We argue that the ecological research community should develop a plan for improving the ethical consistency and moral robustness of the field. We propose a particular ethics strategy—specifically, an ongoing process of collective ethical reflection that the community of ecological researchers, with the cooperation of applied ethicists and philosophers of biology, can use to address the needs we identify. We suggest a particular set of conceptual and analytic tools that, we argue, collectively have the resources to provide an empirically grounded (...) and conceptually complete foundation for an ethics strategy for ecological research. We illustrate our argument with information gathered from a survey of ecologists conducted at the 2013 meeting of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution. (shrink)

Like other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, ecological research needs ethics. Given the rapid pace of technological developments and social change, it is important for scientists to have the vocabulary and critical-thinking skills necessary to identify, analyze, and communicate the ethical issues generated by the research and practices within their fields of specialization. The goal of introducing ethics education for ecological researchers would be to promote a discipline in which scientists are willing and able to engage in ethical questions (...) and problem solving, even if they do so inadequately at first. Practicing ecologists ought to be able to identify and critically evaluate the ethical dimensions of their field studies because ecologists are at the forefront of important interfaces between humans and other-than-human organisms and natural systems. They are among the first to identify the impact of anthropogenic changes to the environments. Rapidly changing local and global environments mean that ecologists will be on the front line of any efforts to create a sustainable lifestyle for humans on this planet. (shrink)

Questions about the relation between shame and embarrassment are often posed in discussion of emotion but have rarely been examined at length. In this study I assemble and examine distinctions that have been proposed in the literature with the aim of identifying the criteria that have been used to differentiate shame and embarrassment. Relevant empirical studies are also reviewed. Despite the attention paid to the question of the difference between shame and embarrassment consensus on differentiating criteria has not been reached (...) nor has there been consideration of what kind of question is being posed. Three positions that have been adopted are identified and critically evaluated. (shrink)

This paper examines conceptual issues that arise in applications of Darwinian natural selection to cultural systems. I argue that many criticisms of cultural selectionist models have been based on an over-detailed reading of the analogy between biological and cultural units of selection. I identify five of the most powerful objections to cultural selection theory and argue that none cuts to its heart. Some objections are based on mistaken assumptions about the simplicity of the mechanisms of biological heredity. Other objections are (...) attributable, rather, to mistaken inferences from observations of biological subject matter to what is essential in natural selection. I argue that such features are idiosyncratic of biological systems, but not essential for natural selection. My arguments throughout are illustrated by examples from biological and cultural evolution, and counter-factual illustrations from the history of theoretical biology. Introduction Cultural Selection Theory First Objection: Lamarckianism Second Objection: Genotype–Phenotype Distinction Third Objection: Common Hereditary Architecture Fourth Objection: Biological Analogue for Cultural Units 6.1 Regarding strict analogues 6.2 Regarding the trait analogue 6.3 Regarding the virus analogue Fifth Objection: Environmental Interaction Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The greatest challenge for Cultural Selection Theory, which holds that Darwinian natural selection contributes to cultural evolution, lies is the paucity of evidence for structural mechanisms in cultural systems that are sufficient for adaptation by natural selection. In part, clarification is required with respect to the interaction between cultural systems and their purported selective environments. Edmonds, Hull, and others have argued that Cultural Selection Theory requires simple, conclusive, unambiguous case studies in order to meet this challenge. To this end, I (...) am employing the songs of the Rufous-collared Sparrow, which seem to exhibit cultural adaptations that minimize signal degradation relative to local environments (Handford, et al.). Specifically, the more forested the habitat, the more the tail end of the song resembles a whistle rather than a trill; yet, variation in song is uncorrelated with genetic variation. I explore the mechanisms responsible for these putative acoustic adaptations through a series of computer simulations. I modify the framework of Alexander and Skyrms’ ‘Bargaining with Neighbours’: this dynamic evolutionary game theoretic framework is well-suited for my investigation because the local interactions between agents provide a basis for modeling song transmission from adults to fledglings. In the simplest version of the model, each bird adopts one of two song types – trill or whistle – and sings that song type for the duration of its life. These song strategies are communicated to other birds in neighboring territories, which are arranged as a grid composed of two acoustic habitats (forest and field). Birds have a set probability of dying in each year, and deceased birds are succeeded by fledglings. The likelihood that a fledgling adopts a particular song type depends on (i) the popularity of a particular song-type among neighboring birds and (ii) the relative ‘audibility’ of each signal, which is a joint function of the habitat and song type of the signaling bird. The main point of this research is not to test this model, but to demonstrate that models of this type have the resources to meet the outstanding challenges in Cultural Selection Theory. The benefits of this research are threefold. First, it will lend much needed empirical support to Cultural Selection Theory by clarifying the nature of the interaction between culture and environment. Second, it will support Alexander and Skyrms’ work by providing a set of empirically testable consequences for their model. Finally, it will contribute to evolutionary theory by clarifying the scope and limits of adaptation by natural selection. (shrink)

