witness to past conflict without inadvertently perpetuating (...) its logic. (shrink)

Seminary students remain unstudied in the research literature despite their eminent role in caring for the wellbeing of congregants. This study aimed to conduct baseline analysis of their family of origin health, psychological health, and physiological heath by utilizing the Biobehavioral Family Model as a conceptual framework for understanding the associations between these constructs. Statistical analysis utilizing structural equation modeling provided support that the BBFM was a sound model for assessing the relationships between these constructs within a seminary sample. Additionally, (...) seminarians were found to have higher rates of anxiety and depression when compared to the general population. Together, findings indicate that clinical care for seminarians may be best if implemented from a global systemic perspective. (shrink)

When someone encounters an explanation perceived as weak, this may lead to a feeling of deprivation or tension that can be resolved by engaging in additional learning. This study examined to what extent children respond to weak explanations by seeking additional learning opportunities. Seven‐ to ten‐year‐olds (N = 81) explored questions and explanations (circular or mechanistic) about 12 animals using a novel Android tablet application. After rating the quality of an initial explanation, children could request and receive additional information or (...) return to the main menu to choose a new animal to explore. Consistent with past research, there were both developmental and IQ‐related differences in how children evaluated explanation quality. But across development, children were more likely to request additional information in response to circular explanations than mechanistic explanations. Importantly, children were also more likely to request additional information in direct response to explanations that they themselves had assigned low ratings, regardless of explanation type. In addition, there was significant variability in both children's explanation evaluation and their exploration, suggesting important directions for future research. The findings support the deprivation theory of curiosity and offer implications for education. (shrink)

Albert of Saxony was one of the great logicians of the Middle Ages, on a par with William Ockham and John Buridan. The Twenty-Five Disputed Questions on Logic treat of central issues in logic, both then and now, such as the nature of meaning, of universals, of truth, and of tense and modality; and the quality and quantity of propositions, the role of negation, and the relations of contradiction and equivalence between them. Dr. Fitzgerald has studied Albert's work extensively, (...) and previously edited the Twenty-Five Disputed Questions from the original manuscripts. This translation makes available for the first time in English this careful and exemplary examination of logical notions by an outstanding medieval thinker.-Stephen Read, University of St. Andrews. (shrink)

We have seen important work on questions such as: whether there is a uniquely female approach to ethics, whether ethics should be par.

An overview of the philosophical and bioethics literature on conscientious refusals by health care professionals to provide abortion and contraceptive services.

In recent years scholars have begun to question the usefulness of the category of ''religion'' to describe a distinctive form of human experience and behavior. In his last book, The Ideology of Religious Studies, Timothy Fitzgerald argued that ''religion'' was not a private area of human existence that could be separated from the public realm and that the study of religion as such was thus impossibility. In this new book he examines a wide range of English-language texts to show (...) how religion became transformed from a very specific category indigenous to Christian culture into a universalist claim about human nature and society. These claims, he shows, are implied by and frequently explicit in theories and methods of comparative religion. But they are also tacitly reproduced throughout the humanities in the relatively indiscriminate use of ''religion'' as an a priori valid cross-cultural analytical concept, for example in historiography, sociology, and social anthropology. Fitzgerald seeks to link the argument about religion to the parallel formation of the ''non-religious'' and such dichotomies as church-state, sacred-profane, ecclesiastical-civil, spiritual-temporal, supernatural-natural, and irrational-rational. Part of his argument is that the category ''religion'' has a different logic compared to the category ''sacred,'' but the two have been consistently confused by major writers, including Durkheim and Eliade. Fitzgerald contends that ''religion'' imagined as a private belief in the supernatural was a necessary conceptual space for the simultaneous imagining of ''secular'' practices and institutions such as politics, economics, and the Nation State. The invention of ''religion'' as a universal type of experience, practice, and institution was partly the result of sacralizing new concepts of exchange, ownership, and labor practices, applying ''scientific'' rationality to human behavior, administering the colonies and classifying native institutions. In contrast, shows Fitzgerald, the sacred-profane dichotomy has a different logic of use. (shrink)

As understanding of the human microbiome improves, novel therapeutic targets to improve human health with microbial therapeutics will continue to expand. We outline key considerations of balancing risks and benefits, optimising access, returning key results to research participants, and potential conflicts of interest.