Literary analysis of the blush in Austen's novels identifies three themes, namely the potential ambiguity of a blush, its association with modesty, and its erotic and gendered nature, issues that scarcely figure in current psychological explanations of the phenomenon. I examine these themes and compare them with current psychological accounts which assign a central place to embarrassment and, more specifically, emphasise either unwanted social attention, exposure of the self, or the blush's signalling function. Analysis of Austen's work suggests that greater (...) attention should be paid to self-consciousness as it relates to threats to reputation, to the erotic dimension of the blush, and to potential gender differences. It should encourage researchers to be aware of limitations of psychological accounts and to expand their range of sources of information in order to enhance understanding of this elusive phenomenon. (shrink)

This article examines the contributions made towards eugenic thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Havelock Ellis . Ellis was a significant social reformer who worked on the problems of sexuality from a scientific–naturalist secular perspective. In the later phases of his work, after he had completed much of his writing on sexuality, Ellis concentrated on issues of feminism and eugenics—problems he thought were interlinked. In this paper, I integrate his ideas about these subjects, and consider the (...) ways in which Ellis and other liberal social reformers created a ‘eugenic subject’ in order to frame their arguments about social problems. (shrink)

In December 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a cage in a shed in rural New York (Barlow, 2017). Under animal welfare laws, Tommy’s owners, the Laverys, were doing nothing illegal by keeping him in those conditions. Nonetheless, the NhRP argued that given the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of chimpanzees, Tommy’s confinement constituted (...) a profound wrong that demanded remedy by the courts. Soon thereafter, the NhRP filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of Kiko, another chimpanzee housed alone in Niagara Falls, and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees held in research facilities at Stony Brook University. Thus began the legal struggle to move these chimpanzees from captivity to a sanctuary, an effort that has led the NhRP to argue in multiple courts before multiple judges. The central point of contention has been whether Tommy, Kiko, Hercules, and Leo have legal rights. To date, no judge has been willing to issue a writ of habeas corpus on their behalf. Such a ruling would mean that these chimpanzees have rights that confinement might violate. Instead, the judges have argued that chimpanzees cannot be bearers of legal rights because they are not, and cannot be persons. In this book we argue that chimpanzees are persons because they are autonomous. (shrink)

We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be (...) released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus. (shrink)

Jack Henry Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison, New York: Random House, 1981, xvi + 166 pp. John Monahan, The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior Rockville, Md.: National Institute of Mental Health, 1981, xi + 134 pp.

One of the areas of concern raised by cross-border reproductive travel regards the treatment of women who are solicited to provide their ova or surrogacy services to foreign consumers. This is particularly troublesome in the context of developing countries where endemic poverty and low standards for both medical care and informed consent may place these women at risk of exploitation and harm. We explore two contrasting proposals for policy development regarding the industry, both of which seek to promote ethical outcomes (...) and social justice: While one proposal advocates efforts to minimize cross-border demand for female reproductive resources through the pursuit of national self-sufficiency, the other defends cross-border trade as a means for meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Despite the conflicting objectives of the proposed strategies, the paper identifies common values and points of agreement between the two, including the importance of regulations to safeguard those providing ova or surrogacy services. (shrink)