A close look at the rhetoric in America's recent welfare‐reform debate has both surprising and important implications for political philosophy. Political philosophers typically presume that opponents of redistribution are motivated by considerations other than equality. Recent arguments for welfare reform, however, have been formulated in a manner consistent with most contemporary egalitarian theories. This result should make us question either the political relevance of egalitarian ideals or the adequacy of those theories of equality.

The journal NatureGenetics recently reported a statement made by Dr. Brigitte Boisselier declaring the rights of parents to clone themselves. Dr. Boisselier is the scientific director of ClonaidBeam me up, Scotty!”? How do we begin to respond to this offer and Dr. Boisselier's claim for its ethical justification?

Researchers investigating gender and anger have consistently found that White women, but not White men, are evaluated unfavorably when experiencing anger in the workplace. Our project originally aimed to extend findings on White women’s, Black women’s, and White men’s workplace anger by examining whether evaluations are exacerbated or buffered by invalidating or affirming comments from others. In stark contrast to previous research on gender stereotyping and anger evaluations, however, results across four studies (N= 1,095) showed that both Black and White (...) women portrayed as experiencing anger in the workplace were evaluatedmore favorablythan White men doing so. After Study 1’s initial failure to conceptually replicate, we investigated whether perceivers’ evaluations of women’s workplace anger could have been affected by the contemporaneous cultural event of #MeToo. Supporting this possibility, we found evaluations were moderated by news engagement and beliefs that workplace opportunities are gendered. Additionally, we found invalidating comments rarely affected evaluations of a protagonist yet affirming comments tended to favorably affect evaluations. Overall, findings suggest the need for psychologists to consider the temporary, or perhaps lasting, effects of cultural events on research outcomes. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Scandalous Research in the Twentieth Century Basic Principles of Research Ethics Respect for Persons Beneficence Justice Conclusion.

The animal advocacy movement(s) -- Sport hunting : environmental stewardship, cultural ritual, or blood sport? -- Zoos and aquaria : species conservation, education, or unethical imprisonment? -- Fur : "green" or irredeemably cruel product? -- Industrial animal agriculture: injustice writ large -- Reconciliation and the way forward.

The history of Western Thought since the seventeenth Century leaves little doubt as to the practical validity of the method of natural investigation discovered by Galileo, interpreted by Descartes, and variously generalized by Newton and Einstein. The repercussions of its success on every level of human activity, religious, political, commercial, and educational have awakened the most diverse ánd even contradictory speculations as to the nature of this science and the objectives of the scientist. Often enough one gets the impression that (...) these speculations are founded on an arbitrary and unjustifiable conception of the nature of modern science; a conception formulated in terms of what one thinks or wishes to think science is from its effects upon the extra-scientific domain rather than in terms of a patient and critical penetration of its intrinsic structure. (shrink)

How did meat emerge to become such an important feature in Western society? In both popular and academic literatures, biophysical and political-economic factors are often cited as the reason for meat’s preeminent status. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive investigation of these claims by reviewing the available evidence on the political-economic and biophysical features of meat over the long arc of Western history. We specifically focus on nine critical epochs: the Paleolithic, early to late Neolithic, antiquity, ancient Israel and (...) early Christian societies, medieval Europe, early modern Europe, colonial America, the American frontier, and the modern industrial era. We find that except under conditions of environmental scarcity, the meaning and value of meat cannot be attributed to intrinsic biophysical value or to the political-economic actors who materially benefit from it. Rather, meat’s status reflects the myriad cultural contexts in which it is socially constructed in people’s everyday lives, particularly with respect to religious, gender, communal, racial, national, and class identity. By deconstructing the normalized/naturalized materialist assumptions circling around meat consumption, this paper clears a space for a more nuanced appreciation of the role that culture has played in the legitimation of meat, and by extension, the possibility of change. (shrink)