International medical travel occurs when patients cross national borders to purchase medical goods and services. On occasion, physicians in home countries will be the last point of domestic contact for patients seeking healthcare information before they travel abroad for care. When this is the case, physicians have a unique opportunity to inform patients about their options and help guide them towards ethical practices. This opportunity brings to the fore an important question: What role should physicians in more-developed home countries play (...) in promoting or constraining international medical travel towards less-developed destination countries? In our view, critical attention to the decision spaces of patients—defined by the personal circumstances, socio-cultural cues, and legal constraints that inform decision-making—is a useful starting point for evaluating the proper response of physicians to various forms of international medical travel. (shrink)

In the current global care regime, care shortages in wealthy nations such as the United States, Canada, Italy, and Hong Kong are being addressed through the global supply of cheap migrant care labor from less wealthy nations. This paper argues that Feminist Care Ethics has a great deal to offer in the analysis of this global care regime. Joan Tronto's own critiques of the migration of care workers have focused on analogies between workers and imported slaves: both are intrinsically exploited, (...) vulnerable, excluded, and stigmatized. She argues that this situation undermines human virtue and the possibility of adequate care, and she advocates instead a model wherein caregiving is seen as a basis for .. (shrink)

Although several philosophical approaches to shame emphasize the role of the ‘other’ this has attracted less attention from psychologists. The psychological construct of self-awareness does not adequately account for the shift in perspective that is involved in shame or embarrassment. This paper outlines a framework for the analysis of shame which emphasises the adoption of another perspective on the self. It proposes that shame is experienced when an individual recognises that an action can give rise to a negative interpretation by (...) others of core aspects of the self, even if he or she does not share that interpretation and there is no self-attribution of responsibility for any wrongdoing. The framework is applied to the analysis of two episodes from Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, North and South. The character is described as experiencing intense shame, despite her belief that she has behaved properly, and this is accompanied by her preoccupation with how her behaviour can be interpreted by others. (shrink)

In ‘Why not NIMBY?’, Simon Feldman and Derek Turner mount a compelling case that NIMBY claims are not intrinsically morally unjustified, despite the fact that NIMBY-claimants...

In this brief, we argue that there is a diversity of ways in which humans (Homo sapiens) are ‘persons’ and there are no non-arbitrary conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can include all humans and exclude all nonhuman animals. To do so we describe and assess the four most prominent conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can be found in the rulings concerning Kiko and Tommy, with particular focus on the most recent decision, Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc v Lavery.

Drawing on conceptual tools from philosophical bioethics, economics, and materialist feminism, we advocate viewing transnational commercial surrogacy as labor and consider what it means to compensate women for this work. We find two distinct but interrelated concerns emerge in our discussion of wages for surrogates: how to value and compensate for social reproduction, and how to establish a fair wage for surrogates. We explore limitations of minimum wage policy in addressing the undervaluation of biological and emotional labor in the transnational (...) commercial surrogacy industry. We argue that subsidization is a superior method of addressing at least one cause of undervaluation. (shrink)

Critical analyses of international financial markets tend to explain changes over recent decades in terms of a resurgent liberalism. This paper employs a systems theoretical approach to argue that there has been a far more fundamental transformation in the operations of these financial markets than simply a shift towards more liberalized regimes of regulation. The use of risk as resource and the systematic randomness of these new operational trends have perverse implications not only for the integrity of political systems but (...) also for the neoliberal promoters and players inside the new complex system of global finance. (shrink)

In the US, stem cell research is at a moral impasse—many see this research as ethically mandated due to its potential for ameliorating major diseases, while others see this research as ethically impermissible because it typically involves the destruction of embryos and use of ova from women. Because their creation does not require embryos or ova, induced pluripotent stem cells offer the most promising path for addressing the main ethical objections to stem cell research; however, this technology is still in (...) development. In order for scientists to advance induced pluripotent stem cell research to a point of translational readiness, they must continue to use ova and embryos in the interim. How then are we to ethically move forward with stem cell research? We argue that there is personal integrity and value in adopting a ‘moral compromise’ as a means for moving past the moral impasse in stem cell research. In a moral compromise, each party concedes part of their desired outcome in order to engage in a process that respects the values and desires of all parties equitably. Whereas some contend that moral compromise in stem cell research necessarily involves self-contradiction or loss of personal integrity, we argue that in the US context, stem cell research satisfies many of the key pre-conditions of an effective moral compromise. To illustrate our point, we offer a model solution wherein eggs and embryos are temporarily used until non-egg and non-embryonic sources of pluripotent stem cells are developed to a state of translational readiness. (shrink)

In “An Obscure Rider Obstructing Science,” Sarah Rodriguez, Lisa Campo-Engelstein, Candace Tingen, and Teresa Woodruff (2011) adopt a “developmental view” when contrasting the moral status of embry...

Feminist Care Ethics has much to offer in an analysis of the international migration of care workers. This paper argues, however, that Joan Tronto’s analysis of this international care regime is incomplete insofar as it overlooks the ways in which the current global care market is progressive for the workers and the significant harms this market is inflicting on care receivers in source countries. In order for Feminist Care Ethics to fulfill its potential, it must be developed beyond a visionary (...) tool for revaluing care—it must also produce analytic tools for evaluating real alternatives under pressing, real-time constraints. (shrink)

Little is known about the circumstances that give rise to blushing and there have been no systematic attempts to classify and analyze the types of situations where it occurs. The study reported here analyzes a sample of recollections of occasions and a selection of literary episodes. The two sources of evidence yield somewhat different patterns but prominent themes in both are being the centre of attention, whether this is positive, neutral or negative, and the disclosure, or threat of exposure, of (...) a private or sensitive topic. Inspection of example suggests that a blush is associated with self-consciousness. More specifically, it is elicited when circumstances cause someone to take another's perspective on the self, and this generates awareness of a discrepancy between his or her position and this position as it appears to the other. A blush does not require that the other take an adverse view of the actor's position. The blush shows sensitivity to the opinions of others and it is its capacity to communicate this that makes it effective in deflecting aggressive or rejecting responses from others. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The question of whether there exist other quaestiones disputatae attributable to St. Bonaventure, beyond those contained within the definitive Quaracchi critical edition of his Opera Omnia, is a subject which has divided scholarly opinion for nearly a century. During the mid-twentieth-century, several newly discovered sets of quaestiones disputatae were claimed as authentic Bonaventurian works. Most notably, the Quaestiones de theologia transcribed by George Tavard and the Quaestiones de cari-tate et de novissimis edited by Palémon Glorieux. This is to say nothing, (...) of the extensive and much discussed collection of draft quaestiones identified by François-Marie Henquinet in Assisi Bibl. Com. 186, which include the... (shrink)

The implications of variation in skin pigmentation for the blush have attracted discussion for centuries. Two long-standing positions are identified. First, the blush has been identified with shame, giving rise to claims that because people with dark skin do not blush they do not have the capacity to experience shame. Second, the meaning of a visible blush can be ambiguous. A review of more recent theorizing and empirical research suggests that people blush whatever their level of pigmentation; the blush tends (...) to be associated with embarrassment rather than shame; it serves both intraindividual and communicative functions. Nevertheless, there has been little systematic investigation into the impact of the relative discernibility of the blush on emotional experience or its functions. (shrink)

A pervasive theme in George Seddon's extensive oeuvre is sense of place. Over a number of decades he has explored and reworked the conceptual and phenomenological aspects of this theme. This article takes its cue from Seddon's more recent critical observations on sense of place and considers the temporal and spatial dimensions of everyday experience in the informational age. Recent trends in gardening and garden theory are examined in the context of certain pathologies associated with this experience, and in particular (...) cultural simultanagnosia: `unable to see the forest for the trees'. A key argument is that as contemporary experience tends to differentiate into discrete modules there is paradoxically also a tendency to reengage with the ecocultural world in the form of place-making, in symbolic performances of milieu. (shrink)

Does leftist political thought have a future? American liberalism is being marginalized, European socialism is exhausted, and cultural radicalism has become little more than a sideshow. Contributors to The Left in Search of a Center probe questions of how political community can be imagined and constituted in the contemporary world. Together, they make it apparent that the still-emerging idea of political community is anchored in the pluralistic and cross-cultural nature of late twentieth-century Western societies.

This book aims at a reconciliation of religion and science